Introduction
Stares is a thought provoking poem of A. Jayaprabha. It was originally written in Telugu. Jayaprabha being pioneer of feminist movement in Telugu poetry presents one serious concern of women in this poem. It presents reality of modern society where men stare at women’s body shamelessly.
Central Idea
Stares is focused on blatant action of staring by men on women’s body. Poet shows her anguish against such stares. She calls such stares by several names like larvae, poison fangs etc. She founds such stares everywhere. There is nowhere to hide from such stares. At the end poet instead of hiding thought of revolting against such treatment by men.
Themes
1) Women victim of ogling – The main theme of the poem is women are victim of ogling by men. They find themselves unsafe and constantly stared at. It is whether on roads, in the bus or in the classroom there is no where to run off from such stares. Men looks at women lecherous manner. They seems hungry like a ‘drooling dog’.
2) Right to life – Poet highlights ‘right to life’ right of women. Poet is fed up of stares. She wants to run away from these stares. It is clearly mentioned in the poem when writer says-
“I wish I could fly
or vanish into the void.”
But then she realizes it won’t work and ‘the earth is mine too’. It doesn’t belong to Men only. Hence poem put forth ‘Right to Life’ right of the women.
Figure of speech
- Simile – ‘Needle sharp stares’, ‘crawl like larvae on my body’ have simile where stares is directly compared to needles and larvae.
- Metaphor – Metaphor is a device where indirect comparison between two dissimilar things is established. Poem has lot of metaphors for stares. Such as – ‘hunger of a drooling dog’, ‘ugly grab of a wolf’, ‘poison fangs’, and for world there is a metaphor in ‘dense jungle’.
- Alliteration – ‘Drooling dog’, ‘vanish into the void’ have repetition of consonant sounds /d/ and /v/ respectively at the starting of words hence it’s alliteration.
- Synecdoche – ‘Lumps of flesh’ and ‘Eyes rich and poor’ have synecdoche. It’s a device where a body part is used to reflect the whole body. Here flesh and eyes symbolise the whole body or person. Lumps of flesh is for women and Eyes for people.
- Personification – Poet has twice personified stares by calling them ‘liar’ and ‘cowardly’. In this way stares are attributed with human elements.
Anger of the poet
The tone of the poem is clearly indicating that poet is very angry of such treatment by the men. She shows sorry state of society where rich and poor, young and old and everyone stares at the body of women. She is afraid of such environment and wants to fly away from here but then realizes that this earth belongs to her also. She shows her anger by revolting against these stares by staring them back. She writes – ‘stares for stares’. She also hopes that a day will come when –
“the whole body
of a woman
bristles.”
Feminism
A. Jayaprabha being a feminist writer is clearly reflecting feminism in this poem too. Feminism talks about rights of women in the society. In this poem poet is describing how women are not given safe space in the world. They are being looked at lecherously by men. This is snatching their right to life. Hence poet decides to revolt against such people by staring them back and hopes that the day will come soon when whole body of the women will revolt against such behavior.
Style of writing
Poet is directly attacking oglers. She is quite vitriolic in usage of terms against these people. Language of the poem is simple and aggressive.
Structure and Rhyme Scheme
There is not particular structure of the poem. It has stanzas of different number of lines. There is no rhyme scheme or meter or rhythm too. Hence it’s written in free verse.
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