Dahan, a Bengali novel by Suchitra Bhattacharya first published in 1996, proves to be a rich text for an exploration of the class and gender struggles that mark the act of ‘doing masculinity’ or ‘becoming masculine’ in the neoliberal urban Bengali society. The postcolonial, liberal society that Bhattacharya uses to explore the markings of who, how and what constitutes masculinity succinctly exposes the fragmentary nature of an elusive state of being – the state of being masculine – which goes beyond the specificity of the sex-gender binary of men-masculine. The novel revolves around an incidence of sexual molestation of Ramita, a newly married upper-class young woman in Kolkata while she is out with her husband Palash one evening. The aftermath of the incident in the novel unpacks multiple acts of masculinity mainly through the two sites – the immediate, public, and physical site where the act of molestation takes places; and the larger, private, socio-physical site of the marriage. It is a crucial text not only because it attempts to reimagine the sex-gender structure, but it also provides a vivid picture of the patriarchal resistance to such re-imaginings.

This paper will explore the gender troubles exposed by Suchitra Bhattacharya in her novel Dahan, not only problematizing the concept of masculinity but also delving into what appropriation of masculinity from the male identity can lead to. A woman not only needs saving, but she needs to be saved by a man. She successfully points out that the aim of patriarchy is not only the establishment of masculine superiority, but the continuation of the male-masculine duality. The woman as a saviour and the symbolic feminist political possibilities arising out of such an act as a possible rupture to the cycle of everyday violence is crushed by the society.

Arpita Chakraborty has submitted her PhD at Dublin City University in 2018, and currently acts as a Board Member of the Sibeal Network of Gender Scholars in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

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