Portrayal of female psyche in anita desai’s novels

Anita Desai, the foremost and arguably the best of the second generation Indian Women novelists in English, gave womanhood a touch of psychological realism. She brought about a sea- change in the portrayal of women characters and added a new dimension to the fiction of Indian women. Unlike her contemporaries like Kamala Markandeya and Nayantara Sehgal, Desai is primarily concerned with the inner life of her heroines. What distinguishes her from most of the other Indo- English Novelists is her ability to portray the contemporary women psychological struggle for individuality and her search for identity. Desai does not resort to sensationalism in exploring the life of women in her novels. She portrays the alienated self of woman. In a large number of novels she has created a variety of women characters that are psychologically affected as a result of their utter helplessness in asserting themselves as human-beings deserving a measure of dignity. The dominant theme in most of her novels therefore is the struggle of woman against the experience of agony of existence in a hostile and male dominated society. Her woman characters are hyper sensitive; they find themselves maladjusted and misunder stood most of the time.