Abstract

“Man suffers not only from war, persecution, famine and rain but from inner problem … a conviction of isolation, randomness and meaninglessness in his existence.” as Auden calls the modern era as an age of anxiety. (Singh) Anita Desai in her Fire on the Mountain has shown us the concept of alienation and the issues of existentialism have been competently employed by the novelist in this novel. The two central characters Raka and Nanda Kaul are shown having some self- alienating characteristics that lead themselves to self- viciousness. As a weaker sex, she feels herself trapped and oppressed in front of the more powerful male sex, i.e. her husband here. She considers herself merely an object, which has ‘nothing’ of her own and thus she says that the meaning of her name is ‘nothing’ just like herself who has nothing. Anita Desai has explored profoundly the mental intensity of women like Nanda Kaul. Several images of dreadfulness and terror have been used by Desai to display Nanda Kaul’s lacerated sentiments. In most of her novels, she tries to explore the deplorable and pitiable conditions of women of Indian society, and she has done it successfully. Being a woman she has depicted true picture of women and their plights, their mental struggle and hysterical attacks of theirs.