Novel Essay

The novel “Nectar in a Sieve,” by Kamala Markandaya, is a fiction story told in the first person perspective of Rukmani, an educated women who shares her story of her struggles to find happiness. Taking place in a small village in India, Rukmani comes from a wealthy background but is married to a tenant farmer she had never meet before at the age of twelve. They work together to make a suitable life and she was soon able to become the wife of a farmer. However, they were faced with many fluctuating situations that tested and challenged their limits but through it all they remain strong and hopefully. Throughout the novel, many illuminating events occur that function as the casement of the overall novel.
I think the most illuminating events in the story is every time the family begins to lack money and barely has enough to eat. Poverty is one of the greatest issues many of the families faces in this village. Throughout the novel you will see that this is a constant situation for them. It does not occur only once or twice, it is a continuous reality that they are challenged with. Due to these economic issues they must do what it takes to get back on track and losing loved ones.
Examples of this would be when the main character and the narrator, Rukmani, loses five of her seven children including her husband. Two of her sons, Arjun and Thambi, get tired being hungry and seeing their family suffering from starvation and so they decide to work at the tannery; but at some point they become spokesman of the striking tannery workers and get fired. They later decide to leave far away to work on tea plantation for good pay and a good life. Rukmani is would not be able to keep communication with them but she still lets them go. Murugan, who is Rukmani's and Nathan’s third son, is offered a job in the city and takes it. However, he stays away from his family, marries without telling his family, leaves his job, the city, his wife and kids without telling any of them where...