Re-Defining Female Gender Roles about their Spatial Boundaries in Anita Desai’s Clear Light Of Day

Abstract

This study explores how the female characters in Anita Desai's Clear Light of Day (1980) struggle to redefine their gender roles within a male-dominated environment. The novel spans both pre-colonial and post-colonial eras, illustrating how the departure of colonizers gives rise to a new elite class that perpetuates colonial ideologies and patriarchal practices. The paper analyzes the interplay between female gender roles and their domestic, psychological, physical, and national spatial boundaries. Methodologically, this paper employs comparative literary analysis, utilizing Maria Isabel Romero Ruiz's theoretical framework from her work Women's Identities and Bodies in Colonial and Postcolonial History and Literature (2012). Ruiz’s focus on the construction and representation of women's bodies and identities in different spatial contexts provides a valuable lens for examining how Desai’s characters navigate and contest spatial boundaries. Through close reading and textual analysis, the study identifies and analyzes the spatial dynamics in the novel, highlighting how the characters’ interactions with their environments reflect broader societal and cultural constraints. The insights gained from this analysis aim to offer a nuanced understanding of how spatial boundaries influence and are influenced by female gender roles in a patriarchal society. This paper contributes to broader discussions on gender, space, and postcolonialism in literary studies, ultimately providing recommendations for rethinking and redefining female gender roles in contemporary contexts. This analysis highlights the subtle ways Desai's characters navigate their roles, shedding light on broader societal limitations and offering deeper insights into the intricate dynamics of gender, space, and resistance in postcolonial literature.