What is the message in Nectar in a Sieve?
Nectar in a Sieve presents familial love and familial sacrifice as the most important aspect of life. While this point of view is beautiful and inspiring, it’s also poignant because Rukmani’s deep love for her family coexists with her inability to protect and provide for them.
What happens at the end of Nectar in a Sieve?
The ending of the novel is satisfying as a closure to one chapter of Ruku’s life, but the beginning of the novel marks the close to Ruku’s real life story. Instead, Ruku ends the novel on a hopeful note. She has returned home to her happy place, has her family by her side, and a new chapter of her life lies before her.
What does Kenny represent in Nectar in a Sieve?
Kennington is a white, western doctor (presumably British) who comes in and out of Rukmani’s village, helping the people and ultimately building a hospital. Kenny is an interestingly complex character, who is often something of a stereotype symbolizing the difficulty with colonialism.
What does water symbolize in Nectar in a Sieve?
Water is a symbol of life. Life for the poor is a delicate balance and much depends on the whims of nature. So important is water that Ruku and Nathan name their firstborn, Irawaddy, after a river.
What point of view is Nectar in a Sieve?
the first person
point of viewRukmani tells the story of her life in the first person, narrating her own direct observations, motivations, and feelings and describing other characters through her own eyes.
What does Rice symbolize in Nectar in a Sieve?
Rice. Rice is the overriding symbol for life itself in Nectar in a Sieve. Nathan presses grains from his harvest into Rukmani’s hands to impress his bride with their prospects for prosperity.
What point of view is nectar in a sieve?
Why does rukmani give Kunthi rice during the drought?
Terrified, Rukmani gives Kunthi a week’s worth of rice. Tearfully, Nathan, who walks in from the field when he hears Rukmani’s shouting, admits to stealing the rice. He confesses that he gave it to Kunthi because she threatened to reveal to Rukmani that he is the father of her children.
What do we learn about Murugan in nectar in a sieve?
Murugan is Rukmani’s third son. Murugan moves to a large city to work as a servant, and eventually marries a woman he meets there, Ammu. Like his older brothers, he refuses to live as his parents have and even makes major decisions without consulting them.
Who is rukmani and Nathan’s fourth son?
Raja Rukmani
Raja. Rukmani and Nathan’s fourth son. Raja is killed by tannery watchmen for allegedly stealing a calfskin during a time of famine.
What is the climax of Nectar in a Sieve?
climaxThe night Rukmani loses herself to a rage so intense that she tries to kill her daughter, mistaking her for Kunthi, is the moment when there can be no turning back for her in the choice between good and evil.
What is the main conflict in Nectar in a Sieve?
major conflictOn the surface, this is a story about the struggle between life and death for the very poor in an unjust society, but the novel’s transcendent struggle is between the forces of good and evil in a human life, characterized by generosity and greed, compassion and selfishness, and joy and sorrow.
Who is the author of nectar in a sieve?
This one-page guide includes a plot summary and brief analysis of Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya. Set in rural India during a phase of urban development, Indian author Kamala Markandaya’s acclaimed novel, Nectar in a Sieve (1954), follows Rukmani, an elderly woman who reflects on the various hardships and triumphs of her lifetime.
Who is Rukmani in nectar in a sieve?
When Rukmani turns twelve, her family marries her to a tenant farmer named Nathan, a match that many think is beneath her. When Rukmani leaves home in her husband’s cart, she’s nervous, and even vomits once during the journey; however, Nathan is kind and soothes her fears.
What happens to Kenny in nectar in a sieve?
Soon they are totally destitute, relegated to scavenging for herbs and edible plants slowly starving to death. Kenny enters into Nathan and Rukmani’s lives once again, assisting them by getting employment for their third son as a servant in the city.
Why was Selvam selected in nectar in a sieve?
Selvam, one of their surviving sons, is selected to receive training to prepare him to become a doctor’s assistant. The villagers react poorly to this act of kindness and they speculate that this favor that Kenny shows Rukmani is due to an affair that they have.