Fictionalization of Existential Predicament of Indian women: A Thematic

Study on Anita Desai’s ‘Cry, the Peacock’

Sushmitha.M.S.,
M.Phil. scholar,
Vels Institute of Science & Advanced Studies,
Pallavaram,
Chennai-117.
sri.sushmitha93@gmail.com
&
Dr. Suresh Ponnurangam,
Associate Professor,
Department of English,
Vels Institute of Science & Advanced Studies,
Pallavaram,
Chennai- 117.
drsureshponnurangam@gmail.com

Abstract

Existentialism is a contemporary conviction clear in the philosophical and scholarly work of

Sartre. It was much in form in the European writing going back to mid-twentieth century. The

term existentialism implies that it grasps different mental convictions of human instinct.

Existential characters are exceptionally touchy and discouraged with various volatile changes.

They are directed by their own particular enthusiastic instinctual character and they follow in a

committed and steady way independent of the results. The inspiration driving this paper revolves

around the point 'the subject of estrangement in Anita Desai's Cry, the Peacock'. Alienation is the

feeling of antagonism from society or the self, distinguished in logic, the sociologies, and writing

as a central component of current life. Hegel or Karl Marx commenced this thought in the

nineteenth century. For Hegel, estrangement is the inescapable condition emerging from the hole

between human cognizance and the common world, between the internal world and the external

world. The female protagonist in this novel is being distanced, confined, isolated and withdrew

in the cutting edge world. These are thought to be as the fundamental attributes of existentialist
practices, as existentialism is the essential underlying foundations of alienation. The female

protagonist stays in their own reality, live in creative energy and overwhelmed by male practices

in the hands of the general public. They surmise that the world is brimming with cold-

bloodedness on the grounds that it never offers significance to the individual emotions and

requirements. The novel Cry, the Peacock is a pattern setting novel as it manages the psyches

instead of physical parts of the characters. Maya, the central protagonist of the novel is depicted

as an enthusiastic character whose looming disaster is suggestively foreshadowed on numerous

occasions.

Keywords: Alienation, Existentialism, Cry, the peacock

In the arbitrary of the renowned Indian women novelists, Anita Desai shines as a colorful

woman in the horizon of Indian English literature as a fertile and skilled writer. She is

significantly worried about the inward mystic emergencies and clashes emerging in the psyches

of Indian women in her novels. She looks to investigate the inward scene of Indian women and

unmask psychoanalytically the mystic components of such emergencies in their existential

scrape. Her goal in the novels is clear to externalize the introversive personality of her

characters. Anita Desai is engrossed in her novel with the topic of existential unsteadiness and

instability experienced by her women protagonists. In her novels, Desai depicts the

hypochondriac personality of her women protagonists who experience disappointment and

catastrophe in their conjugal and residential life. She raises the state of misfortune that they face

and how it encroaches upon their peaceful condition of individual or family life. Her characters

especially the women protagonist continually battle against such negative conditions and grab a

shot with a specific end goal to reestablish peace and delight to their lives. In any case, they

finally feel pounded and encounter terrible and masochist experiences. Anita Desai's subject is
the existential dilemma installed in the social milieu where men and women are appeared in

contrastive terms men being the ruler, women being ruled over. Her protagonist is influenced by

the issues of dejection, estrangement and negativity. She thinks about in her books the status of

women in the male-driven social setup. In the western soundness, the hidden establishments of

existentialism have been taken after back by Socrates, Saint Augustine, Saint Paul and Pascal.

While, the cutting edge existentialist development has started in the logic of Soren Kierkegaard.

Kierkegaard concentrated on the human subjectivity and all around perspectives. He additionally

underlines the hard reality that existential man encounters the sentiment 'Dread'. As indicated by

Kierkegaard, Dread is the conundrum in the man's life which makes him an animal who needs to

think about his future in the meantime also fears about it. He portrays that genuine presence has a

plausibility which changes a man into reality through a conviction-based action. Another

existentialist, Martin Heidegger had largely given the credit of defining the expression as

'presence goes before quintessence', which constitutes the very premise of the logic of

existentialism. Heidegger says that man is that the being that knows about he can pass away. He

flops hopelessly toward the fulfillment of life and moreover to that he knows about that passing

is bound yet prejudiced in lightweight of however it's ineluctable in light of the fact that it marks

possibility of life. Life is hurled among nothing and nothing. Passing is its point of confinement

and is its prevalent credibility. Jean-Paul Sartre is depicted as the favored minister of the

fundamental existentialist change in France. Sartre clarifies, man is confounded way outtake

what he makes of himself. Such is ramble the elementary important of philosophical standard

else it is in virtually like the brain what's referred to as subjectiveness. Sartre fights, that there's

no God, man is on a particularly elementary level is the issue that he makes. It is aforesaid that

philosophical doctrine created its 1st move to form every man aware of what he's and to have an
effect on the complete commitment of his existence to get on him Consequently, the

accentuation in Sartre's existentialism rationality is on 'Getting to be' and not on 'Being'.

Existentialism is worried about the changing human condition and the diverse procedures

embraced by individuals to manage their existential situations. In Anita Desai's fiction, the

women challenges in various courses against their otherworldly conditions. In existentialism,

man is viewed as a forlorn and distanced, loaded with the duty of picking between two restricted

methods for living, one way is being bona fide and the other way is having a lacking honesty.

Anita Desai's characters need to settle on comparable decisions in the comparable conditions. In

her novels, she over and over communicates the existential problems and spotlights on

estrangement and depression through her characters. She investigates the human circumstance

through existential point of view. Anita Desai investigates the existential state of present day

man in the advanced situation. She demonstrates her worry about the baffle in which man gets

himself today. The effect of distance which shows itself differently as the age hole, the

arrangement of life, the repressing of self-improvement and the perceptible nonattendance of a

feeling of the importance of life. Desai brings an awesome move of center from society to

independence which thus prompts a difference in condition. The twentieth century has been

legitimately called the time of separation as the bleeding edge of man is bound to persevere. As

appeared by Harish Raizada, the astonishing effect in her books is stretched out in light the way

that the external conditions not simply abuse the prestigious individuals in her books from

outside yet, in like way, contortion their way from inside. Every one of Anita Desai's books tries

to confront the focal tasteful issue of the advanced author. The issue of rendering complete

human personality amid a period of lost characteristics lost men and lost Gods.
 The novel manages the entire distance of its hero Maya-an overly sensitive animal of

unadulterated nature from her environment. She is hitched to Gautama, an unfeeling, sagacious,

and levelheaded supporter with whom she can't accommodate all her life. The estrangement

amongst Maya and Gautama is Maya's exceptional association in her own internal universe of

hallucination. She is significantly associated with past, lives almost in a universe of memories

while Gautama regards the importance of action because of his perceiving nature. The

estrangement amongst a couple is very obvious in the absolute starting point of the novel. The

demise of her pet puppy Toto influences her profoundly; the torment she encounters its passing

is zero chance like Gautama's reactions who dexterously manages the truck to pass on the body

of the doggy way. Maya is broken by a reality too difficult to hold up under her creative ability

takes full charge of her thinking. Demise of Toto summons a swoon fear; her 'tear-hazed vision'

is obscured by a horrendous feeling of fate. She records the closeness of spooky something, that

asked her into yielding that it was not her pet's destruction alone that she mourns over yet in

addition another agony that is unremembered in which she encountered and raised her fall into

trouble. To facilitate her agony, she needs the guaranteeing warmth of Gautama which in any

event for her he is unequipped for. One purpose behind Maya's present state might be the

damaging impact of her dad. Maya being a motherless tyke, her dad concentrates all his

consideration on her. With his autonomous way of life, Maya had carried on with an ensured life

that hampers her flexibility of developing as a person. The father's over-cautious love does not

empower her any flexibility to create, ponder as a man. As a woman she can't relate herself to the

substances of wedded life. She feels mediocre because of the powerful urge in her to raise herself

above others. So as to set up her uniqueness and vainglory, Maya works around herself an arbor

of bougainvillea and jasmine buds palpitating with living breath, open, white, virginal. Anybody
nonconformist for this world is substandard compared to her. The environment in Gautama's

family is accused of scholarly and social exchanges, it does not have the higher affectability of

Maya. For Gautama, Maya is in the unnatural circumstance and he credits it to her dad’s

obsession: In case of Freud it would all be uncommonly clear and subsequently appear as

brightly obvious that she has taken in her pre-adulthood and adolescence into thought. She has an

outstandingly clear father obsession which is in like manner the inspiration driving that married

him, a man such an extraordinary measure of more prepared than yourself. It is mind-boggling

that, unless she develops quickly she won't be able to administer, to destroy. Maya tries to break

down her inclination and looks at her recollections of the past so as to achieve the wellspring of

this aggravation. She feels for some sort of importance and this goes to her in flashes, first amid

a discussion with Gautama the word 'extreme' helps her to remember a specific night in her past

and by then inside the stillness of the evening time once the moon gets for her a mischievous

look. she knew about an awesome, dead hush in which her eyes opened to a dream that showed

up through the window ornaments of the years, one by one falling back till she again observed

that shadow. A dark and malice shadow was recollected that is now called as destiny. As Maya

thinks that Gautama is altogether unique in relation to her dad. He is frosty and feeling less

fascinated with his work but he is successful yet not inspired by her embodiment. He is an

individual who saw no motivator in anything not as much as the musings and theories considered

him as a human being in a perfect way who remained 'continually untouched, unscalded'. In any

case, his methodical propensities are especially similar to Maya's father and there more likely

that there more probable that there is some purpose behind the family relationship that existed

between the two people. Her dad, Raisahib, having confidence in acknowledgment did not allow

dialog though Gautama was keen on engaging Maya at the level of contention. Maya, through
the demonstration of marriage, has exchanged her adoration for her dad and desires of him to

Gautama, subsequently endeavoring to drive an advantageous picture on him. Gautama guides

this out toward her: He is the one in charge of this for influencing her to trust that all that is

essential on the planet is to have wealth, solaces, posies, dollies, steadfast retainers-every one of

the extravagances of the fables. She was brought upon in her life as a children's story till now.

Aside from father-fixation and incongruence with her better half, Maya is exasperating by

another marvel the prescience made by a pale skinned person celestial prophet that one of the

couples would pass on soon in an unnatural way. She can't escape with the prospect of celestial

prophet, whose eyes are pale, thick and give him an appearance of disease. As to effect of this

prescience upon extremely touchy Maya, Iyengar comments: Over the entire account in Cry, the

Peacock, which is extremely Maya's push to disclose herself as to find some significance in her

life and even to legitimize herself where there are floats of abusive feeling of casualty. Amid this

bad dream of energized and instigated enduring, she moves more distant and more remote far

from reality, slipping into the frightful well of depression and falsity where the main echoes are

those of the pale skinned person's fear forecasts and of the peacocks' cries of death at the times of

adoration and climax. The symbolism here of pit, hall and well would propose her fear, distance

and obscurity, even as she unwittingly hungers for a stop: the hot, shivering sand which

summoned up again the vision of miserable pale cleaned individual who had tossed the shadow

like a net across finished me as she had fled down the passage of years, understanding that they

and their dears are all stunning, even before the tempests achieve an end. Other than her dad and

Gautama, Maya has her present friend Laila who is nursing a withering spouse, surrendered to

her destiny and furthermore to her decision. She had hitched him realizing that he was a patient

with tuberculosis. There is likewise Pom, who, subsequent to parading her in-laws, submits
humbly to her relative where the introduction of a child is concerned. Her companions, her

environment, her dad's submission to the inevitable all these lead her to feel caught in the

shadow of a soothsayer and the conviction that she is sentenced to bite the dust. This positively

drives her to esteem each snapshot of Gautama's organization that life is so unaccommodating to

her requests. In her requirement for comfort, Maya swings to Gautama's recommendation of

separation from the world. Be in that situation, separation is hard to achieve and connection

prompts implosion. The Freudian buildings are clearly the author's worry in the novel. Maya

shrouds her forceful characters behind her self-destroying and self-limiting procedures. She

anticipates herself as a defenseless, enduring casualty; a childless lady, held by the mishap of her

pet's passing. Her demonstration of pad beating and crying pathetically empowers her to consider

herself to be a defenseless kid. These underlying articulations prompt self-centeredness. Mental

indications, such as slitting migraines and fever happens. Maya winds up pernicious when at last,

the self-distanced itself from the genuine focus and self-loathing grabs hold the legitimate result

of a contention between Maya's pride framework and her genuine self. A reasonable photo of

Maya's mind regarding different themes, dreams, and mental trips running all through the story.

The repetitive picture of moon recommends the quick falling apart mental territory of Maya. In

her intensely bothered express, the moon appears to her as undermining and spooky, which is

like a satanic animal that the wild move is joined by a stunning thunder of noiseless drums. Later

is delineated as a full-bosomed women sparkling over the sky. The moon seems like an

extraordinary multifoliate rose, waxen white, throwing a light that was sacred in its

immaculateness, a delicate suffusing shine of its purity, providing a reason to feel ambiguous

about its appearance the night with a huge, delicate mother love. Gautama meddles amongst

Maya and her loved moon; thus she rebuffs him to death. Emblematically, the situation of the
moon in the sky parallels the clearness of musings of Maya, they advance to a similar degree and

the moon turns into an image of her mind. Maya voices her inconvenience and she anticipates

her self-loathing on Gautama. Her essential nature is self-depravity. She persuades herself that

Gautama does not love life. In addition, he has harmed her psychotic pride by dismissing her

affection. With a specific end goal to repress her mayhem, she slaughters him in a malicious

anger. The way to understanding Maya's character lies in appreciating her partitioned self. There

is no endeavor at self-investigation to stop her requests. The quick shriveling self and the

vanishing contact with the external world, leave the center of her honesty debilitated. Her

inability to discover life and a greater amount of it turns into a shocking wrongdoing. She

censures Gautama for it and afterward, loaded with blame, and frequented without anyone else's

input hatred, self-allegation and self-loathing, she drags herself into finish obscurity of the

universe of the crazy. This excessive touchiness of Maya is in charge of her partitions or

estranged self that prompts a consistently extending hole in correspondence amongst her and her

better half. The picture of this estrangement and hole is cognized by her in the situation of the

stars in the sky which passes is connected with those spaces, the haziness talked about

separation, partition, forlornness dejection of such extent that it broke the obligations of that

solitary word and every one of its affiliations, and went spilling and spreading out and around,

lapping the stars, every one disconnected from the other by so much. She cried to herself but

what is the utilization? she is separated from everyone else. What she considers is that the stars

consistent with her own particular life as well. Both she and Gautama are estranged from each

other and that space of distance comprises of the death-the demise of both of the two. She

murders Gautama so as to overcome any issues. This helps us to remember Edward Albee's play

The Zoo Story (1958) where Jerry, the hero, keeping in mind the end goal to build up contact or
conquer any hindrance of correspondence, executes himself. The distinction is that by

slaughtering himself Jerry prevails in his point while Maya, in the present novel, does not.

Anita Desai has contributed an extensive measure to the propelled Indian novel in

English. Every one of the heroes of Anita Desai's books confront the same existential emergency.

Her style of composing is totally associated with her worry with existential issues. She remarks,

through her heroes, on the brutality and hostility which happens in the general public. She

additionally remarks on the contention amongst internal and external reality, however her

essential concern stays with the preposterousness of human condition, with the existential look

for the significance of human life and an investigation of the difficulties and the decisions that

people look throughout everyday life. Anita Desai's each work is a look for implications, for

values and for truth. The heroes of her books challenge in various courses against the profound

condition. Existentialism is worried about the perpetual human condition and the distinctive

procedures embraced by individuals to manage their existential difficulties. The man is desolate

and distanced, troubled with the obligation of picking between two restricted lifestyles. The

potential futility of human presence has rusted human life from the different quarters. The

existential involvement with nothingness is regular of present-day man's life. The advanced man

experiences inward issue a conviction of disengagement, unimportance in his method for

presence. It has been dealt with in impressive detail in American and European writing. Anita

Desai truly sets herself to voice the quiet tragedies of wedded ladies fortuned by existential

issues and scrapes. She is more intrigued by the inside scene of the psyche than in social and

political substances. In her fiction, there is a push to discover and after that to underline

ultimately to pass on the essential ones. Her heroes are people for whom aloneness alone is the

fortune. Desai's undeniable existentialist concerns have recognized her from different authors of
her age. Thusly made by Anita Desai accept a basic piece of the front line circumstance where a

man needs to go up against such countless and issues for their viable nearness. In total, Cry, the

Peacock is a spearheading exertion towards uncovering the mental issues of a distanced lady. As

Meena Beliappa comments that the vigorous contemplation of Maya denotes a significant self-

preoccupation in Indian fiction. It focuses to a line of huge advancement - investigation, not of

the 'social' man, but rather 'the solitary individual. The novel is an intense investigation of the

encounters of a bothered and estranged personality.

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