Time and Self in Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye and Anita Desai’s Clear Light of Day – A Comparison

Authors

  • Dr K. Chellappan Formerly Professor of English, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirapalli, and Formerly Emeritus Professor, University of Madras, Chennai, India

Keywords:

Time, Self, Margaret Atwood, Anita Desai, Comparative Study

Abstract

The paper proposes to compare Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood, Canadian Feminist novelist with Clear Light of Day, an Indian novel by Anita Desai who also has feminist interests. Both are stories of two women/sisters. Cat’s Eye show how Elaine comes to term with her sister as well as her past whereas Clear light of Day shows how Bim revisits her past and in that process rediscovers her own identity in relation to her sisters. Both novels show the evolution of the self in relation to time. Whereas Atwood’s approach to time is more scientific, Anita Desai’s approach is more poetic and mystical.

Author Biography

Dr K. Chellappan, Formerly Professor of English, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirapalli, and Formerly Emeritus Professor, University of Madras, Chennai, India

Dr K. Chellappan (born 1936) is the first professor of English in PG centre of the University of Madras which later became Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirapalli (1978-1996). On his retirement, he served as the Emeritus Professor in University of Madras and Director of the State Institute of English (1997-2001). His doctoral thesis on Shakespeare and Ilango as Tragedians: A Comparative Study was published by Tamil University (1985). His other publications include Tagore, Bharathi and T.S.Eliot (Annamalai University) and Oppiyal Tamil, Feminist Archetypes in Canadian and English Fiction and R.K. Narayan, The Ironic Myth Maker (Emerald). In 2016, he brought out a book The World as a Stage - Shakespearean Transformations. He has published numerous papers in journals such as New Comparison, New Helikan. He has presented papers in various countries including Singapore, Kualalambur, Hongkong, Hawaii, Mauritius, Berlin, Sydney, and Colombo. He has been to Moscow to carry out a project on language planning on a UGC Fellowship and to Canada on an Indo-Shastri research fellowship. He has served as the editor of Tamil Section of Sakitya Akademy’s journal Dhakshina. He has won several literary awards such as Poet Bharathidasan Award (Govt. of Tamilnadu), Anna Award and Tamil Chemmal Award (Madurai Kamaraj University), The Best Teacher Award, Tamilnadu Govt and the South Indian Publishers Award for contribution to English. He has also been conferred the Lifetime Achievement Award for Translation and the best Translator award, Tamilnadu Govt in 2017. He has been conferred the Certificate of Merit for contributions to Canadian studies by the Indian Association of Canadian studies at an International Conference. He has guided more than 50 Ph.D. scholars. He can be reached at chellappan_36@yahoo.com

References

Anita Desai, Clear Light of Day. New Delhi: Allied Publishers, 1980. Print.

Atwood Margaret, Cat’s Eye. Stewart Edition, 1988. Print.

Maini, Charu. “Margaret Atwood's Cat’s Eye; review.” Indian Journal of Canadian studies, 1991. Print.

Hawking, Stephen. A Brief History of Time. 1988. Print.

Rock, Paul. “The Self” The Making of Symbolic Interactionism. London: Macmillan, 1979. Print.

Acharya, Shantha. “Problems of the Self in the Novels of Anita Desai.” Explorations in Modern Indo-English Fiction. Ed. R.K. Dhawan. New Delhi: Bahri Publishers, 1982. Print

Downloads

Published

30-04-2018

How to Cite

Dr K. Chellappan. (2018). Time and Self in Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye and Anita Desai’s Clear Light of Day – A Comparison. Journal of Teaching and Research in English Literature, 9(2), 3–7. Retrieved from https://journals.eltai.in/index.php/jtrel/article/view/60

Issue

Vol. 9 No. 2 (2018): April

Section

Research Articles