The Thousand Faces Of Night Summary

The Untiring Quest for One’s own self in Githa Hariharan’s “The Thousand Faces of Night”

Githa Hariharan first novel The Thousand Faces of Night (1992) won the Common Wealth Writers prize for the best first book in 1993first novel. It describes the set up of a central South Indian Brahmin family. The Thousand Faces of Night examines thoroughly the particular conditions of Indian women treated with self-abnegation in their different approaches. In the novel, we can find an analysis and explanation of a set of circumstances which are both physical and psychological. The mind or the deepest thought of Indian woman in general is influenced by violent powers that control unfairly her acceptance and admittance of defeat resulting in the varieties

She says that her “grandmother’s stories were no ordinary bed-time stories. She chose each for a particular occasion, a story in reply to each of my childish questions. She had an answer for every question. But her answers were not simple: they had to be decoded. A comparison had to be made, an illustration discovered, and a moral to be drawn out. Ideal moulds, impossibly ambitious, that challenged the puny listener to stretch her frame and fit into the vast spaces, live up to her illustrious ancestors” (TFN 27). The grandmother always extorted either a comparison or a contrast between stories of tales and real characters. She always had a parallel from both worlds. Perhaps through this correspondence she wanted to express that human civilization might be moving forward but women’s condition and expectations from them have not been changed. One day while playing in the house Devi found her mother’s photograph holding a veena in her

Along with the long history of women’s subjugation is shown an alternative analysis of myths that have been having a considerable impact on Indian psyche. The protagonist gradually becomes aware of their suppressive nature and discards them. The novel aims to present the inner lives of women and tries to dissect the confined social structure which does not accept women’s role apart from the traditional role. It subjects women of three successive generations to show that the legacy of suffering is all alike. They may hold different-different social position, but within the walls of the house, they have the same