The voice of the Feminine spirit in Anita Desai's Cry the peacock and Voices in the city (ISBN: 978-93-87088-35-1)

“Memories came to life were so vivid, so detailed, I knew them to be real, too real. Or is it madness?...”

This research paper is an attempt to explore the inner conflicts faced by the female characters in Anita Desai’s Cry the Peacock and Voices in the City. To begin with, there are so many dimensions to study women and the day to day conflicts faced by them. 'Renouncing female’ characters is one of the common episodes in the novels chosen for the study. The portrayal of female characters represents the socio-cultural shaping of femininity and bounce – aback ability of women towards patriarchy and constraints posed by it. Womenfolk – have been suppressed, oppressed, repressed and victimize in all spheres of life, not only in India but in most cultures throughout the globe. In the postmodern critique, one traditionally believes that ruthlessness is present everywhere where the proselytizing effect of  'Modernity' has laid hands on. In short, women have succeeded to maintain her socio-economic position in the so-called 'primitive' societies.

The contribution of Anita Desai as a writer of exploring the inner world of the character is unforgettable. She added a new and a significant dimension in the portrayal of women character and the suffering related to them. The thing which distinguishes the great writer from the other novelist is a preoccupation with the study of the inner world of the individual, particularly the untold and the undiscovered miseries of the women, which is regarded as one of the significant issues that revolve around the fictional world of Anita Desai. She in her truthful presentation of the tension and conflict between the tradition and modernity, convention and innovation, individual existence and social domination and above all the inner reality of the outer world as she herself asserts “my novels are no reflection of Indian society, politic or character. They are a part of my private effort to seize upon the raw material of life-its shapelessness, its meaninglessness”. In this modern mechanical world, the life of the man is much torture and trodden by various ups and downs that man is very near to the machine and in some cases, man has totally become a machine without any sense of love and affection, emotion and imagination .so, in this critical and complex age, it is very difficult to assess and evaluate the real personality of a man. Sigmund Freud thinks that the journey within is more important than the journey outside. Perhaps this is why, Anita Desai prefers to discuss the inner reality to the outer, the insight to the sight. Her search for the truth is closely related to the search of the soul-the inner life. Her notion of life is richly influenced by Virginia Woolf who also takes a keen interest in evaluating the mind of the man through the close observation. She observes “life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged, life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginnings of our consciousness to the end”.  It is interesting to note that Anita Desai has very realistically presented the plights and predicaments of women who suffer and suffocate silently under the patriarchal roof. Most of the women in her works are hypersensitive, solitary and helpless. In spite of the various hurdles and obstacles in their path, they are often seen full of enthusiasm and mettle.  But unfortunately, they are denigrated, isolated and tormented by the male dominating society. She observes  “I am interested in characters who are not average but have retreated or been driven into some extremity of despair and so turned against or made a stand against the general current. It is easy to flow with the current, it makes no demands, and it costs no effort. But those who cannot follow it, whose heart cries out ‘the great no’, who fight the current and struggle against it they know what the demands are and what it costs to meet them.” Arun Joshi, a great Indian writer in English, also deals with the theme of existentialism in his various works. While Joshi explores the helplessness of man, Anita Desai tries her best to voice the mute, untold and psychosomatic miseries of the women particularly of the married women who are often seen caught in the net of the existential problems and predicaments. Through her deep and profound analysis of the psyche of the women, Anita Desai portrays the emotional world of the second sex revealing a rare imaginative analysis of several un-fathomed shades of human personalities and feminine sensibilities. K.R.S.Iyengar rightly observes:  “Her forte, in other words, is the exploration of the sensibility-the particular kind of modern Indian sensibility that is ill at ease among the barbarians and the philistines, the anarchists and the moralists. Since her preoccupation is with the inner world of sensibility rather than the outer world of action, she has tried to forge a style supple and suggestive enough to convey the fever and the fretfulness of the stream of consciousness of her principal characters”. The importance of women has been recognized in the literature on various grounds. But she has rarely been defined as a subject in her own right.  The importance of women deserves to be seen in the context of “rapture” or “discontinuity” in history.

In her first novel Cry, the Peacock - Desai portrays the psychic tumult of a young a sensitive girl Maya who is haunted by childhood prophecy of a fatal disaster. In Maya’s narrative, Desai employs a stream of consciousness. There is a progressive deterioration as seen in the relationship of Maya with her husband Gautama. At the end of the novel, Maya becomes the slave of the fate she has feared and kills Gautama in accordance with the prophecy of an astrologer and the novel ends with total mental collapse. Desai’s second novel Voices in the city seem to be more ambitious but also noticeably flawed. This novel explores and expounds the feverish sensitivity of young intellectuals who have lost their ways in modern urban lives.  It is an epic on Calcutta giving important landmarks such as Victoria Memorial, Howrah etc., the novel is divided into four unequal parts - part-1 Nirode,  part-2 Monisha, her diary, part-3 Amala and part-4 mother. Though in most part of the novel Nirode is seen as the dominant character, the focus is laid on Monisha and her predicament only. In this novel also Desai has dealt with the theme of feminine sensibility and the dissented husband and wife relationship and the whole psyche of a woman is presented to us in all its vividness. Through the presentation of symbols, the novelist has rendered the pathetic plight of the heroine which touches the heart of the readers. The mental turmoil and the spiritual predicament of the heroine are a source of great interest and contemporary reverence. Dr.R.S.Shrama, an outstanding critic on Anita Desai remarks “With all its strong sense of place and locale the novel operates primarily on a symbolic level. But it has vast characters of events and tangled relationships that add to the narrative appeal. ” Anita Desai is preoccupied in her novel with the theme of existential instability and insecurity experienced by her women characters. Desai portrays the neurotic mind of her women protagonist who encountered jeopardy and disaster in their marital and domestic life. She points out the insurmountable adversities that face them and disrupt their peaceful atmosphere of personal and domestic life. Her women characters struggle against such adverse circumstances and grapple with hazards in order to restore peace and joy to their lives but they feel ultimately discomforted and undergo the traumatic and neurotic experience. The sense of insurmountable of the crisis drifts them to a state of insanity and abnormality.

In the novel cry, the peacock Desai has imparted psychological significance and implication to it whereupon she came to be recognized as an exponent of psychological novels. This novel on the surface appears to be a fictionalization of the tragic life of the neurotic young woman Maya who finds herself ruined by marital discord. Anita portrays her as a young sensitive sentimental woman who constantly feels that she is alienated by the harsh cold and senseless marital life. Their marital life is shattered due to their temperamental incompatibility. Maya the sensible and sentimental wife of the insensible and unsentimental Gautama remains perpetually disconnected because of lack of love and comfort between them. Her existence with her emotionally bankrupted husband makes her restless and disquiet. Her existence is a source of agony anguish and disquietude. Both Maya and Gautama have been living as wife and husband for four years in spite of their discordance of views, decisions and feelings. Maya’s mind is fraught with fears and consternation about her future. Her emotional responses begin to fluctuate between the involvement in love for her husband and his apathy for her. She longs intensity of love to be bestowed upon her by Gautama because it is love that conduces to her substance. Her lack of confidence in Gautama and lack of attachment leads her to a state of obsessions with her fears and finally to her mental disequilibrium and insanity. “Maya admits there was not one of my friends who could not act as an anchor anymore and Gautama too could not join me”, this existential angst troubles Maya more often than not.  She undergoes perpetual neurotic experiences in her precautious and unstable situation. Maya’s emotional alienation is the existential problem of the novel. Her fit of insanity aggravates beyond the limit and drives her to commit suicide. It is important to note here that glimpses of changing modern life are brought for more constructive effect. Maya’s suffering is her own creation – this is the trait that governs the heroines of Anita Desai. Her classic sense of enjoyment fails to appreciate the club life.

In her second novel voices in the city, Desai explores the existential theme of alienation from society, loneliness, husband-wife relationship and highlights these issues. This novel depicts the story of the struggle of Monisha, Amala and Nirode in adapting city life. Married to a traditional Bengali family, the dreamy aspirant Monisha is driven to suicide on account of her claustrophobic torture. Monisha, Nirode and Amala confront crises in every moment of their lives. They frequently react sometimes hysterically against the monstrous vulgarity of everyday life in the city. Anita herself says that “Her novels deal what Ortega, by gusset called the terror of facing single-handed the ferocious assaults of existence.” It also focuses on the tragedy of marriage which leads a wife towards abnormality and insanity and provokes her to embrace suicide. Nirode, Monisha and Amala are brothers and sisters who come to Calcutta where they find their life terribly affected by the monstrous effects of the city. Monisha the married sister of Nirode, in fact, the central character of the novel. She stands as the victim of marital tragedy. Her relationship with her husband is devoid of love and attachment. Their life is marked by loneliness and in communication that leads her to be tormented by a feeling of claustrophobia. Amidst this dreary marital life, she lives and exists like a tortured soul. She, like Maya, undergoes mental and psychological sufferings in her life. She finally seeks the panacea of these sufferings in suicide; in the case of Monisha too her anguish emerges from her existential instability. The theme of this novel has something in common with Camus’ the Outsider. Like Maya, Monisha is also ruined and drifted to suicide on account of marital discord. Desai’s portrayal of the neurotic mind and psychological crises of Monisha evinces her deep insight into the female psyche.

   Marriage and sexuality have been neglected as a subject in the pre-independent India but after the feminist way which swept the entire world, it has come to stay as a research problem in all literature of the world, it is as Arundhati Roy writes in patterns of feminist consciousness in Indian women - “Marital relationships have almost inevitable be on the point of novels written by women...”. It is quite acceptable that marriage and motherhood remain the major goal of a girl’s life however liberated she maybe. The novel cry, the peacock opens with the death of Maya’s dog, tot, which upsets Maya. Gautama, Maya’s husband, on his arrival takes charge and cleans the place of the corpse. The death of the dog reminds Maya of astrologers who had predicted death to Maya or her husband four years after marriage. This prediction haunts Maya and she becomes an introverted and alienated woman. Finally, in a neurotic frenzy, she pushes Gautama to his death from the terrace.  The novelist reveals Maya's desire for communion - physical and mental; while Gautama thought the peacock's dance to death and the coupling calling of pigeons. What Maya sought in the name of love was to relieve herself from the pressures of anxieties. Psychologist Coleman says about relationships that: “They need to love and be loved is crucial for healthy personality development and functioning. Human beings appear to be so constructed that they need and strive to achieve warm, loving relationships with others. The longing for intimacy with others remains with us throughout our lives and separation from or loss of loved ones usually presents a difficult adjustment problem.”

 In this novel, one can see a faulty adjustment in the marriage of Mr and Mrs Ray, the father and the mother. It was a marriage of convenience, the husband priding himself in his family name and title, and wife on her tea-estates and a house. Both of them have a soul-destroying hatred and terrific fury towards each other. The father transforms into a drunkard, debased, and dishonourable creature; whereas the mother changes into a practical, possessive woman, losing all her womanly and motherly charm and warmth. She is polished and balanced, yet very cold, with a frosty love of power - like a concealed fluorescent bulb. Their marriage was something of a financial settlement.       Monisha, the elder daughter, is childless and is a victim of an ill-matched marriage. Jiban and Monisha had nothing in common between them and were married because he belonged to a respectable, middle-class Congress family which was safe, secure and sound. Her father thought that "Monisha ought not to be encouraged in her morbid inclinations and that it would be a God thing for her to be settled into such a solid, unimaginative family as that, just sufficiently educated to accept her with tolerance." Monisha changes after marriage from a sensitive, mild, quiet, sensible girl into a barren, distant, without any compassion, neurotic, diary writing woman, which she herself hates. She is happy neither with her husband nor with his family members. Monisha's ill-matched marriage, her loneliness, sterility and stress of living in a joint family with an insensitive husband push her to a breaking point. Al the characters in this novel have a distrust for marriage. Aunt Lila hates men particularly her fat, self-centred, long-dead husband. Her opinion is that: "Women place themselves in bondage to men, whether in marriage or out. Al the joy and ambition is channelled that way, while they go parched themselves." She learnt it the hard way. Her daughter, Rita, is also a victim of maladjustment in marriage. She is divorced and working with some of the finest physicists in Paris. Thus, in all the men- women relationships mentioned in the novel, we see a picture of desolation and emptiness. They illustrate that marriage, at best, is a farce, at worst, it is a malignancy that destroys the body, mind, and soul completely.

Desai’s novels give expression to the long-smothered wail of the lacerated psyche. They tell the harrowing tale of blunted human relationship. The fate of Maya is married to an older man, a detached, sober, industrious lawyer. Temperamentally, they are opposites. An average evening for Maya is hardly more than a quite “formal waiting”   their married life is punctuated with “matrimonial silence.” And her husband’s “hardness….his coldness and the incessant talk of cups of tea and philosophy” she is pained by the total lack of communication on his part: “How little he knew my suffering, or how to comfort me. Telling me to go to sleep while he worked on his papers…” an over widening gap in communication between the husband and wife is felt throughout the novel. Whereas in the second novel, there is a conflict between belief and reality in the two characters - Monisha and Amla. As in the earlier part of the novel, this conflict leads to suicide and disillusionment. Monisha lives in terrible isolation in the utter darkness of her life without any communication. She too suffers from lacks of understanding and love from her husband, Jiban. This results in her living in illusion, enclosed in a locked container. Monisha is unable to face the realities of life that she has to change herself according to the new atmosphere of her husband's home. She withdraws herself and is afraid of involvement. Amla, the young vivacious sister of Monisha who comes to Calcutta, also faces the same conflict. Amla plunges into parties, on reaching Calcutta, trying to escape the suffocating realities of life. She is disillusioned by the superficialities of society and feels suffocated. She meets Dharma, a middle-aged, married painter, and thinks she is in love with him. It is almost a case of love at first sight. It brings a conspicuous change in both of them. Dharma changes into “chivalrous, tender, subtle and prophetic”, and asks Amla to be his model for paintings. Amla to feels a change in herself. "She felt herself being torn, torn with excruciating slowness and without anaesthetic, from the Amla of a day, an afternoon ago."  This relationship is not accepted by Monisha, Nirode and Aunt Lila. Amala is advised against such involvement by Monisha but she is unable to resist Dharma's charm and is drawn to him again and again. In the novel, we see that Dharma is inspired by Amla and that she had enabled him to see "What he subconscious does to an impressionable creature, how much more power it has on them than sun and circumstances put together." Dharma's development as an artist and a rediscovery of himself due to the inspiration provided by Amla is evident in the novel. A similar kind of change is seen in Amla. Earlier she had a frivolous approach to life and glorifies it in her peak. 'Season' of love and enjoyment. She matures with Dharma's "measured talk and serene appearance." In spite of all this inspiration and understanding, a strain is there in their relationship, which is not well-defined to either of them. She wishes to convince at Dharma's allegiance to his wife and the social propriety and impropriety of maintaining his relationship with her. Such relationships are still unacceptable in society, but Amla cannot dissociate herself room these facts. It is a balanced reality and hallucination. Both of them face conflict in their minds. Dharma expresses it in his paintings; whereas, in Amla, it is symbolized in her dreams. Thus, an attempt to escape from the realities of life is misconstrued as a lure and leads to disillusionment in the case of Amla. Monisha is similar to Maya of Cry, the Peacock, in that she is also childless, sensitive and a victim of ill-matched marriage. If Maya is lonely in her family because it is a nuclear family with no one except her husband, Monisha's family has too many people, since it is a joint family. Through Monisha, Anita Desai has portrayed the psyche of a sensitive intellectual woman who is suffocated in the uncongenial atmosphere of her in-law's house. Voices in the city present an account of the odyssey of two world-weary young women doomed to reside in Calcutta, the city of death. It explores in a convincing way the inner climate of youthful despair and is permeated by the existential angst. The novel is an exemplification of what Anita Desai called in an interview with Yashodhara Dalmia, ‘the terror of facing single-handed the ferocious assault of existence’.

Anita Desai seems to rise to great heights in her art of characterization, particularly when she makes use of history in order to make her women find their true self or come back to correct self-realization. This brief analysis shows that the inner confrontations of the characters arise from the various social and cultural deviations. The author has tried her best to depict the reality of the Indian society the inner conflicts the interracial relationship and the existential dimensions of the various situations in a very metaphoric way. She seems to be more concerned with the personal tragedy of the individuals rather than political event and characters. She explores the covered and enveloped realities of her character’s mind and brings to the surface the truth. Her characters are highly sensitive and are bound to bear the burden of living helplessly in such society which is full of absurd realities, patriarchal domination and interracial conflicts. Moreover, the picture of the man-woman relationship is not satisfying. In the light of her novel, we conclusively establish her preoccupation with the theme of existential problems and crisis faced by women characters. Anita Desai is more than one way is a prophet of the modern age. While bringing out the evils and the shortcomings of the life, culture and civilization in the Indian society. She has pointed out those higher and permanent values of life that could sustain mankind through the whirlpool of problems of the modern age find thyself is a part of the duty. She has thus presented in her novels the predicament of sensitive women characters, who find difficult to adjust in the mechanical world. Desai's treatment of women characters and her comments about them also indicate that feminist analyses of gender, sexuality, prejudice and colonialism could intensify Bande's analysis. Although Bande applies K

Karen Horney's model of female development, she dismisses, as irrelevant, the insights of other unnamed feminist critics, and her bibliography omits any reference to the extensive feminist scholarship on these topics. Finally, Bande's analysis was apparently very poorly copy-edited; the frequent transposed letters, missing articles, grammatical errors, and stylistic infelicities reduce the power of this otherwise original and important study of the novels of Anita Desai. To say that Anita Desai is a Feminist writer is not to deny her artistic achievement.  The woman being the centre of her novels is not only natural but quite convincing. As Mrinalini Solanki explains:

       “As a consummate creative artist, Anita Desai shows tremendous potential and vitality. In her writings, she not only offers an expose of human life in its shocking shallowness or outward show but also provides, down deep, a philosophical probe or basis to sustain our life. She emerges neither as a downright pessimist nor an incorrigible optimist. Al along, her earnest endeavour is to hold a mirror to life, and in the process, to unravel the mystery of human existence.  In the process, she does present the plight of the women, the underdog and that makes her a Feminist. The idea of empowerment is an elusive dream to Desai’s protagonists as they learn to express themselves in difficult situations. Though Desai does not offer alter-native and radical models of female behaviour, she depicts the irreconcilable a contradiction, the discontinuous ideas and the fragmented nature of the life of her protagonists. They live and die as dreamers, but are never denied, a pearl of rare wisdom about their status and position in the social material to which they belong. Failure is one aspect of women’s lives does not render them dysfunctional in society. It is their ability to live life as women according to their own terms that mark them as strong survivors in a hostile patriarchal world in Desai’s fiction”.