Thematic Analysis in Anita Desai’s Cry, the Peacock

Abstract

Anita Desai is an Indo-Anglican novelist who was born in Mussorie in 1937. She is one of India's most renowned novelists in English literature. Desai's unique approach sets her apart from other current Indian women writers who write in English. She is without a doubt a wonderful artist who employs exceptional symbolism in her works. Cry, the Peacock (1963), her first novel, depicts the emotional turmoil of a young and sensitive married woman who is plagued by a childhood prophecy of a tragic calamity. The purpose of this study is to describe Desai's expression by establishing a society free of male dominance. It delves into the subject of conjugal partnerships and disagreement. Desai portrays the theme of women's particular sense in comparison to men's, as well as how they suffer from mental and physical repression and become victims of a male-dominated social and cultural system. Desai's impressions are impulses-borne, reacting to human reality and environment according to her likes and dislikes. The novel is essentially a dream-stuff of the doom-haunted Maya. There is also an element of tragic pathos in her expressions, varying from one moment to another according to her anxiety-ridden moods. Thus, there is dreaminess in what she expresses and in what she reacts to.