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| The Portrayal of Conflicts During Partition in Anita Desais Clear Light of Day | |||||||
| Paper Id :
16466 Submission Date :
2022-08-04 Acceptance Date :
2022-08-22 Publication Date :
2022-08-25
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| Abstract |
The word Partition has been made with the combination of the two words i.e. ‘part’ and ‘nation’. The entire word signifies a kind of departure from a particular area or the particular structure of geographical, historical, social, psychological, and cultural entity. The term also suggests that a part or parts are being divided from the original figure. As a result of this the divided area will have its own sovereignty, culture, language, economy, structure, and social status, and religious heredities as prevailed in other nations. These new objects have their own identities, shapes, economy, politics, history, qualities etc. Desai’s novel Clear Light of Day is a realistic novel from the point of view of its events and its portrayal of the characters; and it is also realistic in respect of the feelings and the sentiments experienced by the various persons in the story. The novelist has not taken into consideration various events of the Partition and its effect on the characters of the novel. Apart from all the features of characterization and narration, Partition of India and Pakistan has also been a prime subject of this novel. Though Desai does not deal with it in depth, she is concerned about the relentlessness and sterility of the by-products of Partition. She talks about the emotional and psychological crisis, physical and mental tortures and contemporary situations through the portrayal of Partition.
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| Keywords | Partition, Conflicts, Behaviour, Human Life, Society. | ||||||
| Introduction |
The word ‘Partition’ has a special reference to the separation of a thing or an item or the place. It has many and multiple meanings and senses in languages. Sometimes, it is used for an action that is taking place for dividing a particular subject for different motives. In the popular literary sense, the term ‘Partition’ presents the division of any society or a country’s breaking up into separate countries. Anita Mazumdar Desai has got a prominent place in Indian writing in English. Desai read the novels of Woolf, Lawrence, and Jane Austin because of her western background from mother’s side. It is quite clear from a close study of her novels that Woolf has had a great influence on Desai, and several critics compare Desai’s Clear Light of Day (1980) with Woolf’s To the Lighthouse (1927). Both Clear Light of Day and To the Lighthouse discuss the childhood memories and how these in turn follow an individual as an adult. The inner psychological journey and their mental make-up of the characters play a significant role for both Desai and Woolf. Desai was born in 1937 just before ten years of Indian Independence; hence the subjects related to it have found a special place in her fiction. She got her education at Queen Mary's Higher Secondary School and Miranda House (Delhi University) in Delhi, where she received a degree in English literature. Later on she married a businessman Ashvin Desai and the couples were blessed with four children, two sons and two daughters. The Desai daughter Kiran is a very well-known name in English literature as she inherited interest and talent in literature from her mother and won the prestigious Booker Prize (2006) for her novel The Inheritance of Loss. Anita has taught in many colleges and institutions in India and abroad but now she teaches creative writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. Clear Light of Day is one of Desai’s most stupendous novels and is regarded as one of the rare masterpieces in the realm of Indo-Anglian fiction. “The novel” as said by R K Gupta “is distinguished chiefly by its passages of psychological analysis, by its realistic picture partitioned India, by it reasonable narration of family life, and by its message of the unbreakable ties of bonds and kinship.” (2012: 97) The novel Clear Light of Day describes the life of two sisters; Bim and Tara haunted by past memories and thus extols the subjects related to personal, professional, political, and the partition of India. The four children of the Das family Bim, Tara, Raja and Baba remain like orphans, even when the parents were alive. The parents kept themselves busy at clubs and were unaware of their children’s upbringing. They left their children under the supervision and care of Aunt Mira, a poor and distant relative of the family. As has been said, She was a poor relation; they could see that by the way she was greeted by their mother and the way she returned the greeting—tremulously, gratefully. Her luggage was all in bits and pieces, bedding rolls and tin trunk, like the servants’ no better. (Clear Light of Day, 2007: 160)
In the absence of care and proper guidance the entire family takes a different path all together, Raja the eldest gets married to Benazir and shifts to Hyderabad and Tara gets married to Bakul and moves abroad, Bim is filled with the sense of incompleteness and accepts the job of lecturer in History in order to keep her busy in the job and the care of Baba. The younger sister Tara can’t keep her aloof from the family ties and feels a kind of attraction for her family. She was attached to Bim and when she comes home, she is filled with a sense of remorse after realizing the sufferings and sacrifices of Bim. She and Raja pulled everything on Bim to achieve their personal fulfillment and
finally left her in a lurch. Tara considers Bim’s irritation and detestation for Raja and herself genuine. Though her husband was not interested in her past, she once again gets involved with her siblings to develop a good rapport among all of them. Tara struggles for the reunion and cordiality which existed among all of them once. Tara succeeds at the end of the novel and makes Bim to forgive her and Raja. Anita Desai’s Clear Light of Day deals with the theme of time in relation to eternity. Desai in writing this novel was inspired by T. S. Eliot’s ‘Four Quartets’ from which she quotes the well known line “Time the destroyer is time the preserver” (Clear Light of Day, 2007: 277) on the last page of her novel. Anita Desai explaining the theme of the novel for the magazine “India Today” discusses her purpose of writing Clear Light of Day to Sunil Sethi, Basically, my preoccupation was with recording the passage of time. I was trying to write a four dimensional piece of how a family’s life moves backwards and forwards in a period of time. My novel is about time as a destroyer, as a preserver, and about what bondage of time does to people.
(Critical Responses to Anita Desai, 2004: 20)
Time is one of the important themes of this novel. It is undoubtedly the destroyer of dreams but it proves to be preserver also it preserved the bond of love and belongingness between the siblings. As has been said by Anita Desai also the novel takes time as the main theme and propels the philosophy of time in its true context and it is for this reason the novel becomes larger than sheer chronological or historical facts and data. Though the subject matter and contents of the novel are related to Delhi, it hits other aspects of life that are general.
Desai has a deep understanding about India and writes about India as both insider and outsider. She accepts, ‘I feel about India as an Indian, but I suppose I think about it as an outsider.’ (Elaine Yee Lin Ho, 2002: 56) This kind of understanding allows her to narrate about Indian problems and situations with lucidity and consciousness. Her novels, thus, become a platform for her to address the issues of “women caught between tradition and modernity, the disintegration of joint family, cultural differences in encounters between East and West, and the politics of language in a multilingual society.” (Alam, 2012: 87)
Anita Desai in this novel tries to look at the issues that shape human emotions and fix a permanent bond of them in human psyche. The novelist is concerned in finding out the pattern(s) of human understanding which emerges to be meaningless in various episodes of life. Mrs. Desai comes out with the strongest note of optimism and avowal in the entire process.
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| Objective of study | The present research paper aims at the conflicts of partition in the work Clear light of Day of Anita Desai. It shows the influence of partition in shaping the behaviour of the characters in the Clear Light of Day. |
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| Review of Literature | Srabani Mallik, 2020 in the research paper, “Bondage of Time and Human Bondage in Anita Desai's Clear Light of Day” Anita Desai’s Clear Light of Day is a novel about laments for what was lost, but it does not stop merely at laments which echo and circle themselves endlessly; rather it is about the real significance of the past and it poses of how to live in the present that has been constructed from the past. Seema Kumari, 2019 “Issues of Women Empowerment in Anita Desai’s Novel Clear Light of Day” In this novel, women face many problems and struggle for their identity and at last prove themselves. Empowerment has opened up broader communication lines and brought together different worldwide organizations. These provide opportunities for man and woman, which promotes equality between the sexes for which Indian women have been struggling in their lives. P. Sakthivel , 2021 in “Psychological Servitude of Bim in Anita Desai’s Clear Light of Day” The psychological bondage unlike many characters of Anita Desai here is treated in a different manner. In this novel Bim accepts her life and reality of it. All the mental blockades and unconscious problems that tormented are not solved, but they are accepted with a mature insight by Bim. Reddy K Suneetha & P Madhurima, 2011 “Indo English Fiction, New Perspectives “Anita Desai’s literary career began with her novel Cry the Peacock, in which she reveals the grim psychological battle fought in the mind of Maya. A study of her novel reveals that she uses fiction as a site for studying the role of women in society and thereby indirectly offers a critique of the existential social set up that marginalizes women” M.K. Bhatnagar, (2008) in his book Superstition and Psyche in Anita Desai’s Cry the Peacock “Anita Desai s work represents a unique blending of the Indian and the western. Her novels catch the bewilderment of the individual psyche confronted with the overbearing socio-cultural environment and the ever-beckoning modern promise of self-gratification and self-fulfilment. In the face of this dual onslaught, her protagonists, male or female Maya, Sita, Monisha and Amla; Sarah, Nanda and Raka; Bim and Tara; Devan, Baumgartner are seen poised rentalizingly at different junctures of the philosophic spectrum.” Swain S. P(2000) from his book Fire to light, Clear Light of the Day the Alienated Self: a Study of Anita Desai’s Clear Light of the Day, dwells on existentialist theme of time in relation to eternity. Existentialism which is basically concerned with the enduring human predicament in relation to unchanging human destiny has been the sole concern of Anita Desai. Desai quotes in the last pages of her novel a very significant line from Eliot’s Four Quartets: “Time the destroyer is time the preserver.”It is time which brings about a change in the lives of the characters in the novel. The childhood intimacy of the four children—Tara, Bim, Raja and Baba is gradually lost as they grow older and become aware of their variegated dreams and aspirations. Anita Desai presents their polarities of personalities through images of sound and silence.” Dr. M. Rajeshwar (2000) in his creation Maya, the central character in Anita Desai’s Cry the Peacock, “Maya, the central character in Anita Desai’s Cry the Peacock is obsessed almost from the beginning of the novel with the gloomy prophecy of an Albino astrologer. According to the prophecy, she or her husband would die during the fourth year of her marriage. Her father dismisses the prophecy as nonsense and orders that it should be forgotten. Obeying his wish, Maya keeps the prophecy rigorously repressed in her unconscious until her marriage with Gautama enters the fourth year.” |
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| Methodology | The analytical and interpretative method has been used for the present research paper. The research is based on original work of Anita Desai. Some critical study has taken for research. It is library and internet based research. |
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| Analysis | The novel Clear Light of Day, thus, expresses many layers of human conflicts in human life. The title of the novel is a phrase used by Anita Desai herself in the course of the narration of the story. This phrase occurs in the fourth and final chapter of the novel when Bim, in the course of her meditations on the past, realizes that, basically and at heart, she still loves Raja and, in fact, all the other members of the family too, despite the setbacks to that love and despite Raja's humiliating treatment of her on certain occasions. As has been said, Although it was shadowy and dark, Bim could see as well as by Clear Light of Day that she felt only love and yearning for them all. (Clear Light of Day, 2007: 256) In other words, Bim could at that time see distinctly the nature of her feelings for all the members of the family including Raja. The phrase ‘Clear Light of Day’ implies distinctness of vision or clarity of perception. As this phrase has been used by the author at a climacteric moment in the life of the protagonist, and as this phrase implies also a radical change of heart in the protagonist towards the end of the story, 185 the author has thought it fit to make use of this phrase as the title of the novel. M K Bhatnagar mentions here However, it is not a very appropriate title because it merely refers to a certain moment in the protagonist’s life even though it is a crucial moment which Marks a turning-point in her life. The title does not give us any indication at all as to the theme or the subject-matter of the novel. (2002: 68) In this novel, Anita Desai does not follow the usual method of narration. She has mixed up the past and the present so far as the events of the story are concerned. In other words, the story does not progress in accordance with the sequence in which the various events are supposed to have taken place. Many of the situations and events in this novel move us deeply. In fact, pathos and conflicts are the keynote of the novel as a whole. The wretched plight of Baba and his account of his misadventures, Raja’s illness due to tuberculosis, the death of Mrs. Das, Mr. Das and, later, Aunt Mira, and the departure of Raja for Hyderabad, and leaving Bim and Baba to live in the old house by themselves at some of the examples of conflicts expressed therein. Similarly the account of aunt Mira’s widowhood and her sufferings as a consequence thereof, the poignancy of Bim’s thoughts and memories, and the anguish in the guru’s song present the very existence of conflicts in human life. Along with these conflicts the clashes of Partition have also found a subsequent place in the novel. The pains and anguish of Partition create a kind of fear and dilemma in the minds. Some of the most touching events which evoke our deepest sympathy for the sufferers, and which impart to the novel its character. The Clear Light of Day is a dark and sombre novel over which broods an atmosphere of sadness and gloom despite bright patches here and there. Although a sombre and dark novel on the whole, it is not devoid of humour. In fact, Anita Desai, while dwelling chiefly upon the sad and painful aspects of human life, shows also a strong sense of humour in the description of incidents, in her observation of certain small details such as the behaviour of a dog or a cat, and in her delineation of character. The portrayal of Dr. Biswas is an example of a humorous delineation of characterization. Dr. Biswas is, indeed, a comic character; and the account of his courtship of Bim, with all the embarrassment and the nervousness experienced by him in this context, is undoubtedly very amusing. There are a few passing references to the political circumstances of the time to which the story of this novel pertains. The time was the pre-independence period, then the grant of independence to the country and the partition of the country, and later the post-independence period. In other words, the story covers a period of about fifty to sixty years, beginning from 1930s to 70s. There are references to the fear of communal riots, and the actual outbreak of communal riots. The feeling of insecurity among the Muslims living in Delhi is also distinctly mentioned, though not dwelt upon at any length. The assassination of Mahatma Gandhi is also mentioned, and its impact on Bim and Raja, as also on a few other people, is indicated too. It is narrated here, what you think…she began to ask when she nearly stumbled over a cobbler who had chosen to sit in a dark corner with his tool box and broken sandals spread before him. The man was saying almost as if to himself: ‘Gandhi ji is dead murdered they say. Who would murder a good man, a saint? (Clear Light of Day, 2007: 141) |
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| Conclusion |
Desai does not believe in the brutal description of the episodes of Partition but she takes and narrates as the part of human life. But at the same time she thinks that any men/women of letters cannot escape from their existing political background because it is an indivisible part of human survival. Each person /character is a creation of his or her socio-political set up and the characters of Desai can’t be an exception to this fact. Desai delineates the dangers of society and the contemporary fears of the Hindus through the character of Mr. Das. The movement of Hyder Alis shows the insecurity level of an individual in society. The novel Clear Light of Day thus encapsulates many layers of human relations during the Partition and establishes the fact that relations and bonding among humans are above any calamity. |
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| References | 1. Desai, Anita. Clear Light of Day. Penguin Random House India, 2007.
2. Tiwari, Shubha, (Ed.) Critical Responses to Anita Desai (Volume 1), Atlantic Publishers, 2004.
3. Mallik Srabani, “Bondage of Time and Human Bondage in Anita Desai's Clear Light of Day” IJELS, Vol-5, Issue-4, July - August 2020.
4. Kumari Seema, “Issues of Women Empowerment in Anita Desai’s Novel Clear Light of Day”, JASRAE, Vol.-16, Issue-5, April 2019.
5. Sakthivel, P., “Psychological Servitude of Bim in Anita Desai’s Clear Light of Day”, Ilkogretim Online - Elementary Education Online, Vol.- 20 ,Issue-5, May 2021.
6. Reddy K Suneetha & Madhurim P, Indo English Fiction, New Perspectives: Alienation in Anita Desai’s Cry the Peacock, 2011.
7. Rajeshwar M. Maya, the central character in Anita Desai’s Cry the Peacock, Deevan Pub.Ltd., 2000.
8. Swain S. P, Fire to light, Clear Light of the Day the Alienated Self: a Study of Anita Desa’s Clear Light of the Day, pg 50, Atlantic Publishers, 2000.
9. Bhatnagar M. K. Superstition and Psyche in Anita Desai’s Cry the Peacock, Ankit Publications 2008. |
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