Anita Desai's In Custody: A Psychoanalytical Study

Deven Sharma, the protagonist in the novel is a lecturer in Hindi, in a small town Mirpore, lacking self confidence and apprehensive; unsatisfied with his job, his family and feels himself a “victim of circumstances as suggested by Mani. Here in this novel Anita Desai is not explicitly exploring inner recess of mind of perplexed Deven. In this research paper an attempt will be made to reveal the conscious and unconscious working of Deven's mind and its impact on his behaviour, using psychoanalytic approach focused on ‘character ’, where a character is considered a living human being so that psychoanalytical theories can be applied and various defences used by the ‘character ’to overcome his or her anxieties can be deduced.