Vol. II. Issue. III September 2011 - The Criterion: An International ...

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www.the-criterion.com The Criterion: An International Journal in English ISSN 0976-8165 India but also in the west. By subverting the hierarchies in a family and giving the females the power to rule does not initiate a valid solution to the problem. On reading the novels of Anita Desai we see these shifting ideas of gender roles in the characters of Bim, a female protagonist in The Clear Light of Day, assumes the role of a Patriarch, a family head after the death of her parents. The reins of power rest completely in her capable hands but this does not in any way improve the situation of the family. Sita in Where Shall we go this Summer? Is a woman who has set her own terms and conditions of living and throughout the novel the patriarch seems to be invisible. But even then the problems seem to exist and persist throughout the narrative. All these are indicative of a re establishment of gender roles within the family. A mother in the post modern is not just a caretaker of her family but is also a bread winner. Her roles gave shifted from the conventional home maker and a docile care taker Moreover to make it more complicated she may not be the biological mother. Any individual taking care of the house, children and domesticity can be called mothers. They are the mother substitutes or surrogate mother which we find in more than one novel of Anita Desai. Hence a solution cannot be sketched by just allocating roles. A family is only progressive when a flexible approach or plan is laid down. Therefore the solution lies in drawing a line somewhere in the middle, and re positioning and resituating the individuals in a flexible framework which equalizes the powers and re establishes a more acceptable and peaceful condition. Therefore this paper proposes to study family and deconstruct its conventional readings and foreground the deconstructed gender stereotypes. The characters who facilitate the deconstruction of gender roles and help and prevent a virtual disintegration of the family are generally males in the novel, though they are just a few traces that we see in the novels. Therefore I choose to take three novels – Where Shall we go this Summer?, Cry the Peacock and Voices in the City for my present study and analysis. Where shall we go this Summer? is a novel which like most of the Desai narratives focuses round Sita who is the central consciousness. She lives in Bombay with her four children and the fifth child is yet to be born. She has grown up into a lady who prefers to live an isolated independent life. She however does not seem to cherish the idea of motherhood as she says- “Children only mean anxiety, concern and pessimism, not happiness, what other women call happiness is just sentimentality.”(107) Sita decides to leave her children and her husband and wants to escape to Manori Island where she wants to be all alone, away from the busy, chaotic world that surrounds her and also from domesticity. She wishes to freeze the child who is growing in her womb as she does not want the child to come into a world which is disturbing, violent and uncompromising. She feels there is something magical about Manori island and it will preserve the child in the womb without delivering it. All these are insecurities and complexities of her own disturbed self where she is unable to connect herself to the world outside. She feels that the island which has something magical will prevent the child from being born. Raman makes all efforts to persuade Sita and tries to convince her to return back to her children who need her more than anybody else. He is worried and scared to know about her plans to live in Manori where medical attention and care will not reach her. He says- “Any woman- anyone would think you inhuman. You have four children. You have lived comfortably always in my house, you’ve had no worries .Yet your happiest memories are not of your children or your home but of strangers.”(147) Vol. II. Issue. III 58 September 2011
www.the-criterion.com The Criterion: An International Journal in English ISSN 0976-8165 He leaves her and gives up at last. But his words keep echoing inside, forcing her to think and re think over it. And finally she feels she was actually blessed to have him as her husband- “She thought, how nice he really was, how much the nicest man she knew.She allowed him then his triumph purely by being so unconscious of it, so oblivious.”(151) Therefore here in this novel Sita is a woman who is not forced to fit into the role of a mother or a wife. Raman had proved a good partner. But the freedom to take decisions and lead a life of one’s own choice sometimes proves more disturbing and chaotic as we see in Sita’s case. When she finally realizes this and reconciles to her present conditions most of her problems seem to get resolved. The insecurities of Sita , her confusions and her anxieties are all resulting in incompatibility and Raman has come out from the constrains of a stereotyped male family head and has helped his wife to introspect and re establish herself by shedding away her escapist attitude and finally re uniting and becoming a better individual, a better householder. I now proceed to bring my focus to the second novel Cry the Peacock . Here again the entire narrative revolves round the couple Maya and Gautam. Gautam appears to be a very insensitive husband and Maya an immature wife. Maya’s problems start right from her childhood. She was brought up by her father and absence of the mother, remained one of the most important reasons for her psychological problems. She has been shown as a neurotic who does not get enough attention which she expected from Gautam and she remainer a loner .She craves for company and cannot get out of the trauma of the death of her pet for many days. The roles again have changed in Maya’s upbringing. Mother has remained absent and a male takes over as a mother substitute. He tries to make his daughter’s world as happy and fulfilled as he could but this acts to her disadvantage. Maya was brought up like a princess. Maya has had a perfect childhood, where she did not encounter any adversities. It was a very comfortable and fulfilled life that she led in her father’s house. But she failed to see the darker side of life. Gautam realizes this and tries to help her out and never appears as a patriarchal figure. As a mature husband, he gets exasperated by the way she is brought up by her father and through his frustrations and outbursts tries to help Maya and tries to rescue her from her problems – “What have you learnt of the realities? The realities of common human existence not love and romance, but living and dying and working all that constitute life for the ordinary man. You wouldn’t find in your picture books: what wickedness to raise a child like that.”(115) Therefore in this case the stereotypes are being challenged from a completely different stand point. The male character is using his position as a patriarch to bring some change and maturity in his wife. The effort that is made to bring some positive change in her character and personality is certainly a positive step towards deconstructing the stereotyped notion of family. The fact remains that he does not finally succeed in rewriting Maya’s faith, her psychological disorders were deep rooted which could not be erased. But the attempt on Gautam’s part certainly is an effort towards reworking for peace and integrity inside the family. Nirode the central male characters in Anita Desai’s novel Voices in the City appears are very irresponsible male head. He is not shown to posses any qualities of a patriarchal family head in the family. But he comes out as a completely different and changed individual who rescues his family and prevents the family from virtual break down which is almost obvious at the surface. He has been shown as a man who has gone through major turmoil’s. He completed rejected the institution of family and marriage and felt that man was pained the most when he lived in the family. But on loosing Monisha, he sister, who meets a very tragic end he is completely shattered. His re awakening and reconciliation in finding his way back is however brought by his sister Amala who is always there to support him. Vol. II. Issue. III 59 September 2011
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