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The Archetypal Identity of Laxmi in Sakhārām Binder
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2008
Extract
It has long been accepted that in the imagination of man certain images occur again and again to represent the elements of existence. As an individual finds these images in the myths of his culture, he knows their symbolic meanings intuitively, although he may not be able to articulate those meanings. In literature, which is a play of two constructive principles, system and creativity, the presentation of these mythic images is very common. The images themselves serve as a semiotic system and their presentation, usually unconscious, in art is the creative principle. A study of such archetypal images contributes to the understanding of a piece of literature. In Sakhārām Binder, a Marathi play first produced in the spring of 1972, we see that Laxmi, one of its main characters, represents the archetypal figure of Sāvitri, the heroine of a mythical episode in the Hindu epic, the Mahābhārata.
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References
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Maharashtra Studies Group (a part of the Association for Asian Studies), held at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, U.S.A., in 1973. I am grateful to Professor James Kuist of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for reading the paper and making helpful comments.
1 Vijay, Tendulkar, Sakhārām Binder (Poona, India: Neelakantha Prakashan, 1972). All subsequent references to the pages of this edition are given in the text in immediately following parentheses.Google Scholar
2 A brief summary of the plot of Sakhārām Binder is included as an appendix for the convenience of those who do not have access to the play.
3 Northrop, Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957), p. 99. Consult pp. 95 through 192 in Frye for illuminating comments on archetypes.Google Scholar
4 The term sophisticated here distinguishes modern literary classics from folklorist or popular art forms, such as the ballad and the folk tale. The archetypes in popular art are so transparent that a majority of its uncultivated consumers can easily identify them.
5 The story of Satyawān and Sāvitri is given in a summary form here. This mythical tale accounts for the vow of fasting and penance undertaken by Hindu married women to ensure long life for their spouses. The vow, called Vatasāuitrivrata, is, as it were, a symbolic enactment of a reality and a belief of the Hindus, which is perpetuated and kept alive through this annual ritual.
6 The translations as well as the summary of the plot are mine. I have learned that an English translation of Sakhārām Binder has been made by Shanta Shahne and Kumud Mehta and published by Interculture Associates, Thompson, CT., 1973, but I haven't seen it. My translation is not literal, since my aim is to capture the spirit and theme of the original.
7 Laxmi has undoubtedly quite a few unsavory aspects to her character. She is narrow-minded; she wants to prevent Daud from attending the Ganapati worship since he is a Moslem. Her piety makes her disgustingly self-righteous and, above all, she is ungrateful to Champā who has given her refuge out of the generosity of her heart. Laxmi in a mean spirit informs Sakhārām of Champā's affair with Daud, to get rid of her. The blend in Laxmi of admirable and ugly traits is an example of the ironic displacement of one-dimensional mythical archetypes—a phenomenon often occurring in modern literature. Laxmi is a character in the twentieth century drama while Sāvitri is a figure from primitive myth.
8 Sāvitri's symbolic essence is her unswerving loyalty to her husband, a loyalty which gives her the readywittedness to vanquish the god of the dead and retrieve her deceased husband. In this essential quality Laxmi totally resembles Sāvitri. It is various alterations, chiefly ironic, in the mythic essence of archetypes which, however, mask the characters of modern classics in such a way that they emerge metamorphosed, almost beyond recognition of their ‘originals’.