Psycho-Analysis of Indian Woman in the Novels of Kamala Markandaya

Abstract

Kamala Markandaya, as a follower of Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Dorothy Richardson, and Henry James, delves deep into the inner workings of her characters to reveal their passions, goals, obsessions, pains, and struggles. Their life on Tuesday or Wednesday is not what it was on Monday or Sunday as various impressions come to their mind from all sides everyday. Chari, Ghosh, Sarojini, Dandekar, Rukmani, Nalini, Helen, Clinton, and others feel worried when they think about the past, the present, and the future. For the most part their previous events torment them and they have an existence of misery and hopelessness. While some impressions are trivial, others are as sharp as steel. As a novelist, she is highly conscious of the form and structure of each novel and hence avoids all useless impressions so as to give order and shape to the novel. She analyses her characters deeply, goes deep down into the inner workings of their mind and emotions. She brings out the struggle going on their mind. Her characters are reflective in nature. They suffer silently the arrows of pain and sufferings thrown by fate on their way. Markandaya displays some of her characters’ obsessions and agonies. She also puts them through travails and difficulties.  The characters also go through the journey of attachment and detachment. Almost every aspect of human nature and emotions has been dealt with very minutely by Kamala Markandaya in her novels. Sometimes, she criticizes her characters too for their drawback. Her treatment of her characters is objective, fair, detached and unbiased.