Abstract

Despite being a “matriarchal society” (Deb 195), people belonging to Northeast India, referred to as “the region” in the novel, “have a strange attitude towards women” (Deb 195) in the sense that they “do not like women to become too big” (Deb 196). However, a close reading of select passages from the novel Surface by Siddhartha Deb, set in “the region,” tells us that women play an active role in the development of the narrative by breaking the stranglehold of the male gaze and removing themselves from the position of objects by returning the gaze of their male counterparts. In its attempt to reverse the position of object, the female gaze first seeks to establish itself as a corrective of the male gaze. Further, it gives the women characters authority to narrate stories from a female perspective and ultimately, achieve a semblance of balance between men and women.

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At its most elementary level, the act of gazing refers to looking at someone with fixed attention that places the gazer in the position of the subject and the one being gazed at in the position of an object. As has been stated by Catherine Lutz and Jane Collins, when one is engaged in the act of gazing, one is not only seeing the object itself but also building up a relationship with it, which signifies “the power of the observer over the observed” (135). In this regard, Jean Paul Sartre sees the gazer as having the power to rob the object of its freedom as a subject, as he says, “In so far as I am the object of values which come to qualify me without my being able to act on this qualification or even to know it, I am enslaved” (267). In her seminal work, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Laura Mulvey demonstrates that it is primarily the male gaze that dominates the narrative discourse, thereby stripping women of any subjectivity. To that end, Susan R. Bowers suggests a corrective: “The antidote to the male gaze, and one avenue to reclaiming their own sexuality, is the female gaze: learning to see clearly for themselves, thus reconstructing traditional male images of women” (218).  In feminist theory, the “female gaze” is considered a reaction to the imbalance of power created by the male gaze that largely developed as a means of resistance to the entrenched singular form of authority. The female gaze, thus, becomes a way of reclaiming their bodies and voices in the face of a storytelling canon defined by men. In Surface, the women characters weaponize their female gaze for the purpose of resistance, and at the same time, remind us that storytelling is universal and that the male perspective is not the only or default perspective. This, in turn, becomes the tool that is used by them to struggle for their equality, and in the process, deny patriarchal structures the power to control them through their male gaze.

As the novel’s title Surface indicates, everywhere, starting from the region where the narrative is based to how the incidents occur as the story progresses, there is more to what seems on the surface. Right at the outset, after Amrit takes up an assignment that requires him to go in search of the story of a photographed woman belonging to the region, he discovers that along with the woman, the place itself was, in the words of the Burmese filmmaker, concealed “under other surfaces” (233). Therefore, even though, on the surface, the people of the region talk about their matriarchy and treat women with “respect and authority” (Deb 195), deep within, they do not approve of women like “Leela” who take matters into their own hands and outperform men. However, we find certain instances of women asserting their subjectivity by undermining the power of the male gaze through their female gaze in the text. Not only that, but the women use their female gaze also as a weapon to take the narrative forward, thereby turning into active storytellers in the process.

The Photograph as a Medium of Foregrounding the Female Gaze

The use of Joseph Conrad’s “Do you see the story? Do you see anything?” as an epigraph for Siddhartha Deb’s Surface prefigures the act of seeing and gazing that is going to be at work in unfolding the multiple layers of the story. The story centers on the photograph of “Leela,” a North-East Indian woman who becomes for the protagonist, “Amrit,” as well as the insurgent group, the means through which they achieve their ends. Roland Barthes’s point that “a photograph often creates unintended effects” plays out well in Surface as the photograph is meant to evoke a particular reaction, but the photographed woman’s expression manipulates the viewers such that it spins a narrative of its own. The threatening potential of Leela reaches out to the gazer through her posture and gesture, and largely by means of her expressionless eyes. Thus, the female gaze functions at a level where the woman character is in charge of taking the story where she intends to.

The surfacing of the photograph right at the beginning and the “small” (Deb 28), “expressionless woman” (Deb 53) occupying its central position, hints at the way the male gaze will function to dispel the suspense surrounding the photograph, only to end up being guided by the returned gaze of the woman in the photograph. The fact that Amrit sees the woman in the photograph as an opportunity to climb the ladder of success and hopes to “make her story my story, perhaps my best story yet” (Deb 6), brings out his selfishness and, at the same time, exposes the vulnerability lying deep within his mind. On one hand, Amrit exploits the woman by using her photo to capture “a portrait of the mystery and sorrow of India” (Deb 5) as per the instructions of “Herman the German.” On the other hand, it is this photograph that presents him with the possibility of “breaking free from the pattern of my life so far” (Deb 5), indicating his sole reliance on the woman to help him in the elevation of his career.

When Amrit gets hold of the photo in his office for the first time, he realizes that nothing could make for a great story than the image of a porn film actress held captive by an insurgent group of the Northeast. On examining the photo closely, he notices that the masked men guarding the woman were using her to communicate to the public the importance of desisting from immoral activities encouraged by “Indian imperialism” unless they wanted to end up as she did. Surprisingly, even in the midst of hostile forces, Amrit does not find any reflection of “plea” or “embarrassment” (Deb 71) on the woman’s face. In fact, he sees “an intelligence, even alertness in the woman’s eyes” (Deb 71) accompanied by “a wariness that concealed something and put her beyond the reach of the photographer or the men who had put her up for display” (Deb 71). Thus, even though the woman was “present only to fulfil her role as an object of their power” (Deb 70), she attempts to remove herself as an object by refusing to let her face or eyes reflect any sign of helplessness. In this way, Amrit’s analysis of the photo stops making any sense when he encounters the mysterious returned gaze of the photographed woman that manipulates the trajectory of the narrative.

Despite being disarmed by the gaze of the woman in the photograph, Amrit does not move beyond a mere description of her features while describing the picture to Herman. That he decides to highlight only the details that made her look weak shows that the thought of the woman’s powerful gaze had caused him immense unease. Besides, he is not sure of the potential she could have in accelerating his position until Herman starts taking an interest in her. It is only when Herman asks Amrit to go ahead with the story that Amrit decides to make use of her shady career to further his career prospects.

The photograph plays a key role in establishing the female gaze not only by bringing out the returned gaze of the photographed woman, but also by way of how the gaze of the woman is contrasted with that of the masked men. The men hide their identity behind their masked faces, choosing to spread terror and violence through their eyes while using the woman to reflect that terror through her eyes. Their purpose first fails when the woman chooses not to give in to their plan of perpetuating terror, thereby taking it upon herself to direct the course of the narrative. Later, the intent behind the covered faces is exposed when Amrit comes across masked rickshaw drivers and learns the truth behind the need to remain hidden. A local official explains that “they kept their faces covered because they were ashamed of their menial work” (Deb 188) and that it was “a sign that they wanted something better in life” (Deb 189). That is when it strikes Amrit that beneath the look of aggression and terror lies a sense of despair. Thus, the perpetrators who look like they are creating specific circumstances are, in fact, the ones who end up looking like the victims of circumstances.

Female Gaze as an Act of Offsetting the Imbalance of Power

The oppositional female gaze of other women characters, at several points in the novel, regardless of how insignificant that may seem in the development of the narrative, takes Amrit one step closer to uncovering the truth. In the cremation ceremony of a lieutenant killed by the insurgents, a young woman appears, whose presence creates quite a stir amongst the onlookers. In fact, one of the journalists “smacks his lips” (Deb 10) and says, “It was all a matter of money… This ripe young thing and that fat, bald man. Such a mismatch…” (Deb 10).  Such blatant objectification of her body, however, is met with a strong response as the woman fixes her gaze on the journalist with such intensity that it immediately makes him drop his gaze. So piercing is her gaze that even after continuous prodding, the journalist cannot get himself to look her directly in the eye. When he finally looks up, he avoids getting caught in her gaze and instead looks at his colleagues, giving them the impression that he is not nervous about this unexpected challenge from a woman. Later, when she engages in a verbal tiff with the journalist, making him wince, the men surrounding them laugh hard, trying to take the fun out of the situation. In response, she looks at all of them, and just like the fire that was beginning to swallow the dead body of the lieutenant, her “face flushing with anger” (Deb 11) starts to engulf the men standing there as they stop laughing and turn speechless.

The woman appears for a second time as Amrit is about to leave for Kohima. As a way of achieving freedom from the Sentinel, he was getting rid of the stories that had inadvertently become a part of his journey. Interestingly, the woman appears just as he is done dropping a picture of her into the bin, implying that the right to pull down the curtains on her story was solely reserved for her. Again, her sudden appearance becomes a kind of visual pleasure for the men gathered there as they start “scrutinizing her…slowing down so as to take a good look, drawing themselves up straight and adjusting the small knots on their big ties” (Deb 58). The woman, however, resists this form of objectification by ignoring the attention of men and staring at the focus of her object, Amrit, with such intensity that it makes him awkward. When he denies what he thinks of as a rather “odd request” (Deb 58) when she clearly does not make one and simply asks him to do the story on her fiancé, she continues looking into his eyes, hoping to make him relent. Amrit is surprised to discover she has “so much authority for a young woman” (Deb 59) but the moment this realization causes him discomfort, he immediately stoops to objectifying her as is reflected in the sentence where he says, “She was taller than average and light-skinned, the elongated shape of her eyes indicating that she was from the region. She was attractive…” (Deb 59). Eventually, she fails to convince him to write the story about her fiancé’s murder, but her threatening gaze, followed by her warning that he would never find closure to his story, predicts the way his story is going to unfold. In a way, she becomes an agent through whom the text drives the course of the narrative forward, thereby endowing her with power.

In the novel Surface, the women then have the possibility of manipulating the manner in which they are “surveyed”, becoming the ones controlling the visual economy and at the same time, acting as active agents in adding meaning to their own story as well as the story driving the rest of the characters forward.  Even though subversion of the gender of the gaze does not necessarily destabilise the power struggle incarnate within the act of looking, it allows women to be the creators of meaning and appropriators of the gaze.

Works Cited

Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. 1st American pbk. ed. New  York: Hill and Wang, 1982.

Bhattacharya, Joyati. “Gender, Peacemaking and the Case of Northeast India.” The Indian  Journal of Political Science, vol. 71, no. 1, 2010, pp. 233-239. JSTOR,  http://www.jstor.org/stable/42748384. 

Bowers, Susan R. “Medusa and the Female Gaze.” NWSA Journal, vol. 2, no. 2, 1990, pp.  217–35. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4316018.

Campbell, Norah, and Jonathan E. Schroeder. "Visual Culture." Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture, Edited by Dale Southerton, vol. 3, 2011, pp. 1507-10. Doi:  https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412994248.n571.

Deb, Siddhartha. Surface. Picador, 2006.

Lutz, Catherine, and Jane Collins. “The Photograph as an Intersection of Gazes: The Example  of National Geographic.” Visual Anthropology Review, vol. 7, no. 1, 1991, pp. 134- 149. Doi: 10.1525/var.1991.7.1.134

Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Screen, vol. 16, no.3, 1975, pp. 6- 18. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/16.3.6

Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness. Translated by Hazel Estella Barnes, 2nd ed.,  Routledge, 2003.