Codes in Conflict: Post‐independence alienation in Anita Desai's early novels

Abstract

Abstract Many Indian novels of the early post‐independence years are characterised by a certain paralysis of both form and content, and a withdrawal from the public sphere. This essay, with reference to three of Anita Desai's early novels, examines post‐independence malaise as reflected in the internal conflicts of her female protagonists. These conflicts can be seen as symptomatic of contradictions within the Indian nationalist discourse, as Desai both rejects and reproduces its dominant structures and symbols. The ideological underpinnings of nationalism that are available to Desai and her protagonists are tried and found wanting, but alternative models are either lacking or rendered inarticulate by the political climate. The novels’ themes and conceptual frameworks are caught between nationalist rhetoric and women's lived realities, producing impossible double‐binds that result only in self‐destruction. Desai's work is illuminated by a growing body of scholarship on the gendered construction of Indian ...