Multicultural Ethos in the Select Novels of Anita Desai A Critical Study

Abstract

Anita Desai is one of the most outstanding and well-known newlinenovelists in Indian fiction in English today. She is among the prominent newlineIndo-Anglian novelists. Her novels present social condition but she lays newlinegreater emphasis on the discovery of the inner-self because it is the inner newlineself that decides the character of a person. She finds place in seminars, newlinebook-reviews, interviews and journals. The major themes that emerge newlinefrom reading her novels are related to the existential predicament of an newlineindividual whom she projects through unsuited couples, very sensitive newlinewives and ill matched husbands. Anita Desai s major concern is human newlinerelationship. The researcher has studied through her characters which are newlineself-conscious of the reality around them, they lead with a sense exile, of newlinealienation, pessimism, loneliness, east-west encounter, identity crisis, newlinemen-women relationship, multiculturalism, multicultural ethos and so on. newlineAnita Desai has used the flash back technique and interior newlinemonologues capturing the inner qualities of life. She has applied stream newlineof consciousness in her work of novel writing. The fiction of Anita Desai newlinehas analyzed taking into consideration the psychological motivation of newlineher novels as diary entries, description of places and people, self-analysis, newlinemeditation, rattling of dialogues and psychic drama through flashback newlineand so on. She has been honoured with many national and international newlineprestigious rewards. Thrice, she has been nominated for Booker Prize for newlineher novels which are Clear Light of Day (1980), In Custody (1984) and newlineFasting, Feasting (1999). Her novels, the researcher feels, deal with the newlinedislocation of normal life abnormality of nature, mal-adjustment in family newlinelife. newlineii newlineAnita Desai has written about her own cultural and traditional newlinematters about India and Indians. The cultural renaissance which took newlineplace in India during the second half of the nineteenth century newlineencouraged the growth of Indo-English literature no less than that of newlinenative languages. She focuses on the personal conflict of Anglicized, newlinemiddleclass women in contemporary India as they try to overcome the newlinesocietal limitation imposed by a tradition-bound patriarchal culture. It newlineaims to set up the cultural and social changes that have swept India since newlineits independence from Britain in 1947. Most of her novels deal with the newlineimportance of family bonds and explore the tensions that exist between newlinedifferent generations. The novels of Desai sustain the complexities of newlinemodern Indian culture from feminine perspectives while highlighting the newlinefemale Indian predicament of maintaining self-identity as an individual newlinewoman. newline