How Judge Jemubhai Patel Takes His Self-Loathing Out on his Family

Kiran Desai’s novel The Inheritance of Loss employs the themes of post-colonial self-loathing and arranged marriage to illustrate the actions of her characters over the course of the novel. Judge Jemubhai Patel, one of the central characters, treats his family, and especially the women in his family, terribly throughout the duration of this novel. The judge begins his deplorable treatment of the women in his family by being ashamed of his mother, and continues with the rape, abuse, and murder of his wife, Nimi Patel. Finally, the judge neglects his daughter and does not have any contact with his grandchild until she shows up on his doorstep after the death of her parents. It is through his granddaughter, Sai that the judge hopes to find redemption for his past misdeeds.

Jemubhai’s vitriol toward his family is present even in the beginning of his life. During a flashback to his voyage to England, Jemubhai recalls feeling ashamed of the meal that his mother had packed for him:

He was furious that his mother had considered the possibility of his humiliation and thereby, he thought, precipitated it. In her attempt to cancel out one humiliation, she had only succeeded in adding another. Jemu picked up the package, fled to the deck, and threw it overboard. Didn’t his mother think of the inappropriateness of her gesture? (Desai 43)

This is the first time the judge experiences shame of his Indian heritage. Desai goes on to illustrate the intense self-loathing, and loathing of his Indian heritage that would plague the judge throughout the rest of the novel. The judge views this gesture from his mother as thoroughly undignified, and attributes it to his Indian heritage, which he also despises. It is this self-loathing that causes him to l...

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...was not the judge himself who lit her on fire, the shame he feels at having such a thoroughly Indian wife causes the judge to send her away. With nowhere to go, Nimi is forced to live with a brother-in-law who “resented every bite that entered Nimi’s mouth” (Desai 336-37). It is this brother-in-law that ultimately kills her. The judge’s feelings of inadequacy—not fully Indian and not fully English—has ultimately resulted in the death of his wife.

Additionally, the shame that killed Nimi caused the judge’s daughter—Sai’s mother—to be neglected her entire life:

…his daughter could only be useless and absurd. He had condemned the girl to convent boarding schools, relieved when she reached a new height of uselessness and absurdity by eloping with a man who had grown up in an orphanage. Not even the relatives expected him to pay any attention to her again. (Desai 339)