Anita Desai 's Fire On The Mountain

Mahasweta Devi’s short story, “Giribala,” is about the life of Giribala, a girl of Talsana village located in India. Born into a caste in a time when it was still customary to pay a bride-price, Giri is sold to Aulchand by her father. From this point on, we see a series of unfortunate, tragic events that take place in Giri’s life as a result of the circumstances surrounding Giri’s life. There are many issues in Giri’s life in India that Devi highlights to readers. First, the economic instability of the village leads to an extremely poor quality of life for the lower, working classes. Next, the cruel role of women determined by men in society is to either satisfy the sexual desires of men or to reproduce offspring who can work or be sold off to marriages. There are also other social norms and beliefs which discriminate against women that will be discussed.

The novel is divided into two sections, referred to as part one and part two. the first section of the novel portrays the everyday life of an Indian family with their daughter Uma as the main character of the section. Throughout part one of the novel, the author tries to take the reader into a journey across the Indian social practices and family relationship. She does this through the way she portrays different members of the Indian family and other individuals who are depicted as different members of the Indian society. In this section, the reader can see the family structure, family members responsibilities, and expectations from other members of the family and the society in general. Apart from showing the reader the family life, she also tries to present situations and topics that show the reader some important issues regarding the Indian educational system and the society attitudes

Indian fiction in English has matured itself over the years. It has become more expressive and experimental, both thematically and stylistically, than ever, and has come to establish itself as an indigenous branch of world literature. With the passage of time novel in English became recognized as an effective vehicle of human relationships in Indian society. Novelists since the formative years of this genre have been exploring through it, human relationships in the complex Indian society. R.K. Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao, Anita Desai, Shashi Despande, Arundhti Roy, Kiran Desai, Jumpha Lahiri, Geeta Mehta, and Githa Hariharan etc., have produced social novels which deal with the theory of human relationships in the traditional and

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s novel, The Palace of Illusions is the epitome of feminism. It retells the story of Mahabharata from the view point of Draupadi, the daughter of King Drupad. The delicate threads of her life have beautifully been interwoven to bring forth a grasping story. Chitra Banerjee has herself written “I would uncover the story that lay invisible between the lines of the men’s exploits. Better still I would have her one of her tell it herself, with all her joys and doubts, her struggles and her triumphs, her heartbreaks, her achievements, the unique female way in which she sees her world and her place in it.”(XV).

The novel deals with the story of two very different worlds- an extremely orthodox and domineering Indian family and an unusually idiosyncratic family in Massachusetts. Uma, the protagonist of the first part of the book represents the attitude of the author. Through this woman character, Desai endeavours to expose the hypocrisy and male-chauvinism in a particular conservative society or family. She shows how Uma bears the brunt of many insults and abuse flung by her own

Self awareness or personal consciousness is the main theme of Fire on the Mountain. This novels describes the struggle for identity, liberate herself from the various roles of women, to attain a state of free and creative individuality. These all are the features that make this novel as a feminist

This paper attempts to examine the fictional projections of Indian girls, to see how they emerge in ideological terms. Their journeys from self-alienation to self-adjustment, their childhood struggles against the hypocrisies and monstrosities of the grown-up world, eventually demolishing the unjust male constructed citadels of power that hinder their progress- are the highlighted issues. The point of comparison between the two novels focused on here is the journey of Rahel in The God of Small Things and Sai in The Inheritance from a lonely childhood to a tragic adulthood passing through a struggle with the complex forces of patriarchal society. Both the novels portray the imaginativeness, inventiveness, independence, rebelliousness, wide-eyed wonder and innocence associated with these young girls.

Deshpande's concern and sympathy are primarily for the woman in whatever circumstances she might be placed or whatever role in the society she might be playing. While revealing the woman's struggle to secure self-respect and self-identity for herself through her protagonists, the author subtly unravels the multiple levels of oppression, including sexual oppression experienced by women in our society thus creating a new social awareness. This stance of Deshpande makes her a potential feminist writer creating a woman's world with loving, care and a soothing touch depicting the nuances of her consciousness while advocating her liberation from the meticulously concocted web of imposed socio-cultural orders that have existed over centuries. From

For my book report I chose “Catching Fire” by Suzanne Collins. Catching Fire is set in a alternative universe that is set up in a way a monarchy would function there is the king or a president who is a cold hearted human being named President Snow. Then there are the nobles or in this situation the capital people, the capital people are wealthy and they dress outrageously just so people can distinguish them from non wealthy people. Lastly skipping the presents you have the slaves or the districts there are twelve districts and each district specializes in a different trade or the manufacture of different products such as fabric and coal miming. For example district four specializes in catching sea food and district five is lumber

In an alternate universe, rather than of putting out fire, they have a special job that requires fireman to burn book, according to that universe where our tale begins it is illegal to read any type of books;however a very unique fire man decides to change the law.

Felix was walking toward Route 4 in Nimbasa City. As Felix was walking a man walked to him. Felix couldn’t describe whom it was, the man spoke with a quiet voice and says, “You shouldn’t go through Route 4. They say a Legendary Pokemon guards desert resort.” Felix replies with a deep tone. “I see. Why don’t I go check it out.” Felix excuses the man and continues walking to the south of the city, Route 4. Felix passes every trainer that was nearby. Felix steps onto the flushing sand in Desert Resort and looks around the area. The population of people that was there was 0%. Felix yells out, “Is there anyone here!” There was no replies back. “I’m guessing the man was right.” Suddenly a flame appears in the air. Felix gets surprised and runs toward the flame. The flames repeatedly kept on shooting in the air. Then, it stopped. Felix walks over a hill and sees a Pokemon that looked muscular. It looked like a dog, but more massive. “Its Entei, one of the Legendary Beasts.” Entei looked at me and jumped back. It uses Sacred Fire. Fire releases from his mouth. “Come out Medicham and use Protect!” Felix throws out Medicham and type of shield surrounds us. The fire hits the shield but doesn’t hit Medicham nor Felix. Medicham clenches his teeth trying to concentrate holding Protect. The Sacred Fire disappears and so does Protect. “You wanna battle Entei? Then, lets battle.” Felix raises one hand in mid level. Medicham nods and uses High Jump Kick. As Medicham was using High Jump Kick Entei uses Extreme Speed. Entei was dashing half way across the

Shiva did an excellent job explaining how western masculine science has undermined women (and their expertise on nature’s processes) and caused ecological disruption that threatens the livelihood of the people in India. Shiva exposed the many weaknesses of the masculinist’s model of development while providing a sufficient argument for the feminine principle as the solution.

Many women face discrimination throughout all stages of their life, beginning at (or even before) birth continuing as an infant, child, adolescent, and adult. While in the educated, urban middle class women’s rights continue to improve, there remains a strong bias against gender equality in those societal parts of India, where patriarchal traditions prevail; her self-image was torn into shreds by the patriarchal family which denied her basic freedom. Indian womanhood was mercilessly locked in the echo

She makes an important point when trying to go beyond the female (otherness), by paying careful attention to differences among women themselves, and by putting emphasize on the multiple realties that women faces, and by that trying to uncover universalist interpretations (Parpart and Marchand 1995:6). She reveals the inadequacy of binary categories by showing us how power is defined in binary terms, between the people who have (men) and the people who do not (women). This is a consequence of seeing women as a homogenous group, and contributes to the reinforcement of the binary division between men and women (Mohanty 1991:64). By assuming that women are a already constituted group with the same experiences and interests, gender is looked upon as something that can be applied cross cultures (Mohanty 1991:54), and it also produces an assumption about the “average third world woman” as poor and uneducated, in contrast to the educated, modern Western women (Mohanty 1991:56). Implicit in the binary analytic lies the assumption that the third world woman only can be liberated through western rationality. Mohanty is making an important point when emphasising the need to challenge these objectifications (Udayagiri 1995:163).

Women are shown to be highly “idealized” throughout Indian culture (Leonard). This statement exemplifies that they are an important aspect to Indian society because of everything that they put into their everyday life. It is absurd that women can be valued, yet treated so poorly by their own families. At the spiritual level she is found to be coequal meaning she is honored and viewed as a goddess (V. Bauer and J. Bauer). Consequently, in Indian culture women are not allowed to do anything on their own. A woman is only allowed to visit her natal home as a guest and under any circumstance; she will never be allowed to move into her natal home again. Some women are not even allowed to go to the market or socialize with their friends because their husbands say no and the women are forced to act as the husband commands. In any other society, if women were highly valued she would be able to do anything she wants and run her own life.