Exposing Widow’s Psyche in a Fine Balance: A Study of Rohinton Mistry’s Widow Characters

Abstract

Indian writers including both male and female novelists generally utilise novels to reveal the psychological conditions of the female sex with the help of their dramatic personas. One such Indian writer is Rohinton Mistry, who unveils the mental states of women through his independent female characters, especially fictional female singletons. Among his numerous works, A Fine Balance is a notable piece that falls into this category. The novel is about the life struggles of the widow heroine Dina Dalal after the death of her husband. Apart from Dina, Mistry has used many widow characters who play minor roles in developing the storyline. The paper aims to exhibit the mental fluctuations of the fictional widows that comprise the widow protagonist Dina Dalal. The investigation with the help of the female characters uncovers the psychological oscillations of the widows due to their singlehood statuses. It unmasks the emotional transpositions, loneliness, fears, regrets, hopelessness and mental instabilities of the widows. The analysis avails the psychoanalytic Literary Theory to support its arguments and to obtain its objectives. With the aid of the select prose narrative, the research brings out Rohinton Mistry’s typical representation of widow characters to have psychological problems because of losing their husbands. Hence, the article projects that despite picturing the fictional widows as persons who are bold and liberating, Mistry has represented them to be psychologically vulnerable rather than presenting them as mentally strong and stable individuals.