Continuity and change in Anita Desai s later fiction

Abstract

The most striking feature of Desai s novels, which has remained constant, is newlineher exploration of the psychic self that puts emphasis on the alienation of an newlineindividual. Her characters are withdrawn and reclusive living on the fringe of the newlinesociety. Desai does not create extraordinary characters rather portrays ordinary newlinemiddle-class men and women who are living tragic hopeless lives fighting against the newlinemeaninglessness of their everyday existence. The journey of the solitary souls in a newlinehostile world is something that Desai vividly paints in her novels. Through her novels newlineDesai brings to the fore the innermost psyche of her protagonists and sequestered newlineworld of existential predicaments. Beginning with Maya, Monisha, Nirod, Sita, Nanda newlineKaul to Deven, Baumgartner, Matteo, Eric and Ravi, Desai s characters are newlinemelancholic, solitary and self-introspective. Her novels are the travelogues of inward newlinejourney, an existential pilgrimage in a search for identity and self-realization. newline