View of ECOFEMINISM IN ANITA DESAI’S SELECT NOVELS

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ECOFEMINISM IN ANITA DESAI’S SELECT NOVELS

Dr. M. Sivakala

Assistant Professor of English, Sri Sarada College for Women, Tirunelveli-11

Abstract - Ecofeminism, the term is coined by the French writer Francoise d’ Eaubonne in her book Le Feminisme Ou La Mort (1974).Many feminists have explored different approaches to the term ecofeminism as they agree ecology as a feminist issue. The term explicates the undeniable connection between the subordination of women and the oppression of nature. The ecofeminists examine the exploitation of women and nature as they are interlinked with one another. This paper focuses on the perception of ecofeminism in Anita Desai’s select novels. Anita Desai presents her women characters in the novel reacting strongly, courageously and sensitively against the patriarchal society. She examines the inner life and feelings of the women and portrays the lack of warmth in their marital relationship and their alienation in the family life. Her central female characters Maya in Cry, The Peacock (1963) Sita in Where Shall We Go This Summer (1975), Nanda Kaul inFire on the Mountain(1977) experience psychic pressures by male chauvinism and develops close association with nature. The writer points out the injustice faced by women and nature is identical and the study analyses the novels in terms of ecofeminism.

Keywords: Perception, explicate, patriarchal, exploitation, oppression.

Anita Desai the prolific writer of Indian Writing in English is from the hill station of Mussoorie, Uttar Pradesh in India. Her writings are well known for the sensitive portrayal of the inner life of her female characters. The female psyche is usually compared with the nature. She uses images which expresses the emotional states of the alienated self.She expresses despair and desolation of the female characters through natural images. Man has overpowered nature which leads them to violation and exploitation of the natural life. The feminist minds are greatly attracted by the Eco critics revolt against the rational modes of the world as both are in the same outlook from a patriarchal monopoly. Ecocriticism and Feminism are based on the rebellion against the same system and so the emergence of new term Ecofeminism. The ecofeminist approach is stated by Birkel and in his article,

“Ecofeminism Linking Theory and Practice”

…a value system, social movement, and a practice…(which)also offers a political analysis that explores the links betweenandrocentrism and environmental destruction. It is an “awareness” that begins with the realization that the exploitation of nature is ultimately linked to Western man’s attitude towards women and tribal cultures (18).

Fire on the Mountain represents three women characters Nanda Kaul, Raka and Illa Das and their suppression and connection with nature. Nature is also equally oppressed in the novel as Nanda and Raka witnessed the forest fire.Nanda Kaul the protagonist of the novel The Fire on the Mountain is an elegant old widow. She is living in her old days at Carignano, a village in Kasauli, the hill station. Her childhood days are happy and comfortable. Her house is situated on the banks of Dal Lake in Kashmir, which has orchards and saffron fields. She with her family members usedto take a ride in the boat through the orchards. She is married to Mr. Kaul, Vice Chancellor of Punjab University, who wishes her to appear in silk sarees. She has the responsibility of taking care of the children and the guest.

She after the death of her husband bought the cottage at Carignano and accompanied only with the cook Ram Lal. She wishes to be harmonized with nature. She leads a life of isolation and introspection. She feels free from the duties of the family, “All she wanted was to be alone, to have Carignano to herself in this period of her life…” (Fire on the Mountain 18). Indian women are subjugated and they are not allowed to speak out their problem and need in the patriarchal society. Raka the great-granddaughter of Nanda Kaul suffers in loneliness and solitude as her father is cruel to her mother. Her troubled familial experiences are described by the author as, “her father (coming) home from a party stumbling and crashing through the curtains of night, her mouth opening to let out a flood of rotten stench, beating at her mother with hammers and fists of abuse – harsh, filthy

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abuse that made Raka cover under bed clothes and wet the mattress in fright” (Fire on the Mountain 71).

Anita Desai uses images related to nature to portray the inner mind of the female characters. Nanda is disappointed at Raka’s arrival as she wants to be isolated and silent.

Her feelings are expressed by a botanical image as “yellow rose creeper” that “had blossomed so youthfully last month but was now reduced to an exhausted mass of grey creaks and groans again” (Fire on the Mountain 19). Nanda is shocked to hear the news that her childhood friend Illa Das is raped and brutally killed by Preet Singh as she works for the welfare of Kasauli. Raka tells her,” I have set the fire on forest”(Fire on the Mountain 159).Nanda feels the death of Illa as fire that has been set.Illa’s death represents the patriarchal domination in the society. Vandana Shiva in her book Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development says,

Women in sustenance economies, producing and reproducing wealth in partnership with nature, have been experts in their own right of a holistic and ecological knowledge of nature’s process. But these alternative modes of knowing, which are oriented to social benefits and sustenance needs, are not recognized by the reductionist paradigm, because it fails to perceive the interconnectedness of nature, or the connection of women’s lives, work and knowledge with the creation of wealth. (23).

The ecofeminist narrative depicts the images that contribute to a meaningful link between the various aspects of animate and inanimate relationship. Anita Desai has represented it through different symbolic images in the novel. Maya the central female character of the novel Cry, the Peacock expresses the close association between her inner feelings, nature and environment. Her husband Gautama is a mismatch to her. Maya is childless and loved her pet dog Toto. She sharesher pains and pleasures with her dog which removes her loneliness and alienation. She develops a motherly love towards her pet dog.

She says, “Childless women do develop fanatic attachments to their pets, they say. It is no less a relationship than that of a woman and her child…” (Cry, The Peacock 15).

Women are attached to natural beings to overcome their aloofness. She is in sorrow when her dog died, and she wished for an honorable burial to the dog. Gautama rank up to the municipality which sent the truck to take away the carcass. He instead of consoling her, advised her to have a cup of tea. She feels that her last attachment in life is seized away.

Maya is humane and charitable by nature and so she is agonized to see a train-load of monkeys being taken to a laboratory at Bombay. They are packed in cage without sufficient space to move and the cruelty disturbed Maya. It indicates her isolated life and domestic imprisonment. Maya has desire for sex and child. Gautama lacks all these sensibilities and Maya in frustrated. The dance of the peacock defines the tragic predicament of Maya and also liberation from her tortured life.She identifies herself with the peacock, “Are they not blood -chilling their shrieks of pain? pia, pia, they cry, Lover, lover. Mio, mio, Idie, I die”

(Cry, The Peacock 82).

Sita the protagonist of the novel Where Shall We Go Their Summer is provocative and mutinous due to the marital disharmony in her life. She gives birth to four children in her twenty years of married life. When she becomes pregnant fifth time, she is not willing to give birth the child but wants to keep it safe in the womb. Her subjugation in the life makes her rebellious and loss of psychological equilibrium. She has never felt loneliness or alienation to live alone in her island Manori. “She felt surrounded by presences - the presences of the island itself, of the sea around it, and of the palm trees that spoke to each other, sometimes even to her” (Where Shall We Go This Summer 116). She decides to go alone to her island Manori. Like Sita the island also lacks the world of nature which exist as a “dark blot of foreign matter” (Where Shall We Go This Summer 99). Anita Desai expresses despair and desolation of the female characters through natural images.Sita while standing in the balcony keeps the crow away from attacking the injured eagle. The eagle represents her own frustrated life and the distorted life of Nature, both being destructed in the patriarchal society

Anita Desai’s female characters Nanda Kaul, Raka, Illa Das, Maya and Sita have close relationship with nature. She uses images in her novels which reflects the mental isolation of her women characters. Women and nature are both represented as chaotic, irrational and in need have control while men are portrayed as commendable, irrational and

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capable of directing both women and nature. Her novels correlate the idea of ecofeminism as women and men are equally oppressed by the male dominated society.

WORKS CITED

1. Desai, Anita. Cry, The Peacock. Orient Paperbacks, 1980.

2. …Where Shall We Go This Summer. Orient Paperbacks1982.

3. …Fire on the Mountain. Random House, 2008.

4. Birkeland, J. “Ecofeminism Linking Theory and Practice”. Ecofeminism: Women, Animals and Nature. Ed. G.

Gaard. Temple City Ptess, 1993.

5. Shiv, Vandana. Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development. Kali for Women. 1988.