Giribala By Mahasweta Dera Analysis

The story of Giribala raises our concerns regarding the place of women in society through showing what life is like before being married off and what happens when a girl becomes a ‘child bride’. What is it in society that makes this the norm? How did it become this way? Devi asks us to look at these questions. But first, she was speaking to the tribal people, the ones she’d lived with to observe this practice. When it became translated and was sold throughout the globe, it then became the task of all readers to question what was happening in the story. To know something and to do are two different things, yet simply knowing and realizing that something is wrong is a step forward. The second step is to form your own opinion on the matter and

By sharing with us the story of Giribala, Mahasweta Devi is asking all women to break free of the patriarchal chains existing in their society and aspire towards intellect, physical, and spiritual liberation. This story is an example of what humans being can do when pushed to the limit, when pushed beyond endurance. At its core, this simply story about one woman is about conscious-raising. Through a higher conscious, women can unlock themselves from the imposition of male ideology regarding women, gaining control over themselves and their lives. In the case of the women remaining in the village that Giribala left, they could very well begin to think of life outside what they are used to. It will be hard, because “the generalized gender bias that pervades human minds is contagious as women themselves also reconcile with the o/abject status which is assigned to them” (Prasita, 123). Once conditioned into living a certain way of life, one cannot not so easily shift thoughts of the mind. Turning away from a path you’ve been on for a very long time is almost impossible. But, if one person does something radically different in a society, it often times leads to more people following in that person’s footsteps. Devi has left her footsteps upon the world in the form of stories, and Giribala just happens to be one of many of