Reconstructing the Self Through Narrative: Divakaruni’s The Mistress of Spices

Abstract

Time and Space are the two building blocks that create the layers of any narrative work. Andre Lefebvre while talking about the ‘Historical Notions of Space’ deals with the idea of ‘Lived Space’ and the ‘Third Space’ in reconstructing the self in imagination that has been kept alive and accessible by the narrative art. Space, along with time, is inherently embedded in the narrative structure of a text and both cannot be dissociated from each other. Space has the power to prefigure the balance between the different layers that create the narrative of any literary work. This paper will explore the idea of Time and Space that compose the narrative in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Mistress of Spices. This paper will also deal with the idea of time as the shifting construct and space as a locale in the structure that has been redefined through narrative in The Mistress of Spices by Divakaruni.