Published Paper Details:

The problematics of Motherhood find a central space in several of Mahasweta Devi's texts. Motherhood is traditionally seen, avoiding all the complexities, as a state of being a mother. Devi in Breast Giver has entered these complexities with a determined stance to liberate the woman from the traps of Motherhood. Jashoda's suffering is caused by the absence of her identity. She lives until she dies on a borrowed idea of motherhood which she never gets the chance to realise for herself. This emptiness in her personal life is replaced with the desire to fulfil the expectations of society. This paper deals with these invisible chains that smother a woman's life, specifically Jashoda in Mahasweta Devi's Breast Giver. Jashoda's suffering anchors on this pivotal decision of her choosing motherhood, a choice that she makes unconsciously. The lack of volition marks the dehumanizing aspect of the structure that gives birth to the tragic lives of mothers, where they are reduced to a biological function. Contrasting the issues with poems of Neruda, Shelley and Auden, the paper attempts to show how Nancy Julia Chodrow's concept of how gender difference is a "relational construction" describes the plight of Jashoda and the male perseverance to create its identity through the denial of motherhood.