I N S I G H T: An International Multilingual Journal for Arts and Humanities Peer Reviewed and Refereed: ISSN: 2582-8002 University Research Publications, Ernakulam, Kerala VOL 1-ISSUE 5 : JULY 2021 Women Self-Empowerment as Revealed in Marian Engel’s Bear Dr.S.Udhayakumar, Assistant Professor, Department Of English and Comparative Literature, School of English and Foreign Languages, Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai-21. Abstract Marian Engel, the most famous women author in Canadian Literature and social activist has made a revolutionary attempt in changing the perspectives of her readers on sexuality and stereotypes in her most controversial novel Bear. The wide criticism of the novel itself is its success that has sharply pierced in the readers’ minds to call for a change in their attitudes. The convention of women being seen as an object is challenged by her attempt and it also forms the underlying theme of the novel. Hence, the paper argues how Marian has made women empowerment through sexuality possible through her work and how sexual politics and body politics played by her protagonist Lou’s life defeat the male chauvinism. The paper further studies the character Lou’s gratification of sex as a means of purifying factor both physically and psychologically. The symbolic elements that elevate the novel to the level of classical work or a folk tale have been well identified in the paper. Key words: Sexuality, sexual politics, Self-empowerment, feminism. Introduction Self-empowerment is nothing but taking control of oneself, having clear goals, understanding one’s strength and weakness and making the positive choices. In that way, Engel, the Canadian author has created a women character Lou who becomes self-empowered by means of understanding her sexuality and develops a sense of purity after her strange pursuit into the wilderness in satisfying the sexual needs. The mysteries of sexual companionship between a woman and a man have been broken by Lou that made her to feel self-assured and fulfilled even 87 I N S I G H T: An International Multilingual Journal for Arts and Humanities Peer Reviewed and Refereed: ISSN: 2582-8002 University Research Publications, Ernakulam, Kerala VOL 1-ISSUE 5 : JULY 2021 after her violation. The paper clings on how the character Lou develops a sense of fulfillment after the sublime wilderness and analyze whether Lou’s act is justifiable in terms of feministic perspectives, Religious doctrines and Nature’s law. The author of Bear Marian Engel is a most eminent novelist, short story writer, children’s fiction writer and activist who brings a revolution in the field of Canadian literature through her associations with many literary friends of Canada including Hugh MacLennan, Robertson Davies, Dennis Lee, Margaret Atwood, Timothy Findley, Alice Munro, Margaret Laurence, Matt Cohen, Robert Weaver, Graeme Gibson and many. She is an activist for the rights of Canadian writers and is the founding member of Writer’s Union of Canada established in the year 1973. She begins her writing carrier when she returned to Toronto in the year 1964. She becomes a writer-in-residence for two universities such as University of Alberta and University of Toronto. Her first novel No Clouds of Glory is published in the year 1968 which challenges the stereotypes of female identities. Her Inside the Easter Egg and her posthumous work The Tattooed Woman are her best collection of short stories. All her writings focus on the daily lives of women. She explores identity in the gender roles, the possibility of some uncommon elements, and the relationship between mother and daughter through her writing. She has also experimented double identities in the daily life which she attempts as a challenge. Moreover, women’s search for self-fulfillments is the central themes of all her works which has fetched her laurels and awards. She has won the most prestigious award “The Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction.” In order to encourage the woman writer in their mid-career, The Writer’s Development Trust of Canada awards them in the name of Marian Engel after her death. The name of the award is Writer’s Trust Engel Findley. The novel Bear is the fifth and the most famous novel of Engel published in the year 1976 which has won Governor General Literary Award in the same year despite the controversy it has created. The plot of the novel is little strange that depicts erotic love between a librarian and a bear. The editor at Harcourt brace has rejected the manuscript after reading it fearing about its consequences. The editor has said “its relative brevity coupled with its extreme strangeness presents, I’m afraid, an insuperable obstacle in present circumstances.” However, it is published by McClelland & Stewart after being suggested by her fellow writer Robertson Davies and has reached the public. The book is originally titled The Bear of Pennarth and The Dog of God. The 88 I N S I G H T: An International Multilingual Journal for Arts and Humanities Peer Reviewed and Refereed: ISSN: 2582-8002 University Research Publications, Ernakulam, Kerala VOL 1-ISSUE 5 : JULY 2021 work is greatly reviewed by many Canadian writers and literary magazines after its publication. Margaret Atwood has reviewed as “A strange and wonderful book, plausible as kitchens, but shapely as a folktale, and with the same disturbing resonance.” The Canadian Encyclopedia has said “The most controversial novel ever written in Canada.” These reviews have made the novel more special. Thus, the novel has become a source of curiosity for the readers. In the traditional society, women are made to feel submissive to men and to feel men who are physically stronger than them as their only counterparts. But this traditional notion is challenged in the novel Bear. Lou the protagonist of the novel Bear and her attitude reveal that if physical strength alone is seen as a criterion for masculinity, the beastly animals which are stronger than man can be substituted for man. The character Lou, a new librarian to the remote island in the northern bush, kills her loneliness with the companion of a pet bear grown by the deceased estate owner Colonel Cary. She gets the advice from Lucy Leroy on how to win the confidence of the bear. She studies some folklore on bear collected by Colonel. Initially, she doesn’t like its smelly presence but later she develops fondness to it saying it is a gentle brute. She discovers no harm in the bear and so she becomes its thick companion. They swim together, and hang out in the study place. It slowly becomes a physical companionship as she enjoys rubbing its pelt and tickling it. She feeds it, takes care of it, satisfies all its needs and expects something in return. Their relationship goes too deep to the level of fulfilling her sexual desire. However, it doesn’t go to an extent of a penetrative sex. Marian has brought to the notice of readers about Lou’s dislike or her opinion of men through which she differentiates Lou’s attitude towards men and her attitude towards the bear. Her sporadic sexual relationship with the estate caretaker Homer Campbell doesn’t give her fulfillment. She said, “Because what she disliked in men was not their eroticism, but their assumption that women had none which left women with nothing to be but housemaids.” (Marian Engel’s Bear) Her hatred towards men who suppress women is revealed in the above lines. Lou enjoys and finds comfort with the bear because it’s friendly move and its nature that never subordinates her. This characteristic makes her to imagine it to be her perfect lover. She says, “Bear,” she cried. 89 I N S I G H T: An International Multilingual Journal for Arts and Humanities Peer Reviewed and Refereed: ISSN: 2582-8002 University Research Publications, Ernakulam, Kerala VOL 1-ISSUE 5 : JULY 2021 “I love you. Pull my head off. The world was furred with late spring snow. It was the soft, thick stuff that excited you unless you are driving or half dead, packing snow already falling in caterpillars off the greening branches.” (Marian Engel’s Bear). These lines indicate that her solitary life is comforted with its presence. The strange companionship has made her to feel she is powerful than and has conquered everything in the world, “So this was her kingdom: an octagonal house, a roomful of books, and a bear.” Her imagination of bear as her male lover is revenge to male’s ego and it is her different approach to body politics. Women empowerment in broad sense is the upbringing of women’s political, social, economic and health status equal to men. Also empowerment indicates the shared responsibility between men and women in terms of reproductive life, nurturing children, and maintenance of the household. Breaking the insecurities autonomously in meeting the challenges in the above said tasks can be considered as self-empowerment. Lou the protagonist has broken such insecurities to attain fulfillment as a woman. Marian Engel has beautifully created a mythical element or a folk tale like story centering on sexual politics and body politics through which she has gained self-empowerment to her character Lou. The center of the novel’s issue is quiet relevant to the second wave and third wave of feminism. The third wave feminism looks up on the “micro-politics” of gender equality. To understand the third wave of feminism, the second wave of feminism should be pondered. USA has labeled the second wave as “Sex Wars” because there have been conflicting ideas between feminists on pornography and prostitution.