Abstract:
The present article on Anita Desai’s Fire on the Mountain tries to explore not only the fight and struggle of women to set them free along with nature from the subjugation and oppression of masculine culture but also their attempts to subvert the age-old gender binary in terms of nature/culture dichotomy. Since the feminist movement in the late 1960s, one issue over which discussion has often been held is to what extent the oppositional role of women and men can be conceived of in terms of nature-culture dichotomy and what implication this dichotomy actually gives as regards to the position of women in society. As per this dichotomy, masculine culture/ feminine nature binary appeared later and this binary gave birth to many binaries like mind/body, objective/subjective, rational/emotional, public/private, in each of which the former is indicative to masculine culture, whereas the later to feminine nature. By this formulation, women are victims of universal devaluation that stems out from the patriarchal way of looking woman as nature-identified and perceiving them as such, male society is devaluing and derogating them in comparison to culture which as per this logic, is completely under the domain of man, can mould nature and woman as per its requirement and thus establish its superiority over them. Disregarding this nature-culture dichotomy, ecofeminism seeks plea for the equality of woman with men and in this regard, it differs from liberal feminism which only believes in the freedom of women. As an ecofeminist text, Anita Desai’s Fire on the Mountain presents the struggle of characters in accepting this nature-culture dichotomy. This struggle is apparent in their role and action. The female characters in the novel, being identifiable with nature, seek solace and freedom in nature in order to escape masculine culture, whereas men go to the extreme to control them. In this struggle and fight, women do not retreat even in adverse situation, though they are succumbed to masculine culture and are even made victim of death and destruction. The paper tries to explore not only the fight and struggle of women to set them free along with nature from the subjugation and oppression of masculine culture but also their attempts to subvert the age-old gender binary in terms of nature/culture dichotomy.
Key Words: Binary; Culture; Ecofeminism; Environment; Nature; Woman
Ecofeminism is a study of gender relation resulting out of nature-culture binary where woman stands for nature and man for culture. Since the feminist movement in the late 1960s, one issue over which discussion has often been held is to what extent the oppositional role of women and men can be conceived of in terms of nature-culture dichotomy and what implication this dichotomy actually gives as regards to the position of women in society. This dichotomy was first formulated by Sherry Ortner in her celebrated book Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture? (1974). Since then, this formulation has been challenged and questioned. As per this formulation, masculine culture/ feminine nature binary appeared and this binary gave birth to many binaries- mind/body, objective/subjective, rational/emotional, public/private, in each of which the former is indicative to masculine culture, whereas the later to feminine nature. By this formulation, Ortner shows the universal devaluation of woman stemming from the patriarchal logic that looks upon woman as nature-identified and perceiving woman as such devalues and derogates her in comparison to culture which as per this logic, having productive and controlling role, can mould nature and woman as per its requirement and thus establishes its superiority over them. Woman, being involved with procreation and childbirth, is closer to nature and has no right to be involved with culture which comes completely under the domain of patriarchy and by which she is merely influenced as per its requirement.
“In other words, woman’s body seems to doom her to mere reproduction of life; the male, in contrast, lacking natural creative functions, must (or has the opportunity to) assert his creativity externally, “artificially,” through the medium of technology and symbols. In so doing, he creates relatively lasting, eternal, transcendent objects, while the woman creates only perishables –human beings” (Ortner, 75).
Disregarding this nature-culture dichotomy, ecofeminism seeks plea for the equality of woman with men and in this regard, it differs from liberal feminism which only believes in the freedom of women. Out of basic assumptions resulting out of nature/culture dichotomy that woman and nature are inferior to man and culture, ecofeminism appeared to glorify the role and activity of woman and nature as regards social progress and human civilization. As an ecofeminist text, Anita Desai’s Fire on the Mountain presents the struggle of characters in accepting this nature-culture dichotomy. This struggle is apparent in their role and action. The female characters in the novel, being identifiable with nature, seek solace and freedom in nature in order to escape masculine culture, whereas men go to the extreme to control them. There are three female characters in the novel. All of them wage war against masculine culture by their own ways of thinking and action. But men, in the garb of culture, try to restrain their action and even adopt oppressive means to take both women and nature under their control. In this struggle and fight, women do not retreat even in adverse situation, though they are succumbed to masculine culture and are even made victim of death and destruction. The novel presents the oppression of nature and woman by masculine culture and the fight of woman to set them free from this subjugative oppression.
Moving around three women characters- Nanda Kaul, Raka and Ila Das, Anita Desai’s Fire on the Mountain presents the theme of woman-nature interface and the victimization of both woman and nature by the oppressive hands of masculine culture. Nanda Kaul, a widowed great-grandmother, in spite of being loyal and dutiful to her husband when he was alive, suffered the betrayal of love from his unfaithful husband who had been extra-marital affair; Raka, the great grandchild of the family is the victim of an abusive drunkard father and Ila Das, Nanda Kaul’s childhood friend, remained unmarried throughout her life, is the sufferer of her brother’s selfishness and due to her reformist idealism, she is humiliated, tortured, raped and killed by patriarchal mindset :
“The woman protagonists are portrayed as victims of an aberrant urban milieu, patriarchal family structures and bourgeoisie, bureaucratic, imperialistic, colonized, social scenario. It is in this context that the characters are in a state of revolt, despondency, morbidity and are driven to grapple with duality, fragmentation” (Nagpal, 49).
The retirement of Nanda Kaul in a cottage up the mountain at Carignano in Kasauli after her husband’s death and the life of privacy and seclusion led by her there with some bare necessities, forsaking all human company save Ram Lal, the cook is not a rash action out of momentary decision but a decisive action taken by her out of vengeance against her husband and his family where she remained no less than ‘other’ in spite of spending a long life of duty and obligation. Nanda seeks relief identifying herself with the barrenness of Carignano, “what pleased and satisfied her so, at Carignano, was its barrenness” (Desai, 4) and this helps her to reaffirm her identity which she has lost in her long dutiful life and obligation. Reconciling herself with the garden, she says, “Like her, the garden seemed to have arrived, simply, by a process of age, of withering away and an elimination, at a state of elegant perfection…” (Desai, 33). Earlier Nanda, being a vice-chancellor’s wife, underwent a life, full of shocks and traumas as she had to be presentable as per her husband’s instructions before his husband’s colleagues and students who used to mock at her: region.“Mr Kaul had wanted her always in silk, at the head of the long rosewood table in the dining-room, entertaining his guests” (Desai, 20). She remained all her marital life submissive to her husband, in spite of being well aware of her husband’s extra-marital affair. Women, being identified with the identity of man, always remain marginalized and hardly find the centrality of position. “She is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to essential. He is the Subject, he is the Absolute- she is the Other” (Plumwood, 52). The apparent pleasant and smoothness of Nanda always carried ever-burning suppression and frustration with an ardent yearning to be liberated from all duties and responsibilities and she got the opportunity only after her husband’s death.
Raka, the great granddaughter of Nanda, is the agitated child who suffers the indifference and callousness from his father’s side. Her memory related with her drunkard father who uses to beat up her mother with hammers, drives Raka from her house to the garden of Carignano like a chased animal. Though the arrival of Raka at the garden of Carignano, is unwelcomed by Nanda at the initial stage as she fears, “Would Raka’s coming mean the opening of that old, troublesome ledger again” (Desai, 32), she however, reconciles with her when she sees Raka lost in herself. Although Nanda and Raka, one denied by her husband and other denied by her father, do not face the same tragic past, yet they are victims of same masculine culture which believes in devaluing both women and nature. Free from traumatic past, both welcome the garden of Carignano, however with different outlook, one out of vengeance and other by instinct. Raka proves Nature’s child and spends her day time in the lap of nature, whereas Nanda wishes the life of isolation and abandonment. Later Nanda, who was once indifferent to Raka’s arrival, grows up some affinity to her when she finds in Raka different childhood:
“There is a strange reversal of roles since Raka’s increasing independence and indifference towards her great grandmother ironically coincides with Nanda’s increasing attraction to and dependence on her” (Rogobete, 97).
In Desai’s Fire on the Mountain, Nanda and Raka represent two aspects of feminism- one for traditional and other for modern. “[i]n Raka, another kind of feminism is apparent which is more bold and aggressive” (Singh, 103). Unlike Nanda who passes her time in self-captivity, Raka’s self is in “desperate quest for self-assertion and independence” (Rogobete, 97). This swift and violent mood of Raka is well-expressive at the end of the novel when she mischievously sets the fire and cries in a mood of jubilance to Nanda,
“‘Nani, Nani,’ whispered Raka, shivering and crouching in the lily bed, peeping over the sill. ‘Look, Nani, I have set the forest on fire. Look, Nani- look – the forest is on fire. Look, Nani,-look- the forest is on fire’” (Desai, 158).
Here Raka’s whispering not only reveals the destruction of nature, but it also signifies the destruction of women’s identity. R. S. Sharma describes it as, “expressive of Raka’s resolve to destroy a world where a woman cannot hope to be happy without being unnatural” (127).
Like Nanda and Raka, Ila Das, Nanda’s friend, an active fighter of women’s right also stands against the masculine culture in the novel. She is presented by Desai as an embodiment of justice. In her attempt to prevent child marriage, Ila loses her life in the course of narrative after being brutally raped by Preet Singh who wishes to marry his seven year old daughter with an old widower for land and domestic animals but prevented by Ila Das. Fate of Ila Das is the fate of many women who, in their struggle for freedom and identity, meet the same fate. Through Ila Das, Desai shows the ultimate fate of women in the form rape and humiliation when they try to express their suppressed voice against injustice and unlawful activities. If women strive to come from marginality to centrality, from suppressed to expressed, from ground to surface, from covert to overt, from domesticity to publicity, from off stream to mainstream, from being to becoming, everywhere they prove helpless victims before the power of patriarchy.
Desai’s narrative not only presents the brutal rape of woman through Ila Das but also shows the inhuman rape of earth through modern technology for cheap economic purposes and thus draws parallelism between woman and nature. The narrative presents how tourism and army camp are destroying the beauty of natural world. Vandana Shiva, an environmental activist and anti-globalization author asserts that “[w]hile gender subordination and patriarchy are the oldest of oppressions, they have taken on new and more violent forms through the project of development” (Shiva, 6). She argues for the recovery of the feminine principle ‘Prakriti’ to counter the destructive effects of the Western model of development, which she calls ‘maldevelopment’. She defines Prakritias “the feminine principle as the basis for development which conserves and is ecological. Feminism as ecology, and ecology as the revival of Prakriti -the source of all life” (Shiva, 6). Shiva characterizes maldevelopment as “a paradigm that sees all work that does not produce profits and capital as non- or unproductive work” (Shiva, 7). Shiva convincingly argues and shows that the western model of development, or maldevelopment, has been violent for many people, especially women and local environments (Shiva, 8), as the violence that arises from such a model “is rooted in the patriarchal assumptions of homogeneity, domination and centralisation that underlie dominant models of thought and development strategies” (Shiva, 9). Vandana Shiva’s point that the development takes the form of mal(e)development and proves havoc upon the life of mankind is also evident in Desai’s Fire on the Mountain through tourism and camping. The development that comes in the form of male capitalist ideology in the text brings about environmental demolition and threat of livelihood for the poor peasants resulting adverse impacts upon the life and activity of mankind, especially women and local environment. The man-made forest fire for the purpose of cultivation of land causes the depletion of natural sources. Desai’s narrative shows the adverse impact of male capitalist ideology on poor people. Raka is informed by Ramlal how forest fire destroyed the house down the hill where an English Mem used to live. The fire burnt down her house and she became made and was taken away to asylum. She tried to save her cat from the fire and in her attempt to rescue the cat, she caught fire and her hair and eyelashes were burnt. Another incident related with the burnt house that Raka learns from Nanda is about “an old lady who lived there alone and they say she went mad and was put away” (Desai, 62). Nanda Kaul also informs Raka how the Garden House turned into an Army Billlet which now is occupied by “[t]oo many tourists, Too much army. How they are ruining this –this quiet place, her breath coming faster and her step fumbling. It really is --- is saddening” (Desai, 63). Thus, Desai’s narrative presents the self-centered motive of masculine culture which in the form of material expansion and advancement is crossing its limits and both nature and woman are becoming its helpless victims.
In order to associate woman and nature in dualistic opposition to man and culture, Desai’s Fire on the Mountain draws much natural imagery to show woman-nature interface in the narrative. . “Desai has the power to express sensibilities in her canvas using images from nature…She is an artist who has the ability to carve such deep emotions within dexterous use of imagery that they announce the introduction of the explorations of the selves within the ecological framework” (Shyamala, 7). The title Fire on the Mountain itself echoes symbolical undertone. Mountain and Fire are symbolical to Nanda and Raka respectively. Nanda’s self-captivity is symbolized by mountain, whereas Raka’s ardent desire to be liberated from such captivity is symbolical to fire. Moreover, they represent two aspects of feminism. Through Nanda, Desai presents the old, classic feminism and through Raka, the new, radical feminism is brought forth. The brutal rape and murder of Ila Das is analogous with the rape of earth in the form of tourism and camping. Through tourism and camping, the land is raped by male capitalist ideology as woman is made victimization of humiliation and rape by patriarchal ideology. The novelist’s fame lies in the rich exhibition of natural images with symbolic connotations. “Desai is perhaps the only Indo-English novelist who lay stress on the landscape and correlates it with the psychic state of the protagonists” (Asnani, 86)
As per the dichotomy of feminine nature/masculine culture, women’s position is made inferior not effectively by the physiological process, the one which is held by masculine culture, rather by the social frame work in which this mechanism works and finds certain significance. Assigning women to stereotypical features (For example, the notions of femininity as opposed to masculinity), such logic limits women to domesticity and allows men to earn publicity. “(… ) so the cultural reasoning seems to go, men are the “natural” proprietors of religion, ritual, politics, and other realms of cultural thought and action in which universalistic statements of spiritual and social synthesis are made. Thus men are identified not only with culture, in the sense of all human creativity, as opposed to nature; they are identified in particular with culture in the old-fashioned sense of the finer and higher aspects of human thought – art, religion, law, etc.” (Ortner, 79). Desai’s female characters go beyond this logic and subvert the gender binary in terms of nature/culture dichotomy. They challenge the masculine culture, though they fail in the attempt, they still play the exemplary role for the generation to come. Aroop Saha rightly comments, “ although the Indian women are surrounded by patriarchal ideology, a change has occurred in the construction of female subjectivity….Nanda Kaul’s experience of suppressed rage and Ila Das’ experience of violence, both physical and psychological, show an elevation to construct a female subject”( 238).
Works Cited
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- Desai, Anita. Fire on the Mountain. Random House, 2008.
- Plumwood, Val. Feminism and Mastery of Nature. Routeledge, 1993.
- Rogobete, Daniela. “Three Facets of Indian womanhood in Anita Desai’s Fire on the mountain”. Critical Contexts: Anita Desai’s Fire on the Mountain, edited by A. Dwivedi, Roman Books, 2014.
- Singh, R.A. Three novels of Anita Desai: A critical spectrum. Roshan Offset Printers, 2009.
- Sharma, R. S. Anita Desai. Arnold-Heinmann, 1981.
- Asnani, S. “Theme of Withdrawal and Loneliness in Anita Desai’s Fire on the mountain”. Journal of Indian Writings in English, vol. 9, no. 1, 1981.
- Saha, A. “Portrayal of Psychic Violence in Fire on the mountain and Bluest Eye”. Stamford Journal of English, vol. 6, 2011.
- Shiva, Vandana. “Development, Ecology and Women”. Healing the Wounds: The Promise of Ecofeminism, edited by J. Plant, New Society Publishers, 1989.
- Shyamala, C.G. “Nature and Ecocriticism in Cry, The peacock and Fire on the mountain”. The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 2, no. 3, 2011.