Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s Technique as a Novelist
Keywords:
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Dual Nationality, Novelist, Native consciousnessAbstract
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala has achieved an international reputation as an Indian novelist. Though she is a European, her marriage to an Indian architect and stay in India have given her deep insight into India’s social, political, religious, economic, moral, and cultural life. Her knowledge of the Indian social and cultural ethos can be marked by the variety of themes that she has undertaken in her novels. Her artistic excellence, as a novelist lies in the method of handling her material. Due to her ‘dual nationality’, she is equipped with two types of consciousness i.e., native consciousness and the consciousness acquired from Western civilization. Her eight novels which appeared in quick succession deal with the themes like love and marriage in the bourgeois society, East-West encounter, pseudo-modernism in Indian society, the post-independence Indian ethos, affectation, and hypocrisy in the Indian middle class society. She handles her themes with dazzling assurance and presents a penetrating and compassionate picture of human relationships ironically and realistically. Though Ruth Jhabvala has made a significant contribution to Indian English fiction, she has not received proper attention from the critics of literature. The present paper is a vivid analysis of her literary craftsmanship.
References
Jhabvala, Ruth Prawer. To Whom She Will. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books,1985(Reprint)
---, The Nature of Passion. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1986.
---, Esmond in India. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1983(Reprint)
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---,A New Dominion. London: Grafton Books, 1986
---, Heat and Dust. Delhi: Rupa& Co, 1992
Jhabvala, Ruth Prawer. ‘Moonlight Jasmine And Rickets’ in The New York Times. New York, April 22, 1975. p.36.
Jhabvala, Ruth Prawer. ‘Moonlight Jasmine And Rickets’. The New York Times, New York, April27, 1975. p.35.
Mooney, Practicia W., An Interview of Ruth Jhabvala Published in Newsweek. 31 Oct 1977. under the title Another Dimension of Living.
Mortmer, Raymond. Review of “A New Dominion” in The Sunday Times, Feb 18,1973.
Sinha, K.N. Ed. R.P.Jhabvala: Talent And Technique’ in Indian Writing In English. N.Delhi: Heritage Publishers, 1979, p.157
Snow, C. P. ‘Review of an Experience of India’. published in The Final Times, Dec.14, 1972.
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