Why did Nela adopt Ranu? At first, she only wants to leave the girl better than she found her. But Nela's sense of right and wrong is too highly developed for half measures. When she realizes how devalued the child is in her community, she feels compelled to save her at any cost. This is where Nela (as a character) undergoes the literary novel's required transformation -- from abstract thinker intent on doing what's best for herself, to the embodiment of the protective Mother. Jackson is already an altruist, and feels compelled to right the societal wrong he's stumbled across, specifically child marriage. Nela's altruism is more personal, focusing on one child. The couple mirror one another, each of them willing to sacrifice their personal happiness to the greater good --- or in this case, to dramatize two interpretations of the theme of altruism. (I tried to leave the ending open enough to set up a happier ending in the next book.) As in a lot of my work, a theme of this book is the search for home. There are some motifs and symbols associated with that. Ramanajun's reference to his wife as"'my house' as internalized by Nela, for instance. The discussion of Hamiliton's Rule -- how related do you have to be to want to rescue someone -- is another. That one bleeds into the major theme of altruism. The behavior of flocks is a secondary motif. The hairpin turns of a murmuration of birds act out Nela's tendency to change her mind to correct whatever course she's on. Pursuit and cohesion, and pursuit and evasion, are used in the story to examine the question of whether the bird in the front of a murmuration is actually leading, or being chased.
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AuthorCheryl Snell is an award-winning poet and novelist, author of the new family saga Bombay Trilogy, a retelling of her previous novels Shiva's Arms, Rescuing Ranu, and Kalpavriksha. Archives
October 2020
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