Guilt-Complex And 'Clash Between Traditional And Modern Life Styles And Values': A Critical Study In Mahesh Dattani's Tara

Abstract

Mahesh Dattani's Tara, as a few of his other plays, explores the baffling dilemmas of today's Indian family in metropolitan cities, the relations which at bottom are based on and sustained by natural love, but suffer immense stress and threat of dissolution due to complex forces of external nature. Family being the microcosm of society offers a valid ground for exploring society's maladies and thus a faithful reflection of a socio-cultural fabric. Family whose formation and function used to provide answers to many a serious problem of the individual and succour by giving the inmates the much-desired security, has in recent times itself turned into a site where many a problem is seen to arise and puzzle individuals. In taking up the Patel household with a twin surgically separated but unequally treated by the parents, Dattani has sought to present many layers of the subject-matter, each enmeshed with the other in a complex grid. In this paper, I intend to explore the guilt-complex of the characters that creates tension and emotional turmoil in them analysing from feminist perspective. Moreover, this paper delves into the relation between traditional and modern life styles and values.