Women's Bodies as Site of Torture and Resistance in Two Prison Stories by Mahashweta Devi and Luisa Valenzuela

Abstract

This article explores how a woman's body. which is considered to be a site of domination and control by the male gaze, can behave like an instrument of resistance in prisons during periods of incarceration and torture. A woman's body can be subjugated, but at the same time it can resist and transform the individual's vulnerability into her strength. In this article, two stories, one by Mahasweta Devi and another by Luisa Valenzuela, are studied to this end. Both the stories dwell on the presence of an indomitable spirit of resistance in the women characters, especially, in a world where patriarchy humiliates and disapproves those who try to break or even challenge prescribed social norms. This paper also explores how the protagonists in both texts personify 'bodily this spirit of non-conformity and defiance, through a process that reinvents alternative histories of iconic figures like Draudi and ordinary, banal ones like Laura. The comparitivity of these texts is premised on how they flour and flaunt epistemological givens to propose another way of thinking.