Girl Protagonists In Anita Nair's The Better Man

It has to be made clear here that in Anita Nair’s fictional works she has presented episodes that delineate the testimonies of girl protagonists. Cambridge Dictionary defines “protagonist” as “ONE of the MAIN characters in a story or a play”. And in Anita Nair‟s novel we come throughout ladies as main characters in their episodes going through their own problems.

In Anita Nair’s fiction we come throughout episodes, every providing a female protagonist, her experiences two and combat in the patriarchal world around her. For example, in The Better Man there are stories of girl protagonists interwoven in the total narration. Anjana‟s story delineates her sufferings and betrayal at the arms of her husband, and how she finds liberation, turning into economically independent. Meenakshi is some other girl protagonists, who faces life independently when betrayed by her artist husband, and brings up her child, walking a crèche, and later also looks after her unwell husband. Valsala, the youthful spouse of an ancient husband, tries to locate her personal way out of the unhappy marriage. Paru-Kutty, Mukundan‟s mother, rebels in opposition to her husband when he brings in another woman, and compels him to live separately. All these female characters are at the core of their tales and they have the initiative of action. In Ladies Coupe’ additionally we have various testimonies in which a woman is at the center, each story offering the life and experiences narrated by means of themselves in first person, whilst guys in their existence are marginal in their stories. In Mistress, again, the episodes are woven around the female protagonists like Saadiya, Radha, Angela and Maya, who are at the center of the episodes and have initiative of action. In Lessons in Forgetting, Anita Nair has girl protagonists like Kala and Meera betrayed via their husbands, and who chalk out their very own life. Thus, Anita Nair‟s fiction affords the warfare and experiences of woman protagonists, while the male characters are at the margin, the lady protagonists are at the core of every episode.

The Better Man (2000) is curiously a male-oriented novel, due to the fact its protagonist, Mukundan undergoes regeneration from his psychological nation brought on through his dominant father. But there are episodes dealing with lifestyles and experiences of ladies protagonists like Anjana, Mandakini, etc. Mukundan is an aged bachelor and a retired authorities servant, who returns to his native place, Kaikurusi, an imaginary village in northern Kerala. Mukundan, at the age of eighteen left his village to get away the tyranny of his father, Achutan Nair. Mukundan, in his boyhood had lived below the fear and domination of his father, which he feels even now at the age of fifty. He is additionally deeply affected by using the feeling of guilt of abandoning his mother, when she piteously requested him to take her with him to the city to escape the harsh treatment at the fingers of his father. His father had a mistress then. His mom is said to have slipped and fallen from the stairs and died, however this story of accident might have been cooked by means of Mukundan‟s father.

The novel narrates the existence and experiences of Mukundan, even though the woman characters in this novel are the protagonists of their own episodes, and they are good sized in the experience that they stay in a male-dominated family set- up, and are victimized by using the tyranny of the guys in the family. These ladies protagonists are at the center of these episodes and exhibit initiative of action. Mukundan, after his retirement, returns to Kaikurusi forced via the circumstances. He is still below the psychological domination of his father, who lives across the predominant house with his mistress. His father was a stalwart character in the village neighborhood until he used to be active. As Mukundan was absent from the village for a lengthy time, he has no function to play in the village community after his father. The management of the village has now passed on to Power House Ramkrishnan, an ordinary man, who has became into a millionaire by way of winning a lottery. Mukundan has, therefore, no role to play in the affairs of the village community. Mukundan who has a guilt feeling about his mother, and the concern of his father, has developed a psychological state from which Bhasi rescues him. Bhasi is popularly acknowledged in the village as a house-painter, however he practices a machine of medicine developed through himself and additionally Homeopathy. Bhasi cures Mukundan of his psychological pain via his natural cure. Despite Bhasi‟s profitable treatment, Mukundan betrays him, when energy House Ramkrishan vindictively tries to oust Bhasifrom the village to acquire the plot of Bhasi‟s house. Mukundan falls prey to Ramkrishnan‟s strategy of including him in the village committee organized for constructing a neighborhood hall. Mukundan realizes this later and tries to make amends by offering Bhasi a house in his very own estate.

Mukundan’s story is intertwined with the story of Anjana, a married woman, who is a victim of patriarchal notions and practices. Her husband, Ravindran, only used her body. Anjana, who was added up in a liberal atmosphere, loved her independence in her father‟s house. She was educated and city-bred, and had expectations from her husband. She needs to provide her pleasant to her husband when she marries. She expects her husband to discuss to her, to include her in his affairs, confide in her. But, Ravindran would no longer reply to her small discuss about the house, the trees round etc. There used to be rarely any dialog between them. His love-making in mattress was brutish, hardly ever any emotion in it, without lust. He talked to her only when he wanted to cease his job and decided to begin his personal business, the enterprise of Agarbatti products. He gave up the house and took Anjana back to her parent‟s house. He did no longer stick to one business. He left Agarbatti and started out selling mattresses, then purple oxide floor colouring, industrial stapler and so on. He failed due to the fact he was no longer right at all at speaking to people, convincing them, treating them socially. He used to beat Anjana. Her father sternly warned him against this violence, given that he regularly absented from the house. Anjana took up a job of teaching, which changed her life. She had to go through her husband‟s cruelty, and she in no way felt like a married lady during eight years of her married life.