Anita Desai’s Cry the Peacock: A Manifesto of Maya’s Psychological Predicament

The present paper aims to explore Anita Desai’s Debut novel, Cry, the Peacock as a manifesto of Maya’s psychological predicament. Cry, the Peacock is Anita Desai’s first novel published in 1963. Anita Desai is one of the most known and distinguished Indian English novelists with worldwide fame and name. She is gifted with extraordinary penetration and sharpness of vision. Her works have provided her with worldwide fame and attention. The novelist is accomplished with prospecting psychological insight. Majority of Anita Desai’s novels are the true and real manifesto of women’s situation and predicament. Cry, the Peacock is a manifesto of Maya’s psychological predicament. Desai’s has very well explored the inner or interior world of woman, her anger, frustration and storm raging inside her mind and heart through the protagonist of this novel. The novelist’s concern with the emancipation of Maya can be seen in almost every page of the work. She often peeps into the interior or inner psyche of her main characters instead of just focusing on the outer view. She is a master in composing the psychological novels. She very well knows how to explore the psychic depth of her main protagonists as well to analyse and examine their motives in details. The novelist is generally considered as a trendsetter in the area of psychoanalytic study. Through her extraordinary penetration of vision and sharpness, the novelist has brilliantly portrayed the inner turmoil going on in the psyche of Maya who is a hysterical personality. She is successful in bringing out the frustration, loneliness and claustrophobia of Maya.


Introduction
Anita Desai is generally known as the Mother of the genre of Indian psychological novel. Winner of the Sahitya Academy Award, she has written sixteen works of fiction. Her different and unique style of writing, her original and life like characters and her realistic subject-line make her writings praise worthy. Apart from writing, Anita Desai is also actively involved in teaching as well. She continues to be a source of inspiration for many young and aspiring writers in today's time.
Desai's Cry, the Peacock is an interesting psychological analysis of the main heroine of the novel, Maya.The novel is considered to be a pioneer in the realm of English fiction. It is generally called as wonderful psychological work. In this novel, Anita Desai has successfully explored the interior or inner world of the main protagonist, Maya. She has also very well described the protagonist's insecurity, strange behaviour and fear. She has portrayed the psyche of Maya who is on the verge of madness or insanity. As well as the various factors responsible for her insanity. Her concern with the emancipation of Maya can be seen in almost every page of the work. The novelist has successfully painted the heroine's world of suffering, loneliness and alienation. She has used her protagonist to discuss the true situation and condition of women in India. As Cixous says, "Woman must write herself: must write about women and bring women to writing, from which they have been driven away as violently as from their bodies." (Cixous78) The protagonist of the novel, Maya is portrayed as an introvert, neurotic character by the novelist. She is a hypersensitive woman. She is over pampered daughter of a rich Maya trusts in astrology. Throughout the novel, she is haunted and pursued by the idea of early death predicted by an astrologer. The astrologer prophesized that one of the couple will die in strange and unnatural way. He told to Maya that when her marriage will reach its fourth year then a death will take place. It can be either hers or her husband's. She cannot free herself from the prophecy of the astrologer. She is so much disturbed that soon she slips into insanity. She finds herself trapped with the fear of astrologer's prophecy about her coming future. She finds herself confined in a false world of superstition. Her father does not take the prophecy seriously and defies it calling it false belief. But Maya on the other hand, is not able to separate herself from her superstition and her fear. This fear has made a permanent place in the mind and heart of Maya. When the fourth year of marriage arrives, she takes her fear and superstition to such an extreme and high level that it takes the form of sudden and horrible explosion.
In order to make herself burden free, she goes back to her past days and starts fantasizing about her childhood, good and loving memories related to it. She takes pleasure living in the world of fantasy. She is not able to connect and relate herself to the real world or reality around her. Fantasy acts as an important part of the whole novel. It is generally presented along with as well as in contrast to the real world.
Maya fails to accept her melancholy and dispirited environment and state around her.
She tries to comfort herself psychologically by musing how a peacock stamps its feet and then strikes its nib or beak against any rock. And then she imagines how it tries to capture or hold the snake so that it can break its body. The peacock does it to get rid of its own body pain. She is inspired by peacock's actions which affects her own consciousness. She urgently craves for some sort of outlet to release her feelings and emotions. She comes under the direst The novel is filled with conflict, inner frustration, violence, isolation and loneliness.  Through her women protagonist, Desai has tried to unwrap the real internal or inner truth of the post-modern age. She wants to awaken the tormented, inferior and neglected women in a country like India. The protagonist of the novel cannot adjust herself wither family, husband and other people around her. Isolation, Alienation and undesirable love take Maya to the clutches of violence and death . Through her, the novelist has exposed the abnormal treatment, psychological conflicts, alienaton, isolation generally faced by women in real life.
The novelist is of the opinion that in the present time, the main reason of loneliness and alienation of Indian women is failed marriage. Through the portrayal of Maya, Desai has tried to bring into the light those women in India who mostly fail to cope up with the conventional patriarchal society and order and who later on revolt helplessly and silently just like a pathetic and inferior human being. For Desai, existential situation or predicament of her women protagonist is the important and main issue in this novel. The novelist has portrayed Maya in order to bring into the light the repressed community of women in Indian society. Or we can say that the protagonist of this novel is the representative of the repressed community of women who generally suffers at the hands of the male dominated society. Desai has presented a kaleidoscopic picture of the deep and intensive mind of Maya's inner personality.Or we can conclude that the novelist has very well presented the manifesto of Maya's psychological predicament.