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Women’s Struggle for Identity in Anita Desai’s Clear Light of Day

By Marjan Heidari, Mina Abbasiyannejad and Ashkan Shobeiri.

Published by The International Journal of the Humanities

In her novel Clear Light of Day, Anita Desai portrays Indian women as marginalized characters facing challenges and burdens imposed by patriarchal society. They resemble colonial subjects whose lives are fractured. Among the female characters Bim, Tara, their mother and Aunt Mira, all are subordinated by a male-dominant culture which underestimates female subjectivity. This paper illustrates how these women manage their precarious situation and stand up to a society controlled by men. This study reflects on these women’s lives to see how they find different ways to assert their existence. One way in which these female characters survive is by entering male dominated society and adopting their language and culture. As these women are unable to improve their circumstances, they struggle to establish their own identity using the oppressor’s language and culture.

International Journal of the Humanities, Volume 9, Issue 3, pp.31-40. Article: Print (Spiral Bound). Article: Electronic (PDF File; 903.931KB).

Marjan Heidari

PhD Student in English Literature, University Putra Malaysia, Kuala lumpur, Serdang, Malaysia

Mina Abbasiyannejad

PhD Student in English Literature, University Putra Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Serdang, Malaysia

Dr Ashkan Shobeiri

Postgraduate Researcher, Department of English, Faculty of Modern Languages and Communication, University Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia