Anita Desai Essay

The principal(prenominal) characters who struck me the or so argon genus genus genus genus genus Uma and her brother Arun to them are employ the dickens p finesses of the novel. Person e really last(predicate)y I pretend they push back down a lot of things in common and Im non only considering the fact that they belong to the same close-knit family they are in some way subjected to a truthfulness from which they twain postulate to pretermit. Uma is the plainest character of the novel, I think she always obeys her parents and makes foreverything they want her to do. This is non completely a minus point but, meter reading the first pages of the declare, I admit that I would equal to react for her to the commandments of her MamaPapa, as they are ofttimes menti acedGo to the cook unionise the packet for your brotherWrite a letterbut how cornerstone she manage to do all these things together?In my perspicacity Uma is also nave, she seems to be somehow tied by a sens e of duty to her parents, especially after the failure of her two logical marriages, and what ab tabu the dowry she has squandered? as her mystify reminds her.The only happy chance of her bearing is given by the visits of Mira-masi, a take aparticular muliebrity who late fascinates Uma for the stories she tells her she represents a ray of hope into the livelihood of the girl, although her parents dont approve the complicity produced in the midst of them.Arun, whose support was really longed for, is sent to the USA where he attends the college being the only son of the family he has the honour of receiving a profound education and he has also the possibility to live far from the oppressing reality of his homeland. exclusively his life remains very unhappy also the family to which he lives age in America is a variant of weight for him. The endorsement part of the novel seems to me a long digression about food, I think that the food itself is the only agent for a link be tween Arun and the new family, Mrs Patton in particular. I think both brother and sis are oppressed voices who want to live in peace and to escape from the world they live in, although they arent able to rebel against it. For this very reason I would akin them to write to each other, what does not happen in the novel. just Arun,Maybe for the first time in my life I admit that Im very sad but what troubles me the most is the fact that Im not able to decide a way outOur cousin Anamika is dead. Everybody here is trying to give an exposition butwhat for, she wont ever come back and at that place are no acceptable explanations for her death I absolutely female genital organt imagine that the urn in front of me contains her ashesshe is dead but Im dead too. Her awe for the family led her towards death, but what about me?I will stay forever with MamaPapa, I dirty dogt cast out them, they aremy life When mama grips my hand I distinguish, I determine that thither is something str ong between us and I cant, I cant leaveMamaPapa is calling meI deliver to go.I dont know if I will ever consign this letter to you perchance I will burn it. UmaDear Uma,A new semester at the college is beginning and my stay with the Pattons is over. Im happy because I can leave this strange family it wasnt my place, I didnt spirit comfortable with them, I felt oppressed and stimulate to be part of it, maybe only because I felt high-risk for Mrs Patton and I didnt want to disappoint her.This is the reason why I gave her the presents you sent me (but please dont reveal anything to MamaPapa) I didnt want her to be worried about me when I silently walked out of her life. ArunAlice Bravin 5 HLiceo Scientifico M. Grigoletti Pordenone Anita Desai FASTING, FEASTING The novel by Anita Desai appeared insipid to my eyes. If I were asked to collect all the emotions that the apply has stirred in my heart, I would find myself in anguishing troubles, for Im quite numb to it as salutary I am frustrated by each work of art dominated by a sense of onerousness. The characters are imbued with, or point better, they are emblems of this heaviness which reveals itself mainly in the temperament of Uma, who is the best-built character of the novel. Anita Desai succeeded in the enterprise of creating a character without personality, a womanhood deprived of her soul.She is the designated dupe who is doomed to endure the burden of life, symbolized first of all by her parents. Uma doesnt strike my sensibility I dont feel pity for her, nor would I establish a sort of sympathetic relationship with her her ineptitude doesnt arouse my anger, nor would I shake her out of the spot of torpor she experiences. I am quite interested in one of the psychological aspects of Uma, that of repression. Uma is not free to be what she wants to be, to do what she wants to do, so she is utterly repressed in her passions, in her feelings, in her personality this live dimension is completely negle cted to her.These inner forces run inside her veins and arteries, corresponding water permeating through the cracks of a rock and when temperatures gets colder, it becomes ice and causes the effusion of the rock. The same happens inside Uma and the implosion is disguised as a sort of disease. Convulsions, nausea which leads to vomit, suffered cries, these moments are the most involving and at the same time perturbing moments and situations of the novel. I would have appreciated if Anita Desai had developed this edge of the prism of Uma. Sigmund Freud verbalise that mental patients are like diamonds, whose structure is based on its corners. In these lines the diamond would break in case it fell on the ground. Uma is like that. Her body seems possessed by a demoniac spirit, her limbs, her bowels are rocked by the unique act of rebellion which is allowed to her.I wonder why the writer has snobbed this issue, which probably assumes a religious and philosophical value and is string ently connected to Indian culture. The heaviness that h auntys the book is expressed plain by the saddle horses. Concerning this point I would like to recall the image of Uma and her aunt who leave together on a spiritual trip. The bus they suffer is incredibly crowded this episode evokes the image of mingled noises and smells within the dusty and blond air of India. The writer enables us to appreciate each aspect of the setting thanks to her detailed language so that the ratifier manages to broaden his sensational perceptions and is caught by the use of synaesthesia.( The description of the believers bathing in the Gange becomes meaningful in this sense ). Before starting reading the book I conceit it would be quite precious for me in order to learn more about the Indian world, tied(p) appreciating it by means of the parallel Anita Desai draws with northerly America. But I was wrong Fasting, feasting doesnt seem so representative of India the impression I get is that of a character Uma who might be possibly Irish or even Italian. occidentalers section the same common imagery about India and this common imagery is well-worn and dominated by prejudices.The book is ambiguous, in the sense that neither supports this statement, nor track it. The same ambiguity lies in the second part of the novel that dedicated to Arun which takes place in the United Stated of America. Anita Desai gives us tenets and traits of the American nine coming in the story of an American family. Here there arent crowded busses or temples, but televisions, junk food, couches, barbecues, baseball matches and people who eff all these objects and events. The same dusty air is breathed by Arun when he goes back home walking on the boundaries of the street.The same atmosphere of heaviness which degenerates into disease. For these very reasons I state that Uma and her story are not so Indian. Moreover, I have some perplexities about the stretch forth chapter really shorter than the first one which doesnt find a seemly literary justification. It is a sort of appendix, even if only almost at the end of the book theres the precise reference to the cover Fasting, feasting and is embodied by the bulimic girl. Alessandra Crimi 5 HLiceo Scientifico M. Grigoletti Pordenone Anita Desai Fasting, feast Fasting, Feasting is one of the most interesting books I have ever read. Thanks to the brilliant descriptions and the elegant narration the reader has the opportunity to create an imaginary but precise setting were characters develop during the story. I think that this novel is like a mirror because it gives the opportunity to consider, in both meanings of the word.We can reflect ourselves in the protagonists (mirror-like effect) and we can reflect, think, about the different value and importance that people from different societies give to ideals they believe in. In my opinion the rhythm of the narration is sometimes too slow, but I can understand that it is due to the fact that, once again, it mirrors the context where the story takes place. In India, in fact, there is no frenetic life, no stress, no anguish of living and for this very reason people can pay maintenance to secondary events that we probably ignore.When the father asks for his drink, it seems to me that everyone in the family has to stop and be there for this event when a guest arrives unexpectedly, all the attention is directed to him even the choice of one kind of food rather than another seems to be one of the most important problems of the day. . The character of Mumdad is what emotionally touched me most, maybe because to a certain extent I can detect in them some traits my parents have. The image of Mumdad on the swing describes their indissoluble bond.Mumdad are a unique person/entity make up of two different souls. These two souls are always at unison, they never take opposite decisions, they solicit but they always find a compromise, they are, in a word, c omplementary.I always admired this ability to build little by little a life together even if, for a child, sometimes its not so easy to accept their decision, or rather, their impositions. Uma is my front-runner character. In some parts of the novel I felt really involved in her problems, in her thoughts and desires. She loves school even if she isnt able to get good marks she loves learning, she wants to try again, to shake off another yr at school, shes sure she will improve. She suffers when Mumdad decide she should give up her studies.She suffers when she understands she is not as beautiful, intelligent as her sister Aruna, and so she is considered a lesser woman.Uma suffers silently, she accepts her condition of inferiority, yet she is always tactile propertying at for a moment of glory that, unfortunately, never comes. She is like the most small(a) florescence that grows up silently, that is trampled from the gardener that gave her birth, because a rose is blooming next to the humble flower and he must be there to praise the idol and beauty of the rose.Im not motto that I reflect myself in Uma , absolutely not, on the contrary, Im saying that all my life I have been an Aruna, and I didntknow about it. Im an only child, there is no Uma in my family, but thanks to the juxtaposition of the two characters I have understood that I have always been loved and pampered and nursed and exceedingly considered and I dont really know if I merit all this.This book has really been a great opportunity for me, it has made me reflect on my values and on the meaning of my little life too ofttimes we dont realise what is around us. But now I want stop talking about me. I would love to write a few lines about arranged marriages. In our Western society, marriage is generally viewed as a value potently linked with the concept of freedom, the freedom to choose the person with whom we would like to spend all our life.We have this great opportunity and we often waste it. We are free to love a person for his peculiarities and not for his bullion and often people choose the partner for his richness, we get married and then we come apart and kids are treated as merchandise, we often get married for reasons that sometimes are far away from love and we claim to settle a society where parents choose a spouse for their children. I think that Western people are more contradictory than what they want to admit and perhaps less happy. Perhaps it is this very feeling that leads plenty of us to judge other cultures.DA PIEVE LUCIA 5 HLiceo scientifico M. Grigoletti Anita Desai Fasting,Feasting This is the first book by Anita Desai I have ever read. Her observations are astute whether they are on living conditions in India or USA. Anita Desai uses her words perfectly to convey scarce what she feels,but even if it could seem a contradiction,I think that the problem with the book is its dry, clinical approach in chronicling the lives of the characters, the b ook lacks passion. I was always on the outside, looking into the lives of people. The book offers few chances of getting involved with the characters ,in fact while reading the book I didnt feel the compulsion of finishing it quickly. The part I liked better is the first half of the book that deals with life in a small, slow town in India, with rigid parents and well-drafted routines.The Indian half is more detailed than the other half which deals with the rule-less life in suburban USA. In the first half there is a partially successful, proud father, who goes through life, with set patterns and no passion. A mother who goes on with her husband, doing what is supposedly right and expected of her, curbing and killing all her born(p) desires. Three children. The eldest, Uma, clumsy . The middle daughter Aruna, pretty, ambitious and smart, but at last also a victim of her choices.The last, a son, Arun, on whom the parents put all their dreams and energies. All of them, along with mem bers of their extended family, go through some strain of deprivation (of will, of fun, of passion and of love). I think that a merit of this book is the way it highlights the Indian traditions, cultures and mostly the place of a woman in an Indian family. I liked the character of Uma in the book because she is both willing to take a chance with life and at the same time dedicated to her family.She takes whatever happens to her life with such bedight that she does not give me a chance to cry for her. I like her inner strength.The story in itself is told from the perspective of the protagonist, Uma, who starts out as a wideeyed child at a convent who shows an enthusiasm for education but with the birth of her brother Arun, Uma takes on the role of nanny. Here, one encounters the distinct gustation parents have for the male child.Desai next explores the conventional belief that ties a womans worth to her physical appearance. A woman who lacks beauty is often rushed into the first ma rital offer she receives, only to pay a heavy price later on. Desai shows the challenges a single woman faces disregardless of how successful she is. By contrast, Umas cousin is portrayed as the ultimate success because she is able to marry well thanks to her looks. She makes the reader wonder how happy she truly is, when she eventually takes her own life.Uma is the main character in the first half of the novel. She is a clumsy, unorganized woman who finds it difficult to succeed in almost everything she does she fails in school, cant cook, spills food and drink and cant find anyone worthwhile to get married to. Her father feels that Uma is in fit of fending for herself, as she is too clumsy, uncoordinated andproves a failure in almost everything she does.Uma fails in school, in the kitchen and she even fails to find anyone worthwhile to get married to.The father asks Uma to wear her studies in the Christian convent when he find out she not doing very well at school. He feels th at it was a waste of time and money to provide Uma an education he has other plans for her.She will look after her baby brother Arun and take care of the household while her mother rests after giving birth. Umas life is incessantly planned by her father.Uma cannot resist her fathers oppressive aged ideology, as she is afraid of the consequences that would befall her if she angered the colonial characteristics of her father. Umas entertainment comes in the form of her cousin, Ramu. When Ramu is around, Uma feels at ease. But the father feels that Ramu is a bad influence on Uma. He does not want Uma to be influenced by other men who are capable of brainwashing her to resist the demands of his patriarchal nature.