Clash Between Traditional Values and Modern Beliefs: a Study of Kamala Markandaya’S a Silence of Desire |

ABSTRACT:

Kamala Markandaya the pseudonym ofKamala Purnaiya Taylor, one of the most talented women writers of Indianfiction in English, was born to a well-connected Brahman family. Her novel ASilence of Desire (1960), explores the theme of the clash between traditionalvalues and modern beliefs, between faith and reason. The clash of East and Westis very skillfully and brilliantly explored in A Silence of Desire.  She has very keenly observed the East andWest cultures so her depiction of both cultures is unbiased. She had undertakenseveral problems like social, political, national and international themes. Thenovel is a psychological melodrama of a meddle class husband and wiferelationship. The novel highlights the conflict between Western modernism andIndian spiritualism, between science and superstition, between faith andreason, and between a husband and a wife. A Silence of Desire is generated by atragic vision that finds the contemporary life a fruitful seed-bed forconflict.