Social Realism in Anita Desai’s Cry, the Peacock and Fasting, Feasting

Literature is the medium of expression of ideas of the social milieu. The literary people, novelists used literature as a weapon to express their concern of society. Anita Desai who is known for her existential themes and social realism is a contemporary novelist, whose predicament is to make the women as an individual entity. The present paper studies the social reality in the novels Cry, the Peacock and Fasting, Feasting. The pathetic life of the women portrayed by Desai is marvelous, but the psyche of women protagonist is really heart ranching. Social realism often glorifies the roles of the meek and working class and the struggle for its emancipation. Here the meek and working class is the woman, who is always portrayed as a weaker sex. Maya and Uma both protagonists signifies the bitter reality of life in novels Cry, the Peacock and Fasting, Feasting respectively. Many feminists’ critics talks about the emancipation of women class and in fact, Simone De Beauvoir, Judith Butler, Kate Millet, etc. raised issues regarding women and analyzed women's oppression and a foundational tract of contemporary feminism. The main concern of the paper is to depict the apathy of the women and their psychological concern in both the novels.

Key words: Realism, feminism, women subjugation.

Harry Levin suggests, “…the relations between literature and society are reciprocal. Literature is not only the effect of social causes; it is also the cause of social effects.”

A piece of literature will continue to be of vital interest only if literature maintains its bonds and ethnicity with society. Literature can produce innumerous piece of art depending on the qualitative growth of the art and knowledge. The literature is the medium of expression of...

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