Resilience, Self-Definition, and the Aesthetics of Silence in the Select Novels of Anita Nair

Abstract

Anita Nair's body of work presents an intense examination of the inner self of the present-day Indian woman, tracing a landscape of resilience intricately connected to the aesthetics of silence and self-definition. Nair's novels, Ladies Coupe, Mistress, Lessons in Forgetting, and Eating Wasps, portray silence not just as a sign of submission but as a space for self-analysis, healing, and the character finds solace in it. This paper puts forth the argument that Nair's women protagonists put forth silence as a psychological tool to overcome trauma and rebuild an authentic selfhood. Through close readings of the major protagonists Akhila, Radha, Meera, and Rajalakshmi, this paper argues that resilience in fiction is a process articulated through silent endurance, thereby redefining women's empowerment in contemporary Indian English Literature.