Volu m e II - Purdue University Calumet

Yvonne P. Wood
Purdue University Calumet
The Narrative Effect: Omniscient Narrative in Kiran Desai’s Inheritance of Loss
When reading Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss, one may be struck by the endless disruption and
exchange of narratives. Throughout the book, Desai jumps from present, to past, to near future, to near
past. She also moves through time using flashbacks and flash-forwards, and leaps across oceans to different
continents and settings without warning. The effect of this type of narration may seem haphazard and can
confuse a reader who is not careful. However, these narrative shifts have a very important function in the
text. Desai’s omniscient and shifting narration emphasizes the importance of all her characters, the
connections between their lives, and the post-colonial effects they have experienced.
In Inheritance, Desai’s narrator is omniscient, which means that this narrator can see the motives and
read the thoughts of every character. At first, it may seem that she is limited in that ability; however, when
the perspective of one character is related, the point of view easily transfers to the thoughts and perspective
of another. This omniscience not only bridges characters, but also extends over time. In a series of shifts,
Desai covers a time period of nearly 65 years (from the judge’s birth in 1919 to the Ghorkha protests that
occurred in the mid-1980’s). This recounting allows for the narrative to uncover the separate and intimate
stories and thoughts of all the main characters, and it also allows for a deeper evaluation of the conflict
experienced by each of them. She does all of this in a span of only 357 pages.
Desai’s telling of the story with this complicated narrative causes readers to respond in two ways:
thematically and mimetically. James Phelan, in his book Experiencing Fiction, defines the thematic response
as involving “an interest in the ideational function of the characters and in the cultural, ideological,
philosophical, or ethical issues being addressed by the narrative” (5-6). This response is evident in the way
that readers react to the post-colonial allusions and references throughout the story. Readers judge not only
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