The Village by the Sea
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ESSAY NO.2
In Annita Desai’s novel, the treatments between male and female characters are totally different. It is described in the novel that the male characters are always lazy, selfish drunkards while the female characters are diligent and always keeping the family together. Annita tried to illustrate the readers how Indian people live in the village of Thul and how urban Indians live in the capital city of India, Bombay.
In the creative novel of The Village by the sea, the two characters that play the most important roll in the play are Hari and Lila. Hari is the one who find some food and some earnings for the family, and also the one who decides to go to Bombay because he thinks that he certainly cannot get a job in an industry. On the other hand, Lila is the one who takes care of her two sisters, Bela and Kamal, and also her sick mother. In every morning, she needs to make tea for her two sisters before they go to school and also her mother who is sick of an unknown disease. Both Hari and Lila cannot go to school because the family does not have enough money to support all the children’s school fee. Despite the facts that Annita Desai describes the village of Thul as a mini paradise which lived there happy people, but apart from that she tries to focus at Hari and Lila’s hut. All the people and houses around their hut seem so colourful and joyful. However, Annita describes Hari and Lila’s hut as a small, old patched hut which has a feeling of unhappiness and sickness. The earthen walls are crumbling and the windows gapped without any shutters. She illustrates the readers that this hut is such a colourless hut apart from all the other huts around it.
The mother, who is sick, of this family is the one who plays the most important part in keeping the family alive, well and together. Although Annita just writes in the novel that the mother is very sick and cannot move anywhere, but she was the one who keeps this family joined together. Because the father, who is the leader of this family, is a drunkard who is irresponsible about taking care of the family Hari and Lila needs to find some way to survive and to earn some money to take their mother to the hospital. This builds up a unity between the brother and the sister which is created by the mother of this family. As a result of the family needing the money to survive and help the mother, this is why Hari goes to Bombay with the protesters and decides to get a job there while Lila takes care of the de Silvas that come to Thul for a holiday. The de Silvas always hire Hari to clean their house in Thul for them but, because Hari is already gone to Bombay, Lila has to take this job instead. Hari live in Bombay for several months. Although Jagu gives him only 1 Rupee per day, he stills works very hard from early morning until very late at night. After he had collected enough money for his family, he decides to go back home. On the other hand, in the village of Thul, Lila has begged Mr. De Silva to take her mother to the hospital and he takes her mother their without saying any words and also pay for her mother medical fees.