The Silent Protest Of Sita Against The Traditional Society In Anita Desai’s Where Shall We Go This Summer?

Abstract

Women in this large social and cosmic infrastructure of the universe were displaced at some point of time. Her role and contribution in the functioning of this superstructure is either ignored or sided away as marginal or peripheral. The feminist movement as such is woman's urge for being rooted and regenerated. It specifies her need to have a say (voice), possess a space and live for her fulfillment.

Anita Desai is a painter of the inner world. The world is full of violence and destruction for her female characters. They feel lonely and alienated in such a dark world. They are hopeless and full of despair, acutely aware of the emptiness and absurdity around them. Almost all her characters revolt against the existing patterns of life. The novelist seeks to discover and convey through her characters the intensity of internal conflict by probing deep down the mysteries of the mind. These protagonists reveal a bleak and sinister vision of life. Through their experiences and attitude they also exhibit perceptions set out in quest of meaning.

In Where Shall We Go This Summer? the island of Manori becomes Sita’s refuge and consolation. It also offers maternal refuge to her. It is Sita’s disillusionment with her immediate surroundings that had forced her to make a return journey. She was bored and tensed with life on the main land and hence this trip to Manori. She cannot enjoy her truncated existence in the city of Bombay. Hence Sita’s return to the island is an attempt to restore the magic and the mystery that surrounded the place. This paper focuses on the prodigious attempt Sita makes herself in the landscape of her past. Her escape to the island of Manori becomes more than an escape or a withdrawal. It is the process of reconciliation and recreation. It is an expression of her desire to be herself by going to the island. The paper traces how she succeeds in her attempt to see her inner self.