In Kamala Markandaya’s novel, Nectar in a Sieve, the woman of great courage, Rukmani, is forced onto the commencement of a fast changing India caused by an increase in economic activity, urbanization and centralization of power. Rukmani resists and then is forced to conform to changes in her environment. Unlike those around her who threw their past away with both hands that they “might be the readier to grasp the present,” Rukmani “stood by in pain, envying such easy reconciliation” (Markandaya 29). Markandaya writes about Rukmani’s attempt to recover the aspects of her rural life that she cares most about, revealing her adoration for a traditional rural life and her belief that all women enjoy amicable, personal relationships with their outer surroundings. The author conveys her ideals that traditional/conservative Indian women who challenge the …show more content…
Ecofeminism, a type of feminist criticism, is a term that combines feminism and ecology. Those who promote ecofeminism say that paternalistic/capitalistic society has led to a harmful split between nature and culture. Loosely defined, ecofeminism is a philosophical and political movement linking ecological concerns with feminist ones, regarding both as resulting from male domination of society. In the beginning of the novel, Markandaya begins to focus on Rukmani’s relationship with the land and her environment. Rukmani begins to tell her story first recalling this moment at the start of her marriage, “While the sun shines on you and the fields are green and beautiful to the eye, and your husband sees beauty in you which no one has seen before, and you have a good store of grain laid away for hard times, a roof over you and a sweet stirring in your body, what more can a woman ask for?” (Markandaya 8). The way she explains the moment with such ease, and the way she links the beauty of the fields with the beauty her husband saw in her, reflects a peaceful and fulfilled sense of life that sets the tone for the events to