Psychological Stress of Women in the Novels of Anita Desai

Abstract: This research paper focuses on the theme of Psychological stress of women in the
novels of Anita Desai. Female protagonists of her novels feel stressed, confused, derangement,
distress in this modern world. These are the basic traits of humiliating experience, sudden
unexpected death of some loved one like the death of Toto in Cry, the Peacock. It causes
confusion, visual images of the event etc. The entire female protagonists of her novels remains
in their own world of imagination, hearted by male practices or by the hand of the society.
They cannot adjust with the world. They always suffer psychological stress in this male
dominated society. This trauma is sometime inward, sometime outward. The female characters
fight their own battle, lives in a world of disillusionment. Most of her novels revolve around the
theme of psychological stress, fantasies and loneliness. Fuller remarks_” man suffers not only
from war, persecution, famine and ruin, but also from inner problems….a conviction of
isolation, randomness, meaninglessness in his way of existence”. This remark of fuller best
suited the condition of the protagonists in Desai’s novels.

Key words: Neurosis, Feminine psyche, Psychological stress, Alienation, Detachment.

Introduction: The 20th Century, especially the post war period, has witnessed great spiritual
stress and strain. Therefore it has been rightly regarded as “the age of stress and pain”. In this
age, man is brought face to face with confusion, frustration, disintegration and meaningless life.
Psychological stress is the main theme of Anita Desai’s all major novels. All the protagonists of
her novels suffer from the psychological trauma, isolation, suffering, loneliness, detachment
and rootedness. Psychological stress is the result of continuous feeling of alienation,
detachment, loneliness, emotional insecurity or loss of identity. Women writer of all ages have
a natural preference for writing about women characters. Anita Desai IS no exception in sos far
as she has written, by and large, about women characters; and no wonder most of her novels-
“Cry, the peacock”,(1963), “voices in the city” (1965) and “Where shall we go this
Summer”?(1975).
About the Author:
Anita Desai is one of the world famous and of India’s best novelist in English. She is an Indian
novelist, short story writer, screen writer. She influenced generations of writers. She uses
ordinary, everyday activities to portray something greater and universal.

Desai’s novels constitute together the documentation, through fiction, of radical female
resistance against a patriarchal defined concept of normality. She finds the links between
female duality, myth and psychosis intriguing; each heroine or protagonists is seen searching
for, finding and absorbing or annihilating the double who represents the socially impermissible
aspects of her femininity.

Neurosis define:
The word neurosis reminds us of the fact that there is a seamy side of our civilization. Society
compels every individual to repress instinctual urges and the desire for the free exercise of will,
all in the name of upholding its ideals and expectations which are very often oppressive and
anti- human. Neurosis is thus invested with profound psychological and social significance. The
Indian women novelist in English has fictionally treated the neurotic suffering of susceptible
characters. The female characters in Anita Desai’s novels are shown as grappling on the one
hand with the changed realities of life and the trauma they entail and on the other hand with
the psychic conflicts of personal origin. The hyper sensitive and deeply affectionate Maya of
Cry, the peacock gets her psyches far away from the ordinary course of life, and at the end,
nose-dive into the dark abysmal depths of psychological stress.

Feminine psyche define:

The word ‘feminine’ as used in this paper is not meant to denote “an essence of femaleness”
but it is a mode of characterization females in fiction. The novels of Anita Desai revolves around
the women protagonists who reflects the persisting grip of culturally imposed ‘feminine’, upon
their female conscious and unconsciousness. Thus it is implied that the author’s understanding
of what constitutes ‘Femininity’ in behavior and thoughts is intermingled with the creation of
female characters, who define themselves according to the socially prescribed norms of a
woman.
Psychological Stress/Trauma define: Trauma in everyday language means a highly
stressful event. It refers to extreme stress that overwhelms a person’s ability to cope.
Psychological trauma is the unique individual experience in which an individual experiences
(subjectively) a threat of life, bodily integrity, isolation, fear, helplessness.

The women characters in Anita Desai’s undergo a strain psychic experience and suffer from
failures and frustrations. They undergo psychological trauma due to their hypersensitive nature
and their insensitive husbands. Most of the female characters of Desai are either women with
affluent background or are were housewives. Their restricted surroundings make them suffer
intensively, due to which they react silently or violently.

Psychological stress of the protagonists in Maya- in Cry, the peacock:

In the novel Cry, the Peacock, Maya the young heroine, is a vivacious, but hypersensitive,
pampered, and lovely girl. Her father’s excessive care and concern makes her behave
abnormally in her later life. Maya sorrow begins with her marriage to Gautama who is rational,
middle aged, practical man of the world. He is insensitive to the desires of his young wife. He
does not relish Maya’s eccentricity and indulgence, therefore she feels lonely, isolated,
alienated, neglected and frustrated. The vast difference in their ages creates a wide chasm
between them. Maya expects more attention from Gautama, like the one that is given to her by
her father. Gautama chides her.

Life is a fairy tales to you still. What have you learnt of the realities? The realities of
common human existence, no love and romance, but living and dying and working, all that
constitutes life for the ordinary man. You won’t find it in your picture books and that was all
you were shown picture books. Maya has been a father’s “pet” since childhood when she grow
up, she develop a dream like quality in her nature, unable and unwilling to face the harsh reality
of life marriage and Gautama, but soon everything changed in her life incident occurred one
after the another. The death of Toto also starts a chain reaction within Maya and her fears lying
in the unconscious come to the force. Being childless, Toto is creates an emotional upheaval in
her life and she becomes inconsolable. Gautama indifference towards death of Toto makes
Maya neurotic which further worsens her condition. When Gautama does not pay heed to her
feelings, his indifference upsets her terribly and she becomes highly reactive. His coldness and
incessant talk of cups of tea and philosophy in order to hear Maya’s talk. Both of them suffer
from the temperamental differences that cause alienation between them. Because of this
feeling Maya becomes more stressed. This novel depicts the incompatibility between the
husband and wife as relationship between them. Maya suffers from hypersensitive fantasy and
is unable to lead a normal life. She has nothing to keep herself busy and to fill her lonely hours.
He did not give me second thought to either the soft, willing body or the lonely, wanting mind
that waited near his bed. All situation bring rise to frustration, loneliness, stress, and she
becomes psychic. Temperamental incompatibility make Maya unhappy, depressed, unfulfilled,
lonely, disappointed and alienated from her husband. Her life becomes stressful and mind
becomes psychic. Maya is governed by strange obsessions and becomes hypersensitive. It is
Maya’s desire to live and the fear of death haunts her that makes her to push Gautama down
the parapet.

Like Lady Macbeth, she becomes a victim of hallucinations

Which speed up the process of disintegration of her Consciousness.

Conclusion:
In all her novels Anita Desai presents her opinion about the complexity of human relationships
as a big contemporary issue and human condition. She is a contemporary writer because she
considers new themes like psychological stress and trauma and knows how to tackle them in
brilliant manner. Anita Desai takes up outstanding contemporary issue as the subject matter for
her fiction while remaining rooted in the tradition at the same time. She explores the anguish of
individuals living in modern society. She unravels the tortuous involutions of sensibility with
subtlety and finesse and her ability to evoke the changing aspects of nature.

Thus it may be concluded that in her novel Cry, the peacock she has portrayed different
facets of human feminine psyche and all the severe psychological stress she undergoes.

References:
Desai, Anita Desai, Cry, the Peacock, Delhi: Orient Paperback, 1980p.10.

Ibid, p.9

Paul, S. l., Commentaries on literary classics-1 –A critical study of Anita Desai’s Cry the peacock,
Harman publishing house; New Delhi, 1988, P.50

Khan, M. Q. “Depressed Women in Anita Desai’s Fiction” In Changing Faces Of Women In

Indian Writing In English.
Ibid. p.137- 139

Choudhary , Bidulata, women in society in the novels of Anita Desai, Creative Books: New Delhi,
1995.