A Thematic Study of Alienation and Repression in the Short Stories of Anita Desai

Humanities

This paper aims to study the themes of alienation and repression in the short stories of Anita Desai. The stories taken for purpose of study are from the volume, ‘Games at Twilight and Other Stories’ published in 1978. In ‘Games at Twilight’, and ‘A Devoted Son’ the central characters experience the feeling of being left out and alienated. Anita Desai was bestowed the Sahitya Akademi Award for her novel, ’Fire on the Mountain’ in 1978 and was shortlisted for the Booker prize on three occasions for ‘Clear Light of Day’ in 1980, ‘In Custody’ in 1984 and ‘Fasting Feasting’ in 1999.She was born in 1937 in Mussoorie, to an Indian father and a German mother, and raised alongside her three siblings. She grew up multilingual and spoke German, Bengali, Hindi, Urdu and English. She gravitated towards writing from early childhood. Her first novel ‘Cry, the Peacock’ was published in 1968. She taught at several colleges in the U.S.A. namely, Mount Holyoke College, Bharuch College and Smith College and is professor emeritus of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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