Passive Anger In 'The Woman Upstairs'

People experiencing passive anger may not even realize they are angry, because passive anger may be repressed, it can be hard to recognize .In the long term, these suppressed angry feelings can easily be a main cause for psychological suffering . The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud is a perfect match of how denying the feelings of anger and withdrawing them from direct communication can destroy oneself ,it can eliminates dreams and ambitions . Messud is a psychological stylist, her heroines are survivors to the core, they cling to the ledge even if their worlds are upside down. Nora the protagonist of The Woman Upstairs portrays how her long suppressed anger has affected her psychologically and socially and finally how it has been

This type of women are not to be confused with the proverbial madwoman in the attic who haunted Jane Eyre and became a symbol of feminist literary criticism. Instead ,they are living a life where appearances are meant to deceive, and exit is impossible. Nora perfectly describes them to be " the quiet woman at the end of the third-floor hallway, whose trash is always tidy, who smiles brightly in the stairwell with a cheerful greeting, and who, from behind closed doors, never makes a sound…not a soul registers that we are furious. We’re completely invisible" (3) .She rants with anger about women's invisibility and their quiet desperation. But being angry at herself that what has intensified her psychological suffering even more

The novel wheels back five years to Nora’s first meeting with the Shahid's family , Reza, Sirena and Skandar. She becomes more and more obsessed with the Shahids, Over the course of one school year, her obsession shifts between the beautiful eight-year-old Reza"eight years old and a canonical boy, a child from a fairy tale".(Messud 2), her student, and Skandar , his brooding Harvard professor father, but fixes most intently on Sirena, ,three paths not taken by the Woman Upstairs . In a direct reference to Anton Chekhov’s story The Black Monk ,Nora describes the Shahid's as her "three Black Monks" who for a brief period reawaken her to the possibilities of life. At 37, just when she thinks her life has prematurely closed, she feels as if a door were opening .Messud has employed it as a symbol of artistic inspiration ,a ghostly figure who flatters and encourages a demoralized scholar, reassuring him of his importance and talent. Nora begins to ignore her family and what few friends she has. Serina offers Nora hope , it begins with Sirena’s suggestion that Nora would help her in the art studio. Sirena’s work , ethics and charisma inspire Nora to work on her own art . She is Nora's idol to the extent that she has become fascinated by her , she has the life that Nora never had ,the life she always thought she would experience, with the child she thought she might have. Sirena is