Fasting, Feasting Essay Questions

What is the importance of the figure of Dr. Dutt?

Dr. Dutt not only helps Uma with her fits, but also endeavors to provide her an opportunity to work outside the home. Critic Ludmila Volna says of Dr. Dutt: "the choice of the job messenger is not made by chance. That Desai entrusts it to Dr. Dutt, who herself is an unmarried, educated Indian woman, has two aspects. First, this woman represents the most distinguished part of Uma's figurative collective mother who she constitutes together with the nuns, Mira-masi, Ella Wilcox, and Mrs. O'Henry exactly because she embodies the 'mother ideal,' a 'mother' who is a member of the same society and culture as Uma and who has been at the same time able to free herself of
the bonds of its patriarchal structures." Dr. Dutt and Moyna, Mrs. Joshi's career-oriented daughter, offer a template for Uma, but one that she is unlikely to ever realize.

What role does Desai suggest food plays in India and the United States?

In the U.S., food is emblematic of waste, excess, and superficiality. There is tons of it, Arun notes, but it does not satisfy and it does not bring people together. Critic Daniela Rossella notes, "Its consumption is mandatory, the ways of getting it are homologated, but the act of eating has lost every inclusive or exclusive meaning... In
America, the act of cooking recalls neither warmth nor any sense of protection; food and its waste offer proof of prosperity, of social success." In India, food seems more a form of control. Papa is able to eat his orange, but only through an elongated ritual. Mama obsesses over what Arun eats as a child. When Uma sneaks Arun guava, she is technically misbehaving. Neither approach to food—fasting or feasting—provides literal or figurative nourishment.

Why does Uma say her time at the ashram is the happiest she has been in her life?

Only at the ashram with Mira-masi does Uma feel truly happy. It is not the spiritual aspect of the place that pleases Uma so deeply; even more importantly to her, here she is left to her devices, free to do as she pleases. She can go where she wants, spend her time how she wants, and find relief from her parents' disapprobation, orders, and rules. She is truly free for a brief moment in her life, and it is exhilarating.

What are the similarities between Uma and Melanie?

Both Uma and Melanie are daughters of parents who essentially neglect them. Those parents would be aghast at such a claim, of course, for they provide for their daughters, but they do not notice them for who they really are. Uma is practically a servant, all her dreams ignored or mocked. Melanie lives among material abundance but is emotionally starving. Neither of them are able to articulate what it is they truly feel, and end up engaging in harmful behavior or lackluster protest.

Why does Desai include the story of Anamika?

Anamika initially acts as a foil for Uma—she is pretty, intelligent, and destined to marry well. Yet she has the most tragic fate of anyone in the novel, and this is Desai's way of suggesting that in a patriarchal society, it does not matter how beautiful or intelligent a woman is; if she cannot please her husband as a wife and mother of his children, she may be subject to the most horrific fates.