Bim’s unfailing strength in Anita Desai’s Clear Light of the Day
Anita Desai is one of the most appreciated contemporary Indian writers. She is the winner of several awards and nominations. She has authored a number of writings. Clear Light of the Day is one of her most celebrated and appreciated novels. In the novel, Desai portrays Indian women as marginalized characters who face burdens imposed by patriarchal society. The female characters such as Bimla, Tara, aunt Mira and Bimla’s mother are subordinated by a male-dominant culture which underestimates female subjectivity. Desai portrays how these women manage their vulnerable situation and stand up in a society controlled by men. She portrays the emotional upheavals faced by the characters and how ultimately some characters gain maturity from their experiences. Bim is one such character who exhibits unfailing strength in the novel. Through the character of Bim, Desai advocates message to all women not to be intimidated by the hurdles life brings forth but to be strong and develop the qualities of assertion and self respect.
Desai depicts Bimla Das as a character who is different from other female characters in the novel. She is educated, strong woman who is a history professor at the college and has chosen not to marry. She talks about politics and is strong in voicing her opinion and. Furthermore, she has love for poetry and actively participates in discussions with men at social gatherings. When discussing her education with Tara, Bim describes how her father did not encourage her:
"For all father cared, I could have grown up illiterate and cooked for my living, or swept. So I had to teach myself history, and teach myself to teach" (Desai, 1980).
This suggests that women’s ...
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... being controlled and dictated by their male counterparts. Moreover, she depicts women as marginalized and deprived of the equal opportunities as their male counterparts. They resemble colonial subjects whose lives are fractured. However, the novel portrays that amidst the plight in the male dominated society, a number of women remain adequately strong and lead their lives with confidence. One such character is Bim who is depicted as a character with unfailing strength. Unlike other female characters in the novel, Bim portrays strength and unparallel confidence. She faces the challenges in her life with her own set of principles and priorities. Though she faces unprecedented problems, she endures and succeeds. Therefore, through the character of Bim, Desai advocates women to remain strong and face the challenges of life with the dint of confidence and self respect.
Her realization that she is not alone in her oppression brings her a sense of freedom. It validates her emerging thoughts of wanting to rise up and shine a light on injustice. Her worries about not wanting to grow up because of the harsh life that awaits her is a common thought among others besides the people in her community. As she makes friends with other Indians in other communities she realizes the common bonds they share, even down to the most basic such as what they eat, which comforts her and allows her to empathize with them.
The contrast between how She sees herself and how the rest of the world sees Her can create extreme emotional strain; add on the fact that She hails from the early 1900s and it becomes evident that, though her mental construct is not necessarily prepared to understand the full breach against Her, She is still capable of some iota of realization. The discrimination encountered by a female during this time period is great and unceasing.
If Hosseini aims to convey a message that women are tantalizing and provide warmth to society but are hidden and masked, evidently there must be an issue causing this suppression of women in society; thus the political and cultural backdrop plays in to the impression the reader takes away from the novel. Hosseini conveys his message of enduring and optimism profoundly through these two characters. If not for the political and cultural backdrop of the novel, the story could not have been developed with the significance and comprehensiveness that it currently has, which essentially are the backbone of the impact this novel has on the reader through a striking presentation of reality that has never been seen in this light, sending a motivational message to fight for the right cause and endure when necessary to achieve the ultimate target.
Out of the three wonderful narratives given, the best one is “Stepping Into the Light” by Tanya Savory. While “Shame” by Dick Gregory is an interesting read, it is the weakest out of the bunch. The story had no clear setting, to many extra details, and a lengthy exposition. “I Became Her Target” by Roger Wilkins was a better executed story, even though it still had some flaws. This piece lacks any figurative language, but it was to the point and had clear organization. Thus, Tanya Savory’s piece was the best. It was easy to follow, used a constant symbol, and used some stories from others to make her point. So using narrative styles and elements in the best way, Tanya Savory wrote the better story.
The narrator and her husband’s interactions shows her as submissive in terms of gender equality. Although John perceives the narrator as a child with no volunteer ideas, it is shown in her journal that this theory is not valid because she was shaped to comply by the society and the norm. The narrator’s inferiority negatively impacts her mental and physical health to the point she had to rip off the wallpaper to break free. Nevertheless, when read critically, the story also unveil the women’s suffrage movement and its struggle. Since this story was published, women are slowly breaking away from men’s suppression and gaining more rights. In short, society and culture define gender roles; however, the changing economic, social, and education environment open up a new path for women. Nowadays, women are given the chance to prove themselves and can act beyond their gender roles. However, the equality between genders has not been achieved yet. Therefore, women should continue to fight for their rights and freedoms until they are treated with respect and enjoy
. There are many intangible thoughts about strict social structures and femininity and masculinity in the book telling about different relations of genders in the Ibo village. Being feminine in the book refers to being spontaneous, weak, unfavorable, hostile or impulsive. Being masculine in the book though is referred to being a strong man, always positive and favorable to life itself. The women bein...
Be that as it may, Deshpande makes gender central to her writings. Her works deal not only with ordinary women in ordinary, urban situations but stem from a firm belief that our lives are to a great extent governed by gender. Women she feels, have not participated in the process of word-making; the stories myths and legends in our Puranas, epics and kathsa have been written by men. Deshpande feels that women never start with a picture of themselves on a clean slate, their self-image honed by the hegemonic influences of myths, movies and current-day soap operas. She sees herself as a writer whose writing comes Deshpande’s real concern is to explore the root cause of the fragmentation and dichotomy of her characters and to observe what happens
Throughout the story there are several aspects of the Protagonist’s character that play a major role in the shaping of her future. During her childhood she often demonstrates a sense of fear when she is sent to her bedroom. “We were afraid of the inside, the room were we slept (pg. 549).” She is intimidated by her personal space because she does not have control over it. Later, she gains control by adding lace to her side of the room; symbolically adding personality to herself and slipping into womanhood. When she felt uncomfortable she exercised her imagination, to psychologically regain control over the confusion in her life. Her subconscious effort to control confusing times were carried on to her later years as she was constantly put in difficult situations, which helped her to adjust quickly to change during adulthood. The dreams she created changed when she began to place emphasis on her appearance-that which she could control, other than past dreams of heroism that seemed so distant from reality. The Protagonist filled her childhood with much pride and maintained a consistent focused upon the activities that filled her childhood. She relished working at the side of her father, taking immense pride in every aspect of her assigned duties. She proclaimed, “I worked willingly under his eyes, and with a feeling of pride (pg. 551)” Once after her father introduced her to a feed sales man as “my new hired man (pg. 551),” the Protagonist was flooded with pride as she “turned away and raked furiously, red in the face with pleasure (pg. 551).” In her later years her pride helped her to assemble strong self-confidence she used in her years of growing. Passion and depth were characteristics that impacted her future as a woman. Her passion and depth was revealed early on in the story ...
In the age of industrialization when rural life gradually was destroyed, the author as a girl who spent most of her life in countryside could not help writing about it and what she focuses on in her story - femininity and masculinity, which themselves contain the symbolic meanings - come as no surprise.
Through these two novels, we’re able to see the quandaries that women must face when modernity and old customs come head to head. Both of these women remain brave and to try to sustain their new found freedoms, despite any difficult encounters. It is these women with their fierce ideals that would make them pioneers for all women liberation movements.
Women play a key role in this novel in many ways. In the case of...
Sandhu, Sarbjit K. The Image of Woman in the Novels of Shashi Deshpande. New Delhi: Prestige, 1991.
In contemporary society, feminism is emerging as a theory of social construct. In literature it is often challenging to discover female characters that go beyond the limits of marginalized female stereotypes and roles as a means to transgress beyond societal norms. Women are characterized as subordinate objects, amid the dominant patriarchal nature entrenched amid the epic. In The Ramayana, women are portrayed as powerless objects that succumb to the manipulation of men as the text portrays a false empowerment of women, which ultimately succumb to common archetypes accustomed to women in literature; implementing a hierarchy of gender that institutionalizes male dominance amid female inferiority. The women of The Ramayana struggle to oppose the systemic patriarchy and pursue a pathway towards attaining dynamic elements of power, that enable their ability to embody autonomous authority. In Valmiki’s The Ramayana, while women appear to be empowered, ultimately they are feeble instruments utilized to fulfill the desires of men.
...es based on their desires instead of the desires of their male counterparts. As the women age, they take on new names to represent their physical and emotional changes. Naseem gains power as a married woman and becomes Reverend Mother while Mumtaz acquires power through the realization of her reproductive abilities. These women have varying degrees of power over their lives but it is limited to the value Indian society places on the domestic sphere and the importance of a woman’s place in this sphere. A married woman will garner more respect and have more of a voice than an unwed daughter living within her father’s household, while motherhood is regarded as one of the most important roles for a woman and given special considerations. Rushdie portrays ascension to power within the realm of the home and family by to show how power is passed between social boundaries.
Throughout her book, she has written about women as nurtures and sharing special bond with ‘prakriti’ and doubtlessly supportive. She describes a deeper meaning of feminity with the nature but her equating every woman with nurturing, life-sustaining feminine principles is a bit exaggerated. She assumes that nature and women share a lot in common, therefore women understands nature best and always work in a way which is supportive to nature. Also, she believes that it has always been men indulged in science, development and exploitation. If women are given opportunity, they are also achieve success in the ‘male dominated’ world of machines and