AbstractAnita Desai's Cry, the Peacock portrays a married woman's trauma inflicted by a male-dominated society. She is enslaved by the belief that the male members of her family are her protectors. Once she realizes that they have cut her off from their family's domain, she becomes irrational and kills her husband. The killer instinct arises from her isolated life and the sense of insecurity comes from an astrologer's prediction of her or her husband's death four years after their marriage. Anita Desai's Cry, the Peacock centers on the female protagonist, Maya, born into an Orthodox family and raised by a protective father. He suffers from machismo. Her husband, Gautam, is the representative character of the same. She, a sensitive person, develops an affinity with poetry and Kathakali dance. Observe the natural beauty minutely: the flowers of the lemon tree were different, completely different, they had a much stronger and fresher character, they seemed cut out of hard moon shells, by a sharp mother-of-pearl knife, into scimitar-curved petals that they protected the heart of the fragrance. Their scent was more vivid, too: a tart, astringent, refreshing scent like ground lemon peel or a crushed lemon leaf. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayMaya sees the world emotionally. He believes that love is a driving force to achieve the ultimate goal of life. She loves her husband passionately. It is her love that allows her to "touch him, feel his flesh and hair". Maya's love of life also allows her to "hold it and strengthen it." Life not only allows her to feel Gautama but also “the whole pulsating world around him, from the frieze of stars exploding silently in the summer sky to the faintly fluttering owls making conversion, love hidden in the fork of the fig tree.” However, her husband, Gautama, looks at everything rationally, focusing on logic and mathematics. It does not respect human emotions, rather it advocates materialistic gains. For him, “the realities of common human existence, not love and romance but living, dying and working, all constitute life for the common man.” Gautam believes that the world “dies to what we know as reality and not to ideals”. Life is not a matter of “distinguishing between the two, but of reconciling them”. He believes that ideals such as love and kindness ultimately come down to reality for the man, "a matter of dealing with the bills that come" and for the woman, "of worrying about them or raising children and paying to raise them" . Unlike Maya, Gautama, an objectivist, remains against sentimentalism and is concerned with his official works. Ignore natural beauty like flowers, butterflies and the moon. Maya and Gautama have quite distinct perspectives on life. Maya, being a romantic, defines love as a reality while Gautam, as a rationalist, interprets it as an illusion. He, influenced by the Bhagvad Gita, is a supporter of the theory of detachment and accepts it as a guideline for a better life. Maya loves physical love but fears both physical and spiritual contact with her. He gets furious when she touches him: "he tolerated my grasp for a moment, I think in consideration of the mourning, I imagine, then he moved away, pretending to make a gesture to the gardener who was sprinkling the lawn to spread the dust before they came get the beds out.” ”. While Maya wants Gautama to know, enjoy and participate in her world in which there are scents and colors of various degrees: “the flowers of the lemon tree were different, completely different: much stranger, with a clearer character, they seemedcut from the hard shell of the moon. lemon leaf; I tried to explain this to Gautama, stuttering with anxiety, for now, when his company was a necessity.” Gautam fails to understand Maya's psyche and biological needs. Despite his efforts to transform it, he remains adamant: “There was no way I could make people believe that this, the night filled with numerous scents, their different essences and associations, their effects on me, on us, were equally important, the very night of our mood tonight." Maya wants to abandon herself to physical love, but Gautam forbids it: “in his world there were vast areas he would never allow me into and he couldn't understand that I could even want to enter them, no matter how foreign they were to me. On his part there was little understanding, little love. Not being loved as you love." Both Maya and Gautama have different worldviews. Maya suffers from loneliness and neglect due to Gautam's philosophical outlook. He always desires a relationship both physical and spiritual. But he always neglects. He is always busy with his papers until late at night: "Telling me to go to sleep he worked on his papers, he thought no more of me, nor of the soft and willing body nor of the solitary and longing mind that waited by his bed" . Gautam quotes many verses from the Gita to free Maya from the emotional world. He, accusing her of being involved, tries to convince her that involvement is attachment, ultimately leading to death: thinking about sense objects, man becomes attached to them. From attachment comes desire, and from desire comes anger. Illusion is born from anger, loss of memory is caused by illusion. Through the loss of memory the discriminative faculty is ruined and through the ruin of discrimination he perishes. Maya gets frustrated when she realizes that she is not getting love from Gautam. For her, love is life and vice versa. She feels humiliated at being rejected by Gautam: “She thought it was pain, there were countless nights in which I had been tortured by a humiliating sense of neglect, of loneliness, of abandonment.” Maya tries to cling to him for love and affection but he turns away from her. He admits that their marriage is not the union of two souls, but rather is imposed on them from the outside. Traditional society constitutes an obstacle to their separation: it was discouraging to reflect on how much our marriage is based on nobility imposed on us from the outside, and therefore neither true nor lasting. It was repeatedly broken, and repeatedly the pieces were picked up and put back together, as of a sacred icon from which, through the meanest superstition, we could not bear to part. Maya is forced to continue her fragmented married life. Even though they live together as husband and wife, they never share their personal matters. The incidents of Arjun's letter and the party with the Sikh couple confirm their distance. Both cases demonstrate that they know each other's personal affairs for the first time four years after their marriage. From the first episode, Gautam knows that he has a brother named Arjun. “Who? Gautama asked, turning, perplexed. “Arjun” frowned. And you never heard from him in all these years? Or did he tell others about him? Why not me at least?” Gautama also understands that Arjuna had rebelled to her father.Similarly, from this last episode, Maya comes to know that Gautama had friends like the Sikhs, her neighbors. The Sikh, Gautama's friend, is surprised to know that Gautama never spoke to her of her college life: “Didn't he ever tell you that we were neighbors in the college hostel? And how I sang so loudly that he came to the door to shout at me or send me a note?” Despite Maya's understanding of the suppression of male dominance on her, she can't overcome the patriarchal mentality Becauseof his upbringing in patriarchal society, he has internalized masculine values ​​and accepts them unconsciously. It depends on the man and expects to play the same role from his father, brother and husband in the time of crisis: “Father Brother Husband Who is my savior? I'm dying and I'm in love with living." In the novel Desai shows that tradition and family customs regulate the role of women in Indian society. Family plays an important role in the lives of women in Indian society. Desai identifies the woman with the male members of her family. His affiliation with them has meaning in his life. A woman's well-being depends on her relationship with her family members. If he loses his affiliation with his family members, he will lose his Self, leading to severe mental breakdown. As Sunaina Singh says: “Since women are both culturally and emotionally dependent on men, any breakdown in affinity or consanguinity is not seen as a loss of relationship but as a “total loss of self which is then perceived as neurosis.” Maya adheres to Indian tradition and embraces patriarchal values. She always wants her husband's support. But her husband coldly rejects her because for him love is an attachment. She realizes that he doesn't love her: "You didn't want me." Maya admits she has a hell of a life. So, the feeling of losing the connection with her husband leads her to a feeling of insecurity. Hence, her feeling of loneliness and insecurity leads her to her traumatic condition. Maya remains traumatized and exudes abnormal behavior but the patriarchal society labels her crazy. Patriarchal society defines the madness at its disposal. A woman who deviates from her prescribed feminine role is labeled crazy. It's a gender-biased definition. Women, questioning existing male values, are often labeled crazy. Maya often questions Gautama's worth: “But I am not like you; I'm different from all of you." At times, Maya violently resists Gautam's neglect and humiliation of her: “Tonight you listen to me. You'll never let me tell you. Why? Are you afraid? Why can't you please him? Do you feel out of element? You can't bear not being alone." Maya's guilt hurts Gautam's male ego. Exasperated by her questions, he accuses her of being 'crazy': "This is madness, Maya, completely out of place." In this way Gautama accuses Maya of being "crazy" when she speaks out against male domination. The ethos of patriarchal culture traumatizes women. The novel describes the contradictions of patriarchal society. Gautama, Maya's father, and the astrologer represent the main characters of a male-dominated society. The cabaret dance episode in the novel reveals the patriarchal nature of the society. This episode shows how males sexually and emotionally exploit women. The cabaret dancers, except Maya, “began clapping with the irresponsibility of children.” The same dancers reappear for the next piece which is “exactly like the others, except the costumes have become more jaunty”. They also present the striptease show to fulfill the guest's request. When the show ends, Maya is suddenly ready to leave because she feels dizzy seeing these things. He cannot accept such exploitation of women. When she watches, she identifies with them because she herself is a victim of patriarchal society. But Gautama never accepts this point of view. She always perceives it through male perspectives. Gautama and Maya's different reactions towards the show also reveal their different perspectives. She doesn't know why Maya is anxious after watching the show. He thinks she has a bad effect on that show becauseof his habit of attachment. Maya clearly captures the anguish on their faces: “None of them looked like they were doing what they wanted to do. They all seemed so sad to me – so terribly sad.” Maya thinks their bodies and minds fell apart as they danced: They vigorously pumped their long, muscular legs into the air, and soon they were panting from the effort. Their arms were held in a martial position by unimaginative teachers, but limp, as if they were unaware that they had arms. The only part of their anatomy of which two or three, at least appeared conscious, were the protruding hindquarters. Maya realizes that females are exploited by male domination: “It's like spending seventy years of your life in a cemetery – being born in one and dying in one. It's a waste – a waste." When Maya describes the audience on that show, she presents them as animals, mostly as pest wolves. Every time the dancers throw the paper hats at the audience, they pounce as if they were wolves: they were the howls of praying wolves wandering in packs, in the darkening jungles.” Likewise, he once again describes the audience as animals. When someone shines a spotlight on the audience he highlights their teeth which "have become green like animals, they wriggle and gesticulate betraying pleasure and hidden discomfort, he has revealed in his luminous band such a seething mass of pimps and libertines, of those who imagine to be able to offer an attitude of superiority over the poor and the beaten". Gautama has a different view than Maya. He claims that cabaret dancers are as happy as they are capable of being: “And they are as happy as they are capable of being happy.” He considers them exhibitionists and their show as “exhibitionism”. She argues that women are not considered exploited when they show their thighs and other body parts. She claims they are "simply physically aberrant, low-ambition women who think it's a compliment if a man looks at their thighs." They show gratitude, while thinking of the audience when looking at their thighs. He thinks men have a right to have this kind of entertainment. Indian society is a male dominated society. Everything is controlled and determined by males in such a society. In society, women are identified with the male members of the family – both with the father, brother and son, and with the husband. They have no independent personality. Graham Allen highlights women's position in patriarchy: “they live in a society ruled by a god-like male authority figure. Their lives, like those of colonial subjects, are inevitably fractured or divided. Seen as other, as mute, objectified and outside of discourse." A woman's well-being is always linked to her belonging to the family. If she is unable to maintain the relationship, she feels completely lost and this situation leads to a serious mental problem. In Indian society, any woman who has no connection with man is always discarded, insulted and humiliated. Maya marries Gautama, who is much older for her because her father chooses him for her. She thinks that her married life would be happy but she is wrong because it is not good. Due to the difference in family background, age, temperament and above all different attitudes towards life, Maya finds it difficult to live happily with the man. She always feels insulted, humiliated and discarded. She wants to talk to her husband about her problem but he doesn't communicate with her. For him, reading books and meeting his friends are more important than communicating with her. Being childless, Maya develops a great attachment to her dog Toto, whose death further worsens her situation and reflects herloneliness repressed by her: they were not pets. only death that I experienced today, but another pain, perhaps not remembered, nor yet experienced, and it filled me with desperation." Upon Totò's death she collapses: "she saw his eyes open and staring, she screamed and ran to the garden tap to wash his eyesight, she continued to cry and ran defeated into the house". Gautama considers the pet dog insignificant. He is unable to measure the intensity of Maya's pain for Toto. Maya finds herself unable to bear Gautama's indifference towards Toto: "Oh, Gautama, pets may mean nothing to you, yet they mean so much to me." Maya feels that she does not care about her misery, her physical and psychological needs: “Engrossed in his busy schedule, Gautama continues to ignore Maya's needs while remaining insensibly immune to even her physical desires. This is how Maya usually suffers the agony of her unfulfilled desires.” Maya has a father fixation and shares a very loving relationship with her father. Since her childhood she has considered the world as “a toy made especially for her, painted with her favorite colors and ready to dance to her favorite melodies”. Look for the fatherly image in your husband. When she is unable to identify with her husband's world, she feels alienated from the affection she has received from her father: “As a child, I enjoyed, like a prince, a sumptuous meal of the fantasies of the Arabian Nights, of the glories and the bravado of Indian mythology, the long and surprising roles of royal princes and queens.” Gautama blames Maya's father for his morbidity: “You have a very obvious father, an obsession, which is also the reason you married me, a man much older than you. It is a complex that, if you do not mature quickly, you will not be able to face, to destroy." Being completely dependent on Gautama, Maya cannot openly express her anger. Therefore, it suppresses its aggressive traits. She projects herself as a helpless, childless woman, and sees her body detach from her soul and "float away, to rest on the dark mirror where I watch it from a cold distance" (90). Rejected by her husband, Maya is torn between her love of life and her fear of death. She is struck by a sense of loneliness and insecurity: God, now I am trapped in the web of the inevitable, and where is the possibility of mercy, of liberation? This network was not a hallucination. . .. Have I gone crazy? Father! Husband! Who is my savior? I need it. I'm dying and I'm in love with life. I'm in love and I'm dying. God, let me sleep, forget, rest. But no, I will never sleep again. There is no more rest, only death and waiting. Maya realizes that there is no place for her in Gautama's world. He doesn't understand her and doesn't want her to enter his world: "On her part, intelligence was poor, love was scarce." Maya goes mad, having failed to mend her marital life with Gautama. KR Srinivasa Iyengar says: “Maya is both the center and the circumference of this world. His sanity – whether sane, hysterical or crazy – fills the entire book and shapes it, as does life.” She is traumatized not because of her female sexuality but because of the social conditioning which is the conscious or unconscious assumption that males are superior to females. Internalized male values ​​make women themselves involved in their own subordination. They also become the expression of conflicts between their traumatic experiences of being women and their internalized masculine values. Christopher O' Reilly argues that Desai's importance is attributed to "her ability to convey the experience and generally restricted position of women in Indian society." Maya deviates from ideologically prescribed gender roles.