Structuralist Study of Kamala Markandaya’s Nectar in a Sieve

Since French Revolution changed the way people look at the world, it paved way for so many movements. Before this watershed event, literature was primarily taken to be a source of entertainment and education. Afterward, as Saussure believed that language and society are interrelated, people considered literature as a tool to oppress a particular section of the people based on gender, class, caste and other factors. As we have conflicting forces in the universe that keep this world in a constant motion and are dynamic, one thing is replaced or followed by others. Structuralism emerged as a movement against existentialism. Essentially it views the world as a structured entity as well as an entity made up of opposing elements, technically known as binary oppositions (a fundamental idea in structuralism) rather than individual elements. This research paper seeks to probe into the dichotomies (Men vs. Women, Nature vs. Culture, Rural vs. Urban, Innocence vs. Prudence, Orientalism vs. Occidentalism) represented in the novel Nectar in a Sieve.