Behold the Virago
Iconography of goddess Kali and body politics in Someday by Samidha Gunjal
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22003441 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Aishwarya Katyal (0000-0003-4699-6790, Shri Venkateshwara University, corresponding author), Neha Jain (0000-0001-5478-4101, Shri Venkateshwara University) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 783-796 |
| Publication date | 2023-11-02 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Graphic Novels & Comics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2150-4857 • E-ISSN: 2150-4865 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/21504857.2023.2197246 |
| OpenAlex | W4362471798 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 16 |
Based on the theme of sexual predation and violence, Samidha Gunjal’s short story Someday, anthologised in Drawing the Line (Citation2015), is a visual narration of a well-dressed woman walking through an urban landscape. During her journey, she is subjected to sexual harassment as she gets catcalled and whistled at by the men around her. Eventually, she arrives at a place depicted as an all-male terrain that transforms into a realm of predators as the men metamorphosize into rapacious beings with egregious physiognomy. Overwhelmed by these men who grow into enormous predators, the woman shrinks into nothingness and is eventually rendered invisible. At this juncture, when her sexual harassment escalates, the woman, too, undergoes a transmutation and emerges as goddess Kali to overthrow her abusers. While deploying the theories propounded by stalwarts including Foucault, Goffman, McCloud, and Chute, this paper attempts to decode Gunjal’s visual narrative to understand its radical feminist stance. It undertakes a critical exposition of the representation of violent (vagina dentata) and non-violent (naked protest) modes of resistance and how the iconography of goddess Kali embedded in its visuals challenges despotic patriarchal constructions that render women powerless
Art · Art history · Iconography · Literature · Narrative · New Woman · Queer · Realm · Sociology · Visual arts · Visual culture · Comics and Graphic Narratives · Gender Studies · History · Media, Gender, and Advertising · Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |