Picaresque Elements in Starry Nights

Abstract

Shobhaa De’s Starry Nights contains many picaresque features. A picaresque novel deals with the typical story of a ‘picaro’- that is Spanish word for ‘rogue’ or ‘rascal’ who lives by his own wits and shows little of any alteration of character  through the long succession of his adventures. Picaresque narrative is realistic in manners, episodic in structure, and usually satiric in aim. In other words, a picaresque novel deals with the adventures of rogues and vagabonds. The picaro is a clever and amusing adventurer of low- social class who makes his way by tricks and roguery rather than by honorable industry. Then he/she does some adventure, he /she begins with petty menial tasks such as performed by household servants and valets. His /her immoral rascality is hairbreadth sort of actual criminality and offence.