Alienation and Renunciation in Anita Desai’s Clear Light of Day

Pages:47-50
Neelam Rani (Independent Scholar, Gurugram, Haryana)

Clear Light of Day begins with Tara’s triennial visit to her home in old Delhi. To her sister Bim, living in a shabby, dusty house in old Delhi, Tara’s visit turns out to be catalysis in her confrontation with her own life. That “the novel is carefully constructed, beautifully written, sensitive, funny, atmospheric was the verdict of the Times Literary SupplementZ’1 About the theme of this novel, Anita Desai says: My novel is set in Old Delhi and records the tremendous changes that a Hindu family goes through since 1947. Basically, my preoccupation ivas xoith recording the passage of time. I was trying to write a four dimensional piece on hoio a family’s life moves backzvards andforwards in a period of time. My novel is about time as a destroyer, as a preserver, and about what the bondage of time does to people. I have tried to tunnel under the mundane surface ofdomesticity.2