The agony of Jesmin’s body: A critical reading of Tahmima Anam’s ‘Garments’

‘Garments’ (2016) by Tahmima Anam underlines the hardships in the position of women in contemporary Bangladesh. In this male-dominated society, women lack subjectivity and are constructed as the inferior ‘other’, an instrument for the fulfilment of male desire. The story approaches the plight of women in a very reticent manner and subtly highlights the patriarchal heterosexual burden on women. The character of Jesmin attracts researchers’ attention due to the explicitness of personal and sexual sufferings addressed in her story without commenting on which side the author prefers to be on. This paper attempts to examine Jesmin’s character through the lens of a body that suffered (emphasis added), struggling within her ways to survive in an abusive male-dominant society and achieve her sexuality. First, it discusses the condition of women in society, as portrayed in the given Chronotope. Second, it highlights the acceptance of the patriarchal norms by women for survival and the compulsory heterosexuality imposed on them in light of Adrienne Cecile Rich’s arguments against the implicit assumption that heterosexuality is the only natural sexual orientation for men and women. Lastly, it explores the sexuality accomplished by Jesmin towards the end of the story from the standpoint of Luce Irigaray’s idea of Autoeroticism in opposition to Heteroeroticism, where the complexity of female eroticism is not captured by male-centric sexual pleasure. The article concludes that Jesmin successfully transgresses from a sexual subject to an independent woman, ultimately unearthing her sexuality.