Paper- EC-202 A Socio – Psychological analysis of Gender Identity in ‘Tara’.

  Assignment Paper: -7            
  Topic      : -            A socio-psychological analysis of
                                                gender Identity in Tara
Student’s name: -     Makwana Jayshri D.
Roll no         :-          16
 URL       :-            makwanajayshri261011.blogspot.com
Semester     :-          2
  Batch               :- 2010-11

                                  Submitted to,
                                                         Mr. Devarshi Mehta

 Department of English.

Bhavnagar University.

 A Socio – Psychological analysis of Gender Identity in ‘Tara’.

Introduction:-

                             Mahesh Dattani is an Indian director, actor and writer. Dattani described as ‘one of India’s best’ and most serious contemporary playwrights writing in English by Alexander viets in the International Herald Tribune, Mahesh Dattani is the first playwright in English to be awarded the Sahitya Akademi award. His plays have been directed by eminent directors like Arvind Gaur, Alyque padamsee and little Dubey. Mahesh Dattani a versatile personality.

Playwright:-

    Dance like  a man (1989)

            Dance like a man has won the award for best picture is English awarded by the National panorama.

    Final Solution (1993)

            Sahitya akademi award for this book and other plays.

    Tara (1990)

         Sahitya kala parishad selected Final Solution (1986), and Tara (2000).

    Where There’s a will (1986)

    Seven Circles Round the fire etc…

  Identity:-

                    Identity is an umbrella term used throughout the social sciences to describe a person’s conception and expression of their individuality or group affiliations. The term is used more specifically in psychology and sociology, including the two forms of social psychology.

  Psychological Identity:-

A psychological Identity relates to self – image, self esteem and individuality. An important part of identity in psychology is a significant degree how an individual views him or herself both as a person and in relation to other people, ideas and nature.

  Sociology Identity:-

                    Sociology places some explanatory weight on the concept of role behavior. The notion of identity negotiation may arise from the learning of social roles through personal experiences. Identity negotiation is a process in which a person negotiates with society at large regarding the meaning of his or her identity. Psychologist most commonly use the term ‘identity’ to describe ‘personal identity’ meanwhile , sociologist often use the term to describe ‘social identity’ or the collection of group membership that define the individual.

                        Alyque Padamsee calls him one of the most serious contemporary ply Wright. At last we have a play Wright who gives sixty million English speaking Indians an identity. Dattani is one of the famous Indian English dramatists. He has successfully launched the Indian theatre in English. In many if his plays, he deals with various issues like homo-sexuality, Gender discrimination, communalism etc… In ‘Tara’ he using the themes like, gender identity, discrimination, middle- class life, socio- psychological gender identity, revelation etc…

                      “Tara” is a riveting play that questions the society that treats the children of the same womb in two different ways. Dattani’s ‘Tara’ is a poignant play about a boy and a girl who are joined together at the hip and have to be separated surgically, which will mean the death of the injustice perpetuated by the victim’s own mother whose preference is to the male child, makes the play more powerful suggesting that it is woman who continues the chain of the story of the protagonist if the play ‘Tara’ but it is the story if every girl child born in Indian family whether urban or rural. The situation is aggravated if the girl is physically challenged or there is any other physical or mental deformity in her. It is a bitter example of child abuse present in an Indian family does suffer some kind of exploitation and if there is a boy child in the family, the exploitation is very much visible as the privileges are consciously or unconsciously propounded to the Siamese twins, Chandan and Tara Patel, an operation to separate the twins at birth, leaves Tara crippled for life. Throughout the play we can feel that she bears some kind of grudge against the society. She seems to have some kind of aversion with the outside world and her parents and her brother whom was ever close to. All these factors combine to create the social system in which the girl child has to live and die. Tara is killed by social system, which controls the minds and action of the people. The trauma of looming to know the role, her mother had played in her life and the discrimination become too much for her.

                                            Mahesh Dattani has presented the bizarre reality of the woman playing second fiddle to man. Right from the beginning we can see the difference between male and female in scene where Bharti has finished her pooja, and Patel is getting ready to go to work. Another example is when Tara explains to Roopa about the conversation between father and son,

                                           “The men in the house were deciding on whether they were the women looked after the cave”

                     Dattani establishes that mother and daughter relationship is ultimately subordinated to the directives of patriarchy the relationship of Bharti and Tara is subordinated to her subjugation to the expectations of the society. She has no free will and her compassion for Tara, proves weak in her preference for her son Chandan. Bharti is the victim of this collective social system.

                   According to Adrienne Rich “Though motherhood is the experience of woman, the institution of motherhood is undered male control and the psysical situation of becoming a   mother is disciplined by men. This glorious motherhood is imposed on woman condition that entire life.”

                       Mahesh Dattani who has been acknowledged as “a playwright of world stature” has given a new direction to the current of Indian English drama. This drama ‘Tara’ can be acknowledged s process to eliminate the difference of page and to develop the stage as a powerful medium to manifest the cause of marginalized and to capture the roots of the era of value crisis. His firm conviction is that drama can successfully be used as a fool of social awareness. For him man is an integral part of society and consciously or unconsciously the creeping influences of fabric of relationship around him. Dattani possess an exceptional sensibility for the suffering in society born out of gender discrimination. His vision is not confined to socio religious myths only but he delves deep to examine the psychic reactions of those who are the victims of them. ‘Self’ and ‘society’ are two distinctive entities, still it is the harmony of the too that constitutes the balance of human life. Dattani’s vision is that individual can’t survive in isolation but he has to make perpetual struggle to coordinate his ‘will’ with the shame of nature and society. 

                         In the play ‘Tara’ in the background of conflict of familial relationship, Dattani shares the anguish of gender discrimination in society. Basically, the play ‘Tara’ is related with the issue of gender bias. It is a pathetic dramatic representation of the suffering of two Siamese twins. Tara centers on the emotional separation that grows two conjoined twins following the discovery that their physical separation was manipulated by their mother, and grandfather to favour the boy (Chandan) over the girl (Tara) , a feisty girl who isn’t given to her eventually wastes away and dies.

                           Tara is killed by social system, which controls the minds and action of the people. The social action of the play has been subordinated to psycho-Philosophical issues integrated in gender bias. In ‘Tara’ Mahesh Dattani concentrates on the emotional crisis of Chandan hence the action is almost internalized. All the major Characters in Tara, Bharti, Mr. Patel and Chandan, suffer with uncompromising sense of guilt and everyone seeks an outlet for guilt sharing the suffering of Tara more then social dilemma, he psychological tension of each character is more prominent with a view to compensate for his lose, he alienates from his social environment. Mr. Pate’s sadistic approach to Bharti is a desperate attempt to escape the pain of the pattern of behavior including their inner psyche and external action extends the impression that man has ultimately to bear the pain of guilt for his own wrong doings. Here see the self – reflective method in Tara, has created the possibility of objective assessment of each character on their interpersonal relationship. He tries to establish that in the scheme of nature, there are predetermined roles and meddling of human intellect in them brings chaos and disaster. He realizes;

                  “There isn’t fair to Tara, she deserves something better……………….may be God never wanted us to be separated”

                              This observation transgresses the limits of social spectrum and philosophical justification to the suffering of Dan. In Dattani’s Dramatic world, inner world of human consciousness is a focal point of tragic action.

                            Bharti isn’t only guilty but also nervous about Tara’s future, her concerns for the future of Tara reflects her own insecurity. This anxiety emerged out of these reasons-

    The tradition of patriarchal society,

    Her handicapped condition after separation,

    Misery born out of apathy of society.

                                  The conflict is generated out of the gender discrimination. Tara is designed to expose the psyche condition of Bharti. If the process is to be examined in context of social perception, Bharti’s more pathetic even then that of Tara and Chandan. Even children have a realization of this condition and Tara has even a better sympathy for her mother, “And who decides what’s good for us here and what isn’t” Man has to modify his mission in accordance with the expectation of the society but simultaneously he must respond to the call of human sentiments, and this realization of human sensibility is universal.

                                The play “Tara” without debate is a tragedy of the confrontation of Individual choices against social contentious. However, the suffering of Dan, Bharti and Mr. Patel is an agreement of the fact “Social Self” of an individual is insignificant without its harmony with the psycho-philosophical self. This elevate state of “human self” is beyond the concept of gender discrimination. Dan’s incompleteness after his separation from Tara justifies that both of them are interdependent and not independent. It also reveals that drama is not a mechanical representation of human experience but a lively representation of new dynamics of social relationship.

                              Mahesh Dattani’s plays have contemporary values and his plays can be said to have been impaired by Ibsen the father of realism.Dattani handles every problem from gender issues to sexuality very successfully. Dattani’s achievement as a playwright depends on the fact that his plays are a slice of life.