A K Ramanujan’s A Flowering Tree is the tale of a young woman with a wonderful power- it is the tale of a young woman who can turn herself into a tree bearing beautiful flowers, flowers that are put into use later on to realise financial and social purposes. Hence, this Kannada folk-tale is not simply a fantastical story about anthropomorphic transformation- Ramanujan emphasizes that the cultural ramifications of the tale have a lot to speak about the state of women in Kannada society. The transformation of the woman from her human form to that of the tree and back to her original form, “recurrent unit of the story is “girl becoming tree becoming girl””, (Ramanujan) as noted by Ramanujan, involves the merging of the human with the non-human in order to prove her humanity and reinstate her into society. Thus, the “metaphoric connections” between womanhood and ecology are significant in Ramanujan’s discussion of the marginalized place of the woman in society.
The presence of the tree as a common motif of folklore can be seen across as different cultures. (Garry and Hasan) Thus the idea of ecology as intimately entwined with humanity finds expression in many stories transmitted orally across generations. Having a young woman as its protagonist, the Kannada tale talks about the perception of women in society, and how their bodies and selfhood is always subordinate to patriarchal control. At the beginning of the story, the young woman transforms herself into the tree in order to provide for her impoverished family. This causes her to face the wrath of her mother as it involves transgressing the conventions of control placed upon the agency of the female body. No sooner does the fame of her abilities reach the ears of the ruling family, than is she compelled to marry the son and very soon her body is subject to the control of her husband. So far the young woman is treated as an inanimate object, and is constantly made to cater to the selfish interests of other people- be it her mother’s wish for social advancement or her husband’s desire for control over her body. Her agency has made her subservient to the desires of others and she achieves some respite (perhaps) in acquiescing to her husband’s desire for her, “She shook her tresses and stood up smiling.” (Ramanujan) Her sole request as she transforms into the tree is to make sure “not to break a twig or tear a leaf” (Ramanujan) , that is, cause any form of injury to her botanical form. Therefore, what brings agency for her is at the same time a cause of vulnerability. Her objectification is complete when she is assaulted by her sister-in-law and her friends, showing an instance of domestic violence brought about by internalized misogyny and apathy inflicted on the helpless new bride by the family of her in-laws. The twigs, leaves and branches that were thoughtlessly plucked from her botanical body resulted in her loss of limbs and made her disabled, to the point of robbing her of speech. Even when she is left behind for good she is subjected to the “dirty banter” (Ramanujan) of her rescuers, owing to her having “a beautiful woman’s face”. At this time the inanimate pronoun “It” is used to denote her being- her disability does not make her fit to be called a human- she had become “the girl who was now a “thing””. (Ramanujan) It is only when she proves her devotion to her husband, nursing him away from his emaciated, ascetic state that he recognizes her and takes steps to restore her to her original body. Thus, the folktale points to the exploitation she has to endure before completely recuperating from the wounds and restoration of her both human and botanical forms.
The parallels between the woman’s body and person and the environment are clear. The very representation of the woman as a “flowering tree” shows femininity being equated with nature and the environment. Each time she becomes a flowering tree, she begs the person who is with her, whether that be her own elder sister or her sister-in-law, to be careful not to reach any form of damage other than gently plucking flowers on her. This injunction or demand to be treated with care puts the woman and ecology at the same plane. This is indicative of emotional attachment toward Nature in that there is a level of “empathetic identification” (Braidotti) of the human with the non-human. Another “flowering tree” is seen in his poem titled “Ecology” where the speaker notes that the tree was “almost as old as [his mother]” and it was “seeded”, just as she herself had given birth to her children. By recognizing the fecundity of the tree his mother forbade him to cut it down. The mother is allergic to Champak‘s pollen, but she‘s prepared to endure the migraine pain and does not allow her son (the poet) to cut down the trees. The self-effacing attitude of the mother is found expression in the ceaseless bringing forth of new life every year by the Champak tree. Therefore cutting down the tree is equivalent to the destruction of the generative impulse in nature and society alike. The trees, thus saved will give her daughters and grandchildren basketful of flowers to offer to Gods. (Raj, Padmaja and Reddy)
In his notes to the short story, Ramanujan notes that in Kannada culture it is believed that one had to wash their hands before touching a beautiful woman. That same attitude of devotion and veneration is demanded by the young woman who transforms into a flowering tree. Domestic violence in the form of mutilation at the hands of an unmarried sister-in-law casts the woman as an essentially lacking in self-agency. She is considered vulnerable at every stage of her life- a woman is in need of protection as a daughter by her parents, as a wife by her husband and in her old age by her children. The ritual relating to her flowering is symbolical of her being sexual and treated as just an object of sex. Dr. Pratima Chaitanya notes that
the words for “flowering” and “menstruation” are the same in languages like Sanskrit and Tamil. In Sanskrit, a menstruating woman is called a puspavati, “a woman in flower,” and in Tamil, pūttal (“flowering”) means menstruation.Menstruation itself is a form and a metaphor for a woman’s special creativity. Thus a woman’s biological and other kinds of creativity are symbolized by flowering. In this tale, the metaphor is literalized and extended. The protagonist literally becomes a tree, producing flowers without number over and over again, as the occasion requires. It is similar to her power of menstruation which symbolizes fertility and fecundity. It is her special gift, which she does not wish to squander or even display. The experience is similar to people of Indian households where talking about menstruation in front of the male members of the family is a hush-hush affair. (Chaitanya)
She, as an object of sex, like any other woman is most vulnerable to injury and exploitation when she is at her attractive best, that is, when she is in her state of flowering. The story suggests that she desires to flower, despite, or else face, the dread associated with it. This is but the objectification or reification of woman. In the story it is demanded to satiate the desire of the husband, one that can be achieved only by transforming herself into a flowering tree without the slightest regard for her own will and emotion. This renders her being just an object, the one she is reduced to, as when she is left mutilated by her sister-in-law in her flowering.
Ramanujan’s translation of this Kannada folktale therefore effectively highlights the affinities between the position of women and the environment in cultural discourse. The metaphoric connection involving transformation of the woman into a tree in flower and back into a woman provides an alternative narrative to the concept of what does it mean to be human. While folktales have always made use of anthropomorphic transformations as narrative devices, this tale told by a woman for all women and the attribution of the feminine gender to the environment provides a shift away from the anthropocentric ends of storytelling. In his notes to the translation of this tale, Ramanujan notes how “women-centred tales” always move away from the egotistical pursuit of selfhood that is the characteristic feature of tales with male protagonists. The dehumanization of the woman, coupled with the humanisation of the flowering tree, enables the inclusion of marginalised subjects in cultural discourse. It enables the proliferation of other forms of subjectivity that are interconnected with ecological consciousness. Ramanujan’s contribution in expressing these ecological concerns makes him an invaluable part of English literary writing. In her review of his poem “The Black Hen”, Molly Daniels notes,
A.K.Ramanujan prayed for double vision and found it in the interconnectedness of vegetable and mineral, man and animal….above all, he found life in art…..and art in life.. (Daniels)
Tales like “A Flowering Tree” take into account the significance of making biology an important determinant in the formation of cultural discourse. For while patriarchal cultural practices inhibit women from attaining agency by ascribing solely reproductive and nurturing functions, an awareness of the same functions in the non-human provides a space for identification with the Other. The posthumanist strategies of storytelling make possible the presence of this alternative cultural discourse, enabling the contestation of the essentialist hegemonic practices that has attributed humanity only to human males. Considered as less than human, the woman’s identification with nature can be interpreted as an example of challenging the humanist methodology of acquiring selfhood and agency through practices that exclude the Other, both human and ecological, from the framing of culture.
Works Cited
Braidotti, Rosi. The Posthuman. Polity, 2011.
Chaitanya, Dr. Pratima. “FOLKTALES AND MENSTRUATION: A STUDY IN “A FLOWERING TREE”.” INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE, LITERATURE AND TRANSLATION STUDIES (IJELR) 6.2 (2019).
Daniels, Molly. “A note on ‘The Black Hen‘ and After, Afterword to Collected Poems of A.K.Ramanujan.” (1995).
Garry, Jane and El-Shamy Hasan. Archetypes and Motifs in Folklore and Literature: A Handbook. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2005.
Raj, Dr. S. Sushma, Dr. C.V. Padmaja and Dr P.Sreenivasulu Reddy. “Ecological And Feministic Concern In The Poetry Of AK Ramanujan.” INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC & TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH 8.11 (2019).
Ramanujan, A K. A Flowering Tree and Other Oral Tales from India. Ed. Stuart Blackburn and Alan Dundes. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS, 1997.