Family and Community: Anita Desai’s clear light Of Day in Context

Abstract

The paper purports to analyse the family and community in Indian society through the reading of the novel Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai. The narrative is complex as it has multidimensional perspectives but at present individual’s relation to their immediate surroundings is going to be scrutinized. Any person has deep impact of their society, kinship with their relatives and community in which they live in as family is an abode of warmth and encouragement. The impact does not remain for a few times but prolongs in the future lives. In such surroundings, the birth of conflicts is out of the diverse choice of each member in the family which ultimately leads to their separation and divergent behaviour. The novel is in fact the manifestation of resolution of conflicts. The novels of Anita Desai deal with the complexities of modern Indian society  and delve deep into the psyche of characters where she finds conflict between self and society and to strike balance, characters end in withdrawal, suicide, confinement or nervous breakdown but in the present novel characters establish a sense of balance and destroy ambiguities. Moreover, it can be remarkably read as:  a) siblings relationship within a family, b) role of community in shaping one’s behaviour, c) the Indian essence of family in the text.