QUEST FOR IDENTITY IN GITHA HARIHARAN’S THE THOUSAND FACES OF NIGHT

Abstract

Githa Hariharan’s first novel The Thousand Faces of Night (1992), highlights the survival strategies of women belonging to three different generations. The protagonist of the novel, Devi, being the youngest of the three, is the US-return modern woman who ends up in a bitter marriage. Another powerful character in the novel is her mother Sita, who strives for her self – assertion by aspiring to bridge the widening gap between tradition and modernity. Mayamma, being the last, is the old family retainer in Devi’s husband’s house, and is a atypical instance for women’s exploitation by patriarchal society. She belongs to the distant past with her affixed location in the suffocating tradition and whose pathetic life displays that for an Indian woman, married life becomes a success only if she endures all the torture heaped on her without retort.