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VOL. 11, ISSUE 6 (2025)
When memory bleeds: The continuum of pain and empowerment in Kamala Das’s My Story and her poetry
Authors
Dr. Ruchi Thakar
Abstract
Kamala Das (1934–2009) occupies a pivotal
position in the evolution of Indian English literature as a poet whose work
fuses personal trauma with cultural critique. Her autobiography My Story (1976)
and her poetry collections such as Summer in Calcutta (1965) and The
Descendants (1967) dramatize the fragmentation of the female self within
patriarchal structures while simultaneously forging pathways of empowerment
through confessional expression. This article examines the dynamic interplay
between pain and power in Das’s oeuvre through the theoretical lenses of trauma
studies, feminist psychoanalysis, and postcolonial theory. Memory in her work
functions not merely as a repository of suffering but as an active process of
resistance, articulation, and re-creation of identity. By tracing how Das
converts intimate wounds into linguistic agency, this study argues that her
“bleeding memory” becomes the very source of her aesthetic and political
selfhood. The paper thus re-positions Das as a writer who transforms confession
into subversion and autobiography into an instrument of feminist emancipation.
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Pages:32-37
How to cite this article:
Dr. Ruchi Thakar "When memory bleeds: The continuum of pain and empowerment in Kamala Das’s My Story and her poetry". International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Research, Vol 11, Issue 6, 2025, Pages 32-37
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