Response to the Solitary Reaper

WE were discussing in class whether the woman in the narrative of this poem was being objectified. There was a mixed response, but as our conversation went towards understanding the sub-altern there was this acknowledgment of the hierarchical role between the observer and the subject or rather the object of his story.What is the power of the gaze? What happens when there is an ambivalence between the reader of the poem and "the eye"? The woman reaping is subjugated t a certain narrative; she is eternally to be breed in the image and perception of the observer.

Bhabha in Location if Culture cites a poem:

One day I learnt
a secret art,
Invisible-Ness, it was called.
I think it worked
as even now you look
but never see me...
Only my eyes will remain to watch and to haunt,
and to turn your dreams
to chaos.


The power of the eye from subject to object is interesting but this takes in to the next level...returning the gaze, a vacillation that exists even in Adolphe's perception of Self.