Female Sufferings and Alienation in Anita Desai’s novels “Cry The Peacock” and “Voices in the city”

Abstract

This research paper attempts to examine and explore female sufferings and alienation in Anita Desai’s novels “Cry The Peacock” and “Voices in the city”. Maya is the main Protagonist of Desai’s very first novel “Cry The Peacock”. The novelist presents the sufferings and alienation after her marriage and also presents the happiness before marriage at her father’s house. Maya wants to see the image of her father in her husband Gautama, but Gautama is busy in his vocational affairs. Gautama could not give too much time to Maya. He was indifferent towards Maya’s pain, misery and sufferings. Gautama’s indifferent behavior became the reason of Maya’s alienation in this novel. She was deprived from husband’s Love and care. On the other hand Monisha the main character of Desai’s novel “Voices in the city” is also suffering from the same problem. Like Maya, Monisha is also a married girl, Monisha live in a large joint family with her in-Laws. After that she feels herself completely alienated and isolated from her husband, from her in-laws and from the outside world. Anita Desai’s female characters are suffering from isolation, social isolation, and cultural isolation from family and self isolation. This paper attempts to highlight, thought the study of the novels, how Anita Desai’s has portrayed the problems of Alienation and sufferings of female characters in her novels. Anita Desai’s is concerned about the status of Indian women in our society. Being a female novelist she knows very well about the complexities of Indian women. Indian women struggle for freedom, existence and equality with men Desai presents in her novels the real condition of Indian women.