A Retrospective Study of Anita Desai’s Cry the Peacock

Abstract

Anita Desai is one of the best known and celebrated Indo-Anglican novelists of post independence era. She has gained distinction in exploring the human psyche and the emotional ecology of her protagonists who, while wrestling with the pervasive force of absurd realities, feel terribly oppressed with the burden of living helplessly in a chaotic contemporary milieu. Going deeper into the complexities of human existence, she seeks to evaluate various formidable factors that make human life uncomfortable and unendurable. The major dominating themes in Anita Desai’s novels are, the sense of alienation and detachment and human relationship particularly the man-woman relationship. Nowadays these kinds of themes have assumed special significance in the closer context of rapid industrialization, growing awareness among women of their rights and individualism, and the westernization of attitudes and lives of people.