Planting Seeds in Kamala Markandaya's Nectar in a Sieve

Abstract

To date, little theoretical and methodological research has been published in the field of literary geography. This paper shows that literary and feminist theories facilitate the geographical interpretation of woman/land experience, through analysis of landscape description and symbolization. South Asian novelist Kamala Markandaya's Nectar in a Sieve describes a rural Indian village landscape wherein the female protagonist resists and then is reconciled to change in her environment. Analysis of Markandaya's created landscape reveals her affection for traditional rural life, as well as her belief that women enjoy harmonious, intimate relationships with their physical surroundings. Further, Markandaya conveys her post-Partition political ideology that conservative-national Indian women who challenge modernization will maintain order in a chaotic social milieu. Markandaya communicates these ideas by creating a pastoral landscape, and by braiding images of “seed” and “woman.”