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Anita Desai stands out from all her contemporaries in the manner in she subtly explores the psyche of her protagonists to highlight the mysterious workings of their mind. This propensity for plumbing deeper into the consciousness of her fictional beings not only puts her in the mainstream of European and American fiction, but also that of international fiction. It added a new dimension to Indo-English fiction. Almost all Desai’s novels are suffused with various elements of psychology, even psychiatry. Her first one, Cry the Peacock (1963), the winner of Sahitya Akademi Award has rightly been considered as "the first step in the direction of psychological fiction in Indian writing in English". The consciousness of the protagonist is unfolded through flash-backs, images, symbols and an incoherent time scheme. Other psychological features are interior monologue, stream of consciousness and ‘fugue’ techniques. The novel highlights the three phases of ‘Maya’s neurosis : growth, development and climax’. Owing to the untimely demise of her mother, Maya’s overindulgent father unthinkingly married her off to Gautam—his own middle-aged lawyer friend, who is extremely incompatible with Maya. A psychoanalytical study reveals Maya becomes a psychopath whose emotional and mental needs come into confrontation with her husband’s practical outlook. Psychoanalysts have clearly established that unhealthy upbringing at home and dysfunctional relationships among family members are the cardinal causes of conflicts in children and adults. Overindulgence, dominance, submissiveness or negligence on the part of parents, loss of father or mother or both during infancy or childhood render a child incapable of coping with those he comes in contact with. Later in life, he often becomes a victim of contradictory drives. Loss of her mother at an early age, damaged Maya’s psyche and contributed predisposing causes for a deviant and negative behavior and depressive disorders towards the later part of her life. Her abnormal attachment to her father develops into an Electra Complex and under its strain, her relations with her husband deteriorate and are ultimately severed. In the state of frustration, to gratify her emotional starvation, Maya often looks back nostalgically at the pleasurable childhood days spent with her father. The reminiscences of the rosy past by her, serves as a substitute mechanism, which works as a defence against her anxiety and conflict. The gloomy state of affairs is unacceptable to the conscious self of Maya. Hence, she eases her tension psychologically by unconsciously reflecting on how peacocks ‘stamp their feet’ and ‘beat their beaks against the rock’, seize the snakes, then ‘break their bodies’ to shreds to relieve their own pain. This sense of violence impinges upon her consciousness and strongly craves for an outlet through a violent act. Whenever she is physically aroused she is reminded of the peacocks crying in pain, madly craving for mating. Emotional and physical satisfaction are manifested in the peacocks in the ecstatic consummation of love of which Maya is deprived. Her failure to sublimate her sex drive does not lead her to satisfy her repressed physical urges elsewhere. She experiences tremendous inner turmoil and anguish and almost becomes a deranged being with a wounded psyche. The title of the novel connotes unfulfilled love and desire. She thus, comes under the spell of delusion and experiences a change of mood with the foreboding that a sinister event is about to take place. It is this delusion and partly her obsessive-compulsive drives that lead her to kill Gautam towards the end of the novel. Such an act is often viewed as a direct expression of an undesirable motive or impulse. Whatever is not acceptable to the ego is repressed in the unconscious but surfaces suddenly at the conscious level at a moment and struggles for immediate fulfillment. Homicedalmania (compulsion to kill) is a strong motive and the impulse is realised by an individual suddenly and unconsciously without being aware. The compulsion to kill might also be a revenge reaction, springing from deep-rooted conflicts. Maya’s unconscious desire to kill her husband is a revenge reaction arising out of her own basic frustrations, unfulfilled longings and a reaction against her husband’s cold unresponsiveness. Events immediately preceding a depressive disorder often act as the last straw for a person who has been subjected to a long period of mental torture or unfavourable circumstances such as an unhappy marriage as in the case of Maya. Through this murder-suicide, she experiences glorious fulfillment and is relieved of both the past and ongoing present anxiety and tension gnawing at her psyche since her marriage. Evidently, Maya is the
most interesting and psychologically mystifying among all Desai’s
female characters. This is what renders Cry the Peacock a source
of perennial universal acclaim. |
