"This
book has cost me many things I held dear, but I do not for
a moment regret having written it", Madhavikutty on the
preface of her book MY STORY (1973).
A
downright humanist, Madhavikutty tried to portray in
her works the most basic of human emotion, love and the
lust for it and the internal conflicts and contradictions
one encounters while pursuing this basic emotion.
Her writings do not exhibit any particular influence. They were
original in their content and style. Refusing to play subservience
to the order of the society, she exposed its rigidity and the
attempt to manipulate thought process to ward off any discontentment.
The protagonist of her imagined instruments dared to break the
conditions stipulated by the society.
She is one of the very few writers from Malayalam who writes effortlessly
both in English and Malayalam, yet maintaining high standards
in both. Her writings in Malayalam evince lyrical quality consequent
to her endeavours in English poetic world. She considers her prose
to be an extension of poetry.
More popular for her poetic renditions in English, her writings
in Malayalam too evince lyrical qualities. Female sexuality, sex
and its liberating impulses and the attempt of the society to
counter act it are forcibly portrayed in her literary constructions,
quite often as first person encounters, as is evident in 'Ente
Katha' which posses autobiographical elements.
She was very often criticized for disowning the moral dictates
of society. Her confrontations and ceaseless struggles against
the forced moral postures and the traditional interpretation that
it is fair to develop progressive attitudes but it is against
the strictures of the society to act accordingly, opened floodgates
of criticism, which hardly deterred her from doing so again.
Her poetic endeavors became milestones in Indian English writing.
The dimensions of the women's world underwent vast changes following
her entry into the literary scene. Themes, which were a taboo
earlier, were freely explored. A complete transformation to the
situation enveloping women were brought to the fore; her relations,
status, power and importantly her body too became new objects
of force.
