CHAPTER-2: Quest for Freedom Quest for freedom is the most eminent theme in the novels of Anita Desai. Due to its importance in her works, it is bound to find reoccurrence. The quest for freedom prevails as the most powerful and influential theme and all the major characters seem to be striving for something with which they cannot come in terms with. The society in which they live and cannot go away from it leaves a deep question mark in their minds. They are in quest for freedom from past, present, loneliness, death, captivity, social environment and meaninglessness. Anita Desai’s novels are concerned with the portrayal of the most troubled part of her protagonists’ life. The world seems to be ‘out of joint’, and in their
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Her lot is “loneliness- loneliness of such proportion that it broke the bonds of that single word and all its associations and went spilling and spreading out and about.” Maya suffers from loneliness, which is beyond the comprehension of Gautama. In her fit of loneliness her “dark house appears to her like her Tomb”. (Desai 22, 129) In loneliness, she longs to see her father, to go to Darjeeling. Her loneliness is also reflected in the loneliness of the bear and of the caged monkeys. Her desire to get the monkeys released and her faith that her father would open their cages and let them out show her own trapped …show more content…
(Desai 84) Initially, the reader feels that Toto’s death is the starting point of Maya’s fear. The novelist tries to project her inner fears and anxieties through the medium of Toto’s death. Indeed the fear of death is the main problem of her existence, which is brought to surface by Toto’s death. How to be free from fear is one of her major concern throughout the narrative. The storm symbolizes her violent effort to free herself from fears and phobias. It makes her hour of release: I saw the rush and whirl outside continuing with tireless spirits, for it gave me a sensation of flying, of being lifted off the earth and into the sunset release from bondage, release from fate, from death and dreariness and unwanted dreams, “Release and Freedom”. Maya feels fear of death even in her sleep. When her husband asks her to go to sleep she reacts fearfully. “‘No’, If I sleep it’ll come on me from behind” (Desai 158,
Her lot is “loneliness- loneliness of such proportion that it broke the bonds of that single word and all its associations and went spilling and spreading out and about.” Maya suffers from loneliness, which is beyond the comprehension of Gautama. In her fit of loneliness her “dark house appears to her like her Tomb”. (Desai 22, 129) In loneliness, she longs to see her father, to go to Darjeeling. Her loneliness is also reflected in the loneliness of the bear and of the caged monkeys. Her desire to get the monkeys released and her faith that her father would open their cages and let them out show her own trapped …show more content…
(Desai 84) Initially, the reader feels that Toto’s death is the starting point of Maya’s fear. The novelist tries to project her inner fears and anxieties through the medium of Toto’s death. Indeed the fear of death is the main problem of her existence, which is brought to surface by Toto’s death. How to be free from fear is one of her major concern throughout the narrative. The storm symbolizes her violent effort to free herself from fears and phobias. It makes her hour of release: I saw the rush and whirl outside continuing with tireless spirits, for it gave me a sensation of flying, of being lifted off the earth and into the sunset release from bondage, release from fate, from death and dreariness and unwanted dreams, “Release and Freedom”. Maya feels fear of death even in her sleep. When her husband asks her to go to sleep she reacts fearfully. “‘No’, If I sleep it’ll come on me from behind” (Desai 158,