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Definition of Motif
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the central themes of a book... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the... read full definition
A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of... read full definition
Motifs
Explanation and Analysis—Separation:
In a novel where characters assemble and drift apart, acts of severance emphasize the transience of human relations and identity. Through its motif of separation, A Fine Balance demonstrates how quickly lives and identities can change in response to circumstances beyond their control. Divisions shape the course of the Kohlah family’s fortunes. The Partition—a “gorier parturition, when two nations incarnated out of one”—leads surprisingly to Mr. Kohlah’s shopkeeping success. The Kohlahs’ sudden loss of wealth and unexpected new venture offer a lesson of “living life on the borderline.”
Borders and boundaries figure into the domestic context as well, bearing consequences that are equally dramatic. Dina’s patchwork curtain—designed to afford Omprakash and his new wife privacy—ironically anticipates the total separation of the lodgers. What was supposed to be a temporary separation ends up permanently disbanding the household as tragedy derails their lives. The tailors get hauled into a sterilization camp, one castrated and the other receiving an amputation. Dina shutters her business and apartment. Maneck leaves unexpectedly for Dubai. In dividing her apartment, Dina also unwittingly splits up her makeshift family.
A Fine Balance even makes an entire mania out of detachment. In Rajaram’s psychopathic obsession with haircutting, the novel advances a narrative—equal parts disturbing and comic—where separation gets taken to its most nonsensical extremes. The crazed barber even describes his locks of hair as though they possess a life of their own. Separated from the head, they offer stories of “health and sickness, youth and age” about their former owners. “Till the barber severs it, I can only dream,” he tells his two tailor slum neighbors. To cut is to struggle with, and submit to, change.
Related Themes:
Motifs
Explanation and Analysis—Food:
A Fine Balance dedicates almost as much attention to its moments of eating as to the plot itself. In a novel whose characters sample watermelon-sherbet stands, share snacks at Vishram’s, and cook chapati dinners, food becomes an expression of labor and its abuses—it embodies work in its most degrading and fulfilling forms and the tensions between toil and love.
The novel’s focus on food highlights those moments in which labor gets twisted to exploitation; it speaks to the ways in which social and economic systems starve the lower class. Ishvar and Omprakash lie about their hunger almost as frequently as they run into successive misfortunes. Cornered by debt and trapped in sweatshop-like circumstances of employment, they skip meals to save money. And nowhere does their hunger reach more deadly proportions than at the work camp, where the watery mix of vegetables deals them food poisoning. Amid the cruel drudgery of transporting gravel, “emptying their bellies took a fraction of the time spent in filling them.” As though mirroring the horrific conditions of their forced labor, the food—what should otherwise nourish—merely deprives Ishvar and Omprakash.
Accordingly, food provides a window into class relations. The novel points out the inequalities in status and power partly through its attention to filled and empty stomachs. “Masticated fragments” fly from the hotel receptionist’s mouth when Ishvar and Omprakash search for slum substitutes. Slouched before the half-starving Dukhi, the holy Pandit Lalluram gets remembered more for his “eructations” and “energetic powers of digestion” than anything that resembles advice. The rich fatten their stomachs off the desperation of the poor.
But at its best, food represents the pleasure of work when it is honored. Despite the difficulty of their lives, Dina and her friends find just as many moments for good meals. When Ishvar and Omprakash begin lodging in her flat, the act of making—and sharing—food opens new opportunities for connection. For all its moments of scarcity and hunger, A Fine Balance dwells equally on their months of joyous dinners and cooking sessions. Once freed from economic pressures and exploitative conditions, labor suddenly turns into craft: with the rolling pin, Omprakash transforms from tailor to “chapati champion.” Good food opens a space of almost sacred intimacy—“we don’t cook for money—only for ourselves and for friends,” Ishvar reminds Dina. Food promises care and connection when its more basic functions of sustenance have been fulfilled.
Related Themes:
