Examining Negotiations, Coherence, Contradictions, Conflicts and Resistance in Autobigraphies: A Comparison of Rashsundari Debi’s Amar Jiban, Lalithambika Antherjenam’s Memoir, Kamala Das’s My Story and Nalini Jameela’s The Autobiography of a Sex Worker

Writing enables a person to explore oneself and place oneself in the social order. Here the role of the person in the “normative” society becomes evident. At times the art of writing itself becomes a tool to negotiate oneself with the “normative” society. The subject explains one’s position as against the restrictive forces of the “other”.

This conflict is much evident in autobiographies especially in that of women’s autobiographies. There is an attempt to legitimize or justify the doings of the self and thus the women’s autobiographies become a manuscript of negotiations and justifications it achieves with the “other”. Even though the cultural and social contexts vary, as in Western and non-western autobiographies, the struggling subject negotiates at various levels to accommodate with the other.

This paper tries to explore the negotiations, coherence, contradictions, conflicts and resistance in autobigraphies through a comparison of Rashsundari Debi’s Amar Jiban, LalithambikaAntherjenam’sMemoir, Kamala Das’sMy Story and NaliniJameela’sThe Autobiography of a Sex Worker.

In Amar Jiban the social status of Rassundari Debi as a wife, daughter-in-law, and mother make her take refuge in religion to hide her liberating thoughts and negotiate with the ‘normative’ society. Thus she becomes the representation of a ‘typical Indian woman’ in the nationalist scenario. On the other hand BinodiniDasi chooses to become the mistress of a man for survival and make the society accept her. NaliniJameela takes a different stand. She justifies herself by talking about her commitment to her family. These autobiographies portray the negotiating self, at different levels and contexts, to state its existence and importance in the patriarchal society which will be discussed in detail.