Predicament of Identity in Kamala Markandeya’s The Golden Honeycomb

Abstract

Kamala Markandaya is one of the best of contemporary Indian novelists. Her novels are remarkable for their wide range of experience. She has been most successful and impressive, in dealing with the problems of the educated middle class. She has a gift in particular for delineating the self-imposed laceration of the dissatisfied. Women in the novels of Kamala Markandaya are the victims of social and economic pressures and disparities. However, they raise above all these and cross the barriers of discrimination only for the larger concepts of universal love and concord. Indeed, their vitality, both physical and emotional is appreciable. Markandaya’s characters belong to the different strata of society viz., peasants, and middle class educated women as well as from the royal families. Nevertheless the common thread in all her women characters is that the quest for autonomy for the self, coupled with nurturance for the family They also confront with several obstacles emerging mainly from the irregularities in the social system along with economic difficulties. They develop a mature vision of life when they grapple with these forces. Though the desire of autonomy and nurturance leads to disillusionment at every stage, the women characters remain form without losing courage. Kamala Markandaya’s women are in search of something positive. She portrays a gloomy scenario of Indian life due to changes in social, economic and political spheres. She believes that togetherness and mutual understanding can create a meaningful existence for mankind. The paper attempts to throw light on the identity crisis of the women characters in The Golden Honeycomb.