Feminine Psyche in Fire on the Mountain and That Long Silence Anita Desai and Shashi Deshande are women who were more interested to represent human psyche, study of human beings ruined within and outside. Both are great artist who portray the characters instilled with real, emotional, natural and lively traits in them. Mainly they showed the pain and sufferings of women. The society and family members imposed various responsibilities and restrictions to them. The life of women is like a prison, they trap into various responsibilities and duties throughout her life. They work without any rest for the welfare of family and to complete all the demands of the society. Women have to complete all her duties which she plays throughout her life, the …show more content…
She also used the technique of flashbacks into her novels. These are the various themes which she portrayed in her books also in her most famous Fire on the mountain. The story sets in Kasuli, a hill station focused on three women who faced harsh experiences in their life. Starts with Nanda Kaul who is the protagonist of the novel, fulfilled all his duties now at this age she just want peace in her life so she isolate herself from everything. She undergoes psychic pressures such as conflict, confusion, dilemma, struggle, illness due to effects of unsympathetic forces of society. These forces are nothing but the primary problems that all women have to face in her life like male domination, evilness of patriarchal society, hypocrisy, double standards for male and females, responsibilities towards families, unsuccessful marriage, neglected by children. When the novel opens we find she is great grand mother in novel who suffers from mental problems. She only had a desire for respect, recognition and love in her life. She want to fly away from all emotional bonds and want to get peace by isolate herself from everything. She did not find any delight in anything. We get to know about her through the flashbacks in the novel. She lived neglected and lonely all her life. Her husband had an extra martial affair with Miss David which was a source of agony in her life. She was just the home- maker. She did what her family demand. She never …show more content…
She focused on the martial relation. However she uses the different way to show the feminine psyche. She presents the social reality as it experienced by human beings especially women. Her modern heroines stood against the traditional way of life and patriarchal values. In all her novels she shows the struggle in martial life. Her most famous novel That Long Silence is the best example to show the psyche of females, it present the suffocated life story of Jaya who play as a role of wife, mother but felt lonely. She hates the character of Sita and wants to break down that role. Jaya was liberated and modern but she was the victim of traditional rules, she was an unsuccessful writer. Her sincerity or work and love never been appreciated and she has no one to share feelings so she ultimately adapt silence. Deshpande also uses the technique of stream of consciousness into her novels like in this novel. There are so many flashbacks into the novel which gave detail information about the life of Jaya. Mohan who is Jaya’s husband expect her to complete all the wishes but never cared about her even he never shared feelings and emotions to
Kamala Das’sMy Story is the documentation of her psychological development fromthe childhood to womanhood. The sense of loneliness and frustration of her unsuccessful married life, creates various problem in her life. She suffers from the mental disease. She is sometime guided by death instinct and sometimes by life instinct. Anxiety and loneliness force her for suicidal attempt but her involvement in creative works, givingbirth to three sons and at last realization of value of life shows her victory over death instinct by life
Women in India were unaware of their miserable condition. It is in the post independence period the women’s quest for identity of her own commenced. The 20th century saw the shift from outer to inner sensibilities and no one can better understand a man or woman better a feminine writer. In modern English fiction a number of women novelists have arrived on the literary scene, they have set out making new forays in to the world of women. Nayantara Sahgal being a feminist writer has emphasized in her novels on freedom and a new definition of the New Women. Sahgal’s heroines are well aware of the injustice done to them in their marriage and they come out of this traditional bond.
Anita Desai and Shashi Deshpande both are the feminist authors. The word Feminism means getting the same rights for women as enjoyed by men. This word originated from the latin word ‘femina’ meaning ‘woman’ that’s mainly focused on women’s rights, status and power at par with men on the grounds of equality of sexes. Feminism was a great movement fights for women’s equal rights. However, there is a difference between Indian feminism and Western feminism in terms of traditions and norms, culture and society, life and living styles. Indian Feminism never tried to change the overall system and never denies religion. It only demands social reformation, the equal treatment and respect,
In the novels of Shashi Despande , Silence is the theme which can easily be felt by the readers throughout her novels. Breaking of silence by her protagonists in different ways makes their voice heard by everyone. So far as women’s work, speech,
The narrator, a young girl named Nea, starts the story in the middle of action. She told that she stabbed a man with knife at eleven years old in order to release her older sister, Sourdi, from the man. “I charged and stabbed the man in the sleeve” (9). This situation is not only a introduction of this story to the readers, but the further explanation of the events explains each of the characters involved in this story. The main character of this story is Ma, who willing to sacrifice Sourdi’s happiness in order to please the man in the society. Next, Sourdi is another main character in this story. She has beautiful face that attracted the attention from admirers throughout this story. Then, Nea is also main character in this story. She is impulsive young girl who reacts in rash to protect her sister from the men that can threaten their relationship.
Shashi Deshpande is one of the famous contemporary Indian novelists in English. She writes about the conflict between tradition and modernity in relation to women in middle class society. Shashi Deshpande’s novel deals with the theme of the quest for a female identity. The complexities of man-woman relationship especially in the context of marriage, the trauma of a disturbed adolescence. The Indian woman has for years been a silent sufferer. While she has played different roles-as a wife, mother, sister and daughter, she has never been able to claim her own individuality. Shashi Deshpande has emerged as a writer possessing deep insight into the female psyche. Focusing on the marital relation she seeks to expose the tradition
There are also themes of immigration and culture. It is interesting that cultural responsibilities to her husband is what really separates Nea and Sourdi. Coming of age and the role men is also something. Yet again, it is the cultural instance of the man Mr. Chhay that takes Sourdi away; despite any protestations of his uncouthness Duke actually may have made for something more inclusive for Nea as he is delayed in development like Nea; symbolized by the fact Duke and Nea even held hands while present with Nea in the car. With Mr. Chhay in the life of Sourdi, there is very little role for Nea; perhaps this is why Nea hates so much that fact that he calls her ‘little sister’ (Chai, 2001). Overall Sourdi represents a choice to become that her mother became, a wife and mother.
The strain that is put on Kaur’s ties with her family is apparent, not only through what her father did to her, but also through the words associated with her mother and father. Kaur describes the relationship between her mother and father as being one of another form of abuse, this one emotional. Kaur’s father often silences her mother, much as women are silenced in homes of dominating men. Kaur is “ quote about inability to see if mother loves father”. This suggests the lack of love and trust between all three people in the house, as Kaur is physically dominated by her father and her mother is emotionally dominated by him. This further affected Kaur’s ability to speak out for herself or to identify warning signs of abusive relationships, as she has learned that abuse is normal.
There also is evidence of collusion between the political difficulties affecting the islands. As well the mother’s relationship with her daughter and the impact on the family. Having a tendency of separating from the mother or the mother’s country evokes extreme resentment towards the mother. Resentment grows because of a property of postcolonial times. Her novels, mostly show a young woman struggling to find their own identity based on the West Indian cultural
Shashi Deshpande ranks high in the list of top Indian authors. She is the most popular Indian Woman writer in English. It is a fact that woman is mistreated and vanquished by the male community everywhere. She has been the subordinate monopolization and has to conform to male standards. In most of her novels, Shashi Deshpande has focused on the suppression of women in Indian society. She draws our attention to women’s exploitation, discrimination and commodification.She fairly rejects the system where there is no revolt of the women against the society and its norms which underrate women. Shashi Deshpande has dealt with 'women-issues', of how they are being treated and what the women actually want.
Hosseini really magnifies the inequality of men and women in society but also shows the importance of friendship and women sticking together to overcome the hardship.
Anita Desai presents to reader her opinion about complexity of human relationships as a big contemporary problem and human condition. At the level of inner consciousness words are not mere meanings recorded in a dictionary but are symbolic which trigger feelings and meanings that an individual draws out of one’s subconscious storehouse. Her women characters make a reader look at them with awe with their relationship to their surroundings, their society, their men, their children, their families, their psychological make-ups and themselves. Though not admittedly a feminist, Anita Desai is well aware of the predicament of the Indian women and their relationship with men. Running inward her fiction grapples with the intangible realities of life. Man-woman relationship in the urban society is her concern and in novel after novel she delves deeper and deeper in this dilemma. D.H. Lawrence rightly points out that "The great relationship for humanity will
Thus, to give voice to the suffocated psyche and suppressed desire of woman and lay bare ambitions and frustrations and soothe the aches and pains has been primary focus in Deshpande’s writing. Her works show that compromise is what characterizes the life of the common run of the middle-class women in India. Unable to defy social conventions or traditional morality,
The political and social events of the sixties and the seventies along with growing opportunities of education and employment for women encourage women belonging to the urban middle class to engage in literary activities. The thematic concerns of these women writers have been cantering around women related issues. The social setting for most of these writings is the urban middle class and the protagonist is, more often than not, a woman. Indian Culture treats women with utmost reverence. Women are identified with Adi Shakti or the primordial energy. Woman’s avatar as mother treated as highest manifestation of human relationship; It is the mother who gets precedence over all other principles of life including father and god in importance. She
In this way, Manju Kapur has depicted Nina’s journey towards her own identity. Though she suffers a lot in the process, she becomes successful in creating her own identity by breaking the bond of unsuccessful marriage. But in the process, her identity as a woman gets fractured. The fractured identity of the woman is explored in the next chapter.