The Feminine Mystique: Kamala Markandaya's Nectar in a Sieve

Abstract

The paper analyses Nectar in a Sieve as an interpretation of life in the Post-colonial Indian context and as Feminist Literature. From the geocentric point of view, the novel under consideration is approached as Women’s Writing – Writing by a woman, speaking both for and as a woman. Kamala Markandaya may be classified as a feminist writer on the basis of her unique perspective as an Indian woman. The heroine, Rukmini, as presented in the novel, is true to her tradition and culture. She represents a woman’s struggle to find happiness in a changing India. The novel underscores the rampant hunger and indebtedness of the Indian peasant woman. Rukmini is not only a central character but also the ‘central consciousness’ through which the events come filtered to the readers. Kamala Markandaya’s approach is both realistic and humanistic. She portrays Rukmini as scaling great moral heights at the end of her life-long struggle. Rukmini’s tale could be any village woman’s tale in India of the fifties. She is the mainstay and binding force in the family. A woman of great fortitude and capable of deep understanding, it is she, who bears through all the suffering to emerge triumphantly. Markandaya upholds the virtues of love and motherhood. The novel presents the veritable saga of struggle and of the triumphant womanhood in the central character, Rukmini. A woman is not an island, she belongs to the mainland, the heartland of the human race.