AGONY OR ECSTASY: INTRICACIES OF RELATIONSHIPS IN THE NOVELS OF ANITA DESAI

Abstract

                    D.H. Lawrence once remarked: The great relationship for humanity will always be  the relation between man and woman. It is this extremely crucial cardinal, sensitive relationship which goes haywire in the fictional cosmos of Anita Desai’s novels. An old adage goes: Marriages are made in heaven and executed on earth. Marriage is a lifelong happy union of two minds, characterized by love, understanding and adjustment. Women reveal their inner nature and respected complicated personalities through the language patterns and images which well-up in their individual minds.

                        The women populating the novelistic cosmos of Desai’s work react sometimes violently and sometimes silently, unheard and unknown by others. A woman’s role as a wife blocks her freedom. Simon De Beavoir believed that the institution of marriage has marred the spontaneity of feeling between  the marital lovers by changing their feelings into mandatory duties and rights. A woman is more than her body. She is not only a Being-in-itself but also a Being-for-itself.