Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai | Characters, Summary, Analysis

Clear Light of Day is a novel by Anita Desai that was published in 1980. The novel is based on the Indo-Pak partition and it describes the tensions in a post-partition Indian family. Unlike other Partition novels or books on the partition of India (1947), Clear Light of Day doesn’t talk about the gory details of the religious and social struggles of that time, nor does it highlight the inappropriate political environment of that era. Rather, the novel describes the effects of all that on a common Indian family. The strength of familial relationships and the importance of forgiveness are the major themes of the novel. The novel also suggests how ‘time’ preserves, destroys, and rebuilds a family, a society, and a nation.
The novel also suggests biased religious undertones as Muslims are described as sophisticated, rich, educated, heroic, hardworking, and civilized while the characters belonging to other religions are depicted as lazy, lecherous, and uneducated. In addition, Urdu as a language is depicted as a language of intellectuals, poets, and educated and sophisticated people while Hindi is described as a banal language.
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