CC:III: Anita Desai: Clear light of Day : Treatment Of time/Structure of the Novel

 

Anita Desai's "Clear light of Day" deals with the Das family chronicle. The narrative is divided into four untitled parts: Part I is Set in the present; Part II goes back to the summer of 1947; Part III is set in an even earlier period of the Das children's childhood, and Part IV returns to the present with a futuristic perspective. Each part also deals with an important phase in the life of the main characters. In an interview, Desai stated that "Clear light of Day" was an attempt to write "a four dimensional piece on how a family's life moves backwards and forwards in a period of time". The fourth dimension, Desai says, is 'time'. In fact, the four parts of the novel parallel the "Four Quartets" of T.S.Eliot. As in the "Four Quartets", in "Clear Light of Day" too, time is the destroyer and the preserver. The very them of the novel is to do with the paradox of  change and continuity. Time is used as a structural device by Desai in her novel.

          To begin with, the notion of on-linear time used by Desai is reflected in Bim's approach to life. She tells Tara-"There are these long still stretches...nothing happens...each day is exactly like the other...". About Desai's non-linear treatment of time Alamgir Hashmi says: "Indeed, time is an emotional sequence of events rather than a serial imitation of chronological perception... With a shifting point of view, and the frequent time lapse, the narrative is realized gradually and gathered skilfully".

        The country's partition parallels the partition of the Das family. In the novel, time deals with the several characters differently. Among the childhood ambitions of the Das children, only Tara's materializes. She had always wanted to get married t become a mother and "knit" for her babies. Her husband, Bakul, and her two daughters, fulfil this dream. Bim and Raja who had wanted to become a heroine and a hero respectively, are trapped by circumstances and fail to fulfil their dreams. Childhood experiences are recalled in adulthood and through these intersections, Characters grow. The Bee episode at Lodi gardens is an example in this respect. Tara remembers this episode when she left Bim who was attacked by the bees and ran to escape the attack herself. She feels guilty about her response then and recalls the event to apologize to Bim for her selfishness. In short, this moving backwards and forwards makes the events in the novel more than just a conventional trip down memory lane. Desai's shifts between the past and the present is done smoothly. The novel reads like a well orchestrated musical composition.

                        Interestingly, the Das house in old Delhi also becomes a central motif of the structure. The characters and their thoughts are inextricably tied to the memories of this house. The four dimensional structure of the novel allows Desai to present reality from different angles. There is no linearity to the events in the novel. Desai uses the stream of consciousness technique in her narrative which links up events imagistically rather that rationally. She is the omniscient observer. Through her third person narrative she gives us a bird's eye view of the inner world of her characters. through the four part structure of the novel, Desai effectively presents continuity and change foregrounding her them of them of time as both preserver and destroyer.

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