Gender Performativity: Reading Mahasweta Devi’s Draupadi and Luisa Valenzuela’s Other Weapons

Abstract

In this paper I propose to read and discuss two short stories, Luisa Valenzuela’s Other Weapons and Mahasweta Devi’s Draupadi under a comparative spectrum. This apparent unlikely comparison from two distinct social, political, linguistic and cultural paradigms, as diverse as Latin America (Cuba?) and Bengal, is the result of my curious attempt to decipher Laura and Dopdi on the lines of Judith Butler’s notion of ‘gender performativity’. 

In these two stories, quite distinct and diverse from each other in terms of the story line, the plot and the construction of the characters, I am more than intrigued on coming across this subtle yet compelling similarity between the ways in which the two female protagonists conduct their selves. I do suspect that both the authors from their given cultural positionings are carrying out a premeditated purposeful experiment. They make Laura and Dopdi/Draupadi render their individual resistance and protests in coherence to the world in terms of the body, its performance and their gender. I am yet to articulate this somewhat uncanny link that I can feel is there but have to discover it through a very careful process of unlayering.