Volume 11, Issue – 1, March 2026

Multiplicity and Marginality: An Examination of Performance, Identity, and
Precarity in Binodini Dasi's My Story and My Life as an Actress

Raj Kumar Barman

Assistant Professor

Gokhale Memorial Girl’s College

Kolkata, West Bengal

Abstract: In this research paper, the attention is given towards autobiographical writings of one of the most famous theatre actresses of the nineteenth- century Bengal, Binodini Dasi, to explore how her experiences on and off the stage create various and overlapping identities as presented in her autobiographical writings, Amar Katha (My Story) and Amar Abhinetri Jiban (My Life as an Actress). Based on theoretical literature that addresses the ontology of selfhood, this paper attempts to examine how gender, class, and performance interrelate to construct and express the subjectivity of Binodini Dasi, which is split and fragmented through her domestic, public, and artistic identities. Also, it posits that the existence of alienation or instability in Binodini that is brought about by the fragmentation of her ‘self’ reflects the structural and institutional forces that finally push her out of the mainstream socio- cultural life. This fractured sense of identity situates her life in what Judith Butler defines as precarity, a condition that is defined as vulnerable, dependant and marginalised by the social and cultural structure of that time.

Keywords: selfhood, gender, performance, fragmented, precarity.

FULL PAPER