Raka’s Existential Growth From Depersonality to Transpersonality in Anita Desai’s Fire on the Mountain

Abstract

Anita Desai is well recognized as an existentialist who in most of her fictions speaks of human predicament and specifically the existential crisis of women. In Fire on the Mountain, Raka, one of the three central figures, gets unique in her active contribution to the ultimate action, unparallel gravity and the mystic air of her character. A.H Tak, a critique of Anita Desai, has redefined Roger Wescott’s categorization of ‘impersonality’ by indicating at the split personality that Desai’s heroines experience in their lives. Though Nanda Kaul is the central character Raka supersedes her at the end of the novel when she sets fire on the mountain. In this regard ,the present paper attempts to identify Raka’s shift from one state to another and wants to show how Raka, being on the existential plain raises to another height that completes her spiritual growth.