Eco-Marxist Study of Kamala Markandaya's Nectar in a Sieve (1954)

Abstract

The study aims to expose the capitalist components behind the metabolic rift and economic issues that Kamala Markandaya's novel Nectar in a Sieve (1954) creates. Additionally, this study sheds light on the commodification, objectification, and commodity fetishism of commodities, as well as alienation, degradation due to differences in exchange value and use value, and the alienation of land and labour due to capitalism. This study explains how capitalism emerged, how people suffered and experienced mental unrest, and how the author ultimately felt a need to accept modernity and change (emergence with capitalism). It also foresees the transition from rural to urban life, the emergence of the pure past into the capitalist present, and the eventual glimmer of hope.