FICTIONAL TECHNIQUES IN THE NOVELS OF ANITA DESAI

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FICTIONAL TECHNIQUES IN THE NOVELS OF ANITA DESAI

Journal Title: International Journal of Physical and Social Sciences (IJPSS) - Year 2012, Vol 2, Issue 9

Abstract

The word “technique” is derived from Greek word “techniko techno” meaning an art. Technique in fiction includes almost everything that goes into making the novel. Simplistically speaking, technique includes everything that the novelist uses for narrating his story. On finer level it means imagery, symbolism, point of view, chronological order of events, stream of consciousness, schematization of chapter division or some other basis of division of the novel, etc. Dialogue, language, characterization, and plot are some other aspects of fictional technique. Some novelists are deliberately conscious of technique and rely on technical innovations and some are satisfied with the mere basics. The word technique is derived from Greek word technikos techni meaning an art. Now we have to study her fictional technique in relation to her different novels. Curiously there is not a large corpus of criticism on her fictional technique and critics have addressed themselves to other aspects of her novels. Perhaps it is because she is not considered a technical innovator but it does not mean that she has no technique. As Mark Scorer has written no written can be without technique, as no painter can paint without brush and palette, so is the case with Anita Desai. Desai‟s experiments with non-traditional materials and technique give her a distinct position among the Indian English novelists. Her fondness for quotes from various writers serves a definite purpose. Desai‟s style or technique of delivering the thematic thrust is the vital agent; Language is the main element of her narrative style. Her use of language and dialogues is one of the features of her artistically conceived novels. Her first Novel Cry, The Peacock (1962) is a poetic novel with dense imagery. Her descriptions are poetic. Maya is not only emotionally starved but sexually also. Her frustration is of not getting physical pleasure; she expresses her dissatisfaction in the following manner. It is an act of delicate violence shown on jasmine buds: In a damp, white handkerchief, gathered into a nest, lay a heap of white jasmine buds that the gardener had plucked from the dawn fresh hedges that morning, for me to thread into garlands for my hair and wrists, and which, for some reason, I had forgotten. There they lay, almost palpitating with living breath, open white, virginal. I plunged my face into them and kissed them with a wild longing to pierce through that unimpeachable immaculate chastity of whiteness, to the very soul of their maddening fragrance. What dreams they conjured in swirls of scent, what passions, what scenes of love and farewell.....? I tore myself away from them, having bruised them with my kisses, and trembling, flung them against the mirror, at that fleeting image to which they belonged, and backed out of the room which was now terrorized by the vast, purple shadows of a dreadful night.1 Maya‟s overcharged sensibilities are described through animal imagery, on one hand there is the majestic image of the peacock, and on the other the protesque. This is how her neurotic state is described through a vision: “Wild horse, white horse, galloping up paths of stone, flying away into the distance, the wild hills.

Authors and Affiliations

Bikram Singh

Keywords

FICTIONAL TECHNIQUES THE NOVELS

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