The Better Man Critical Analysis

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Anita Nair’s first novel The Better Man, set in a fictitious village called Kaikurussi in Kerala, explores the theme of relationships, loyalty, betrayal and self-fulfilment. It also deals with the caste issues of the times and the sufferings of women during that period. But Nair is more concerned about the suffering and status of women in their families in the early part of the twentieth century. The novel has as its protagonist a retired government employee called Mukundan who has been forced by circumstances to return to his village Kaikurussi, an imaginary village in the northern part of Kerala, from which he had fled when he was eighteen in order to escape the tyranny of his father. Though the novel traces the growth and the eventual redemption of timid Mukundan into a better man with courage and self-confidence, it subtly highlights the idea that the domineering nature of his father and the disharmony in his parents’ marital life are the real reasons for his failure in life. His mother Paru Kutty, who had to suffer humiliation and ill treatment from her husband, could not escape the brutality of her husband as her son failed to rescue her from the cruelty …show more content…

He imagines his mother finding fault with him for his callousness. “Where were you when I needed you? You could have rescued me, but you chose not to” (TBM 31). Her earnest request to her son to take her away to a safe place far away from her husband fails as he is scared to confront his father, and thus leaves her all alone at his father’s mercy. So whatever be his justification for not taking care of his mother, his mother vehemently criticizes the attitude of her husband and son in not helping the weak and the defenceless. According to Elisabeth Bumiller, “The great tragedy of many Indian women was their profound powerlessness to control any aspect of their lives”

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