QUEST FOR SPACE: REREADING ANITA DESAI’S FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN

Author Name: Parimal Saren

Volume/Issue: 03/01

Country: India

DOI NO.: 08.2020-25662434 DOI Link: https://www.doi-ds.org/doilink/07.2022-37837926/UIJIR

Affiliation:

Assistant Professor, Department of English, Gobinda Prasad Mahavidyalaya, Bankura, West Bengal, India

ABSTRACT

Anita Desai’s various novels, such as Voices In The City(1965), Clear Light Of Day(1980) and Fire On The Mountain(1977) address female psychological trauma at the sites of colonial and post-colonial clashes. Her preoccupation is with the ‘modern’ Indian woman’s psyche, and the isolation of the physically ill and the psychiatrically ‘other’ through social structures and customs. However, scholarly work on her writings has disagreed disability studies perspectives as viable interpretive tools for analysis. Instead, there are endless conflations of psychiatric disabilities as symbolic of national fissures, cultural crisis, states of corruption, internal strife and ethnic violence. These issues can be seen in many of her writings. The male chauvinism is also exposed in her writings, where women are used as puppet. She raised her voice through her writings against the patriarchy and contemporary social system.

Key words: Psychological, Isolation, Cultural Crisis, Male-chauvinism