Fasting, Feasting By Anita Desai - Reviews (Part 1)

Anita Desai

In her novels, she has explored the lives of outsiders within Indian society and within the West.

Her fiction has covered themes such as:
-women’s oppression and quest for a fulfilling identity,
-family relationship and contrasts,
-the crumbling of traditions.

In Desai’s literary world, East and West have been treated as mirror images of each other.





Fasting, Feasting Novel

Story told from the point of view of Uma in India and Arun in America.

Depicts the struggles of Uma, Aruna and Arun to strike a balance between their parents’ expectations and their own personal realization.

Compares and contrasts:
-Two cultures
-Two societies
-Two families that represent their culture and society

PapaMama and Children

PapaMama:
-Discuss, plan, plot, control, govern the activities of their children, e.g. marriage, going abroad for studies.
-Does not consider possibility that children could have their own lives

Uma: Victim of patriarchy – repressed, suppressed and imprisoned at home; Wants life beyond confines of home

Aruna: Caught in mad pursuit of perfection; neurotic – controls family

Arun: Feels trapped by the education that is meant to liberate him; wants to be left alone

The Pattons

Mr and Mrs Patton:
-not really doing duty as parents
-let children do what they want

Mr Patton: quiet and self-centred

Mrs Patton: no identity or purpose in life; cannot handle family

Rod: obsessed with physical needs

Melanie: self-imposed starvation; lost in a free world

Fasting, Feasting: Question 1

Question:
In what ways do the two terms of the title—"fasting" and "feasting"—apply to family life and society in general in India and the United States?

Question 1: Answer

Title:
-food as metaphor for emotional sustenance

Fasting:
-Deprivation in Indian culture and religion
Uma: deprived of attention
Arun: deprived of freedom of choice
Miramasi: religious aestheticism

Feasting:
-Consumer society; Excess and opulence in American lifestyle
Mrs Patton: provide for family - shopping for food.
Rod: obsession with body

Fasting, Feasting: Question 2

Question:
What differences and similarities are there between the Indian and American families?

Answer: Draft
-Similarities:
-Differences:

Similarities and Differences

Indian

-Patriarchal
-PapaMama control children’s lives
Uma
Aruna
Arun
-Family is everything
-Tradition and cultural beliefs strong

American

-Patriarchal
-Children given the freedom to choose their way of life
Rod
Melanie
-Disintegrating family values
-“Corrupt” way of life

Fasting, Feasting: Question 3

Question:
What roles and expectations are open to women and men in the India and America of Fasting, Feasting?

Answer: Draft
-Men: Indian vs. American
Roles and expectations
-Women: Indian vs. American
Roles and expectations

Roles and expectations of men and women

Indian

-Men: to be in charge of family; provider
Papa: “God”; autocratic
Arun: not happy
-Women: subservient, oppressed; marriage
Mama: no identity
Uma: suppressed
Aruna: not happy
Anamika: killed

American

-Men: to be in charge of family; provider
Mr Patton: not responsible
Rod: obsessed with body
-Women: free to be and do what they want
Mrs Patton: providing for family – shopping
Melanie: neglected

Revision: More questions?

What kinds of freedom and what specific freedoms do the characters seek?

What instances and images of imprisonment and entrapment occur in the novel's two parts? To what extent is entrapment of one kind or another envisioned as an inescapable fact of life?

How does Desai establish Mama and Papa's identities as separate persons and, at the same time, as the single, and singular, Mama and Papa? In what ways do "they have the comfort of each other," as Uma later realizes?