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Part 1, Chapter 3
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Fire on the Mountain, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Nature of Freedom
Honesty and Self-Reflection
Trauma and Suffering
Class and Privilege
Female Oppression
Summary
Analysis
Nanda Kaul sits in the cane chair on her verandah and looks at the riot of flowers and fruits in the garden: the apricots ripening on the trees, the potted geraniums and fuchsias. Birds swoop through the garden and she can hear the steady drone of cicadas. Nanda’s eyes rise past the garden to the rooftops of the city below. Then, finally, she turns her attention to the letter, written by her “most exasperating” daughter Asha.
Nanda Kaul so dreads whatever demand the letter carries that she can’t even notice the beauty and peacefulness of her garden. It’s notable that she can only imagine relationships taking something from her. And with that threat constantly hanging over her head, her isolation isn’t very freeing or peaceful.
Themes
Nanda Kaul already knows some of the drama surrounding her granddaughter Tara, who is married to a cheating and abusive diplomat. They’re supposed to be going to Geneva, but their daughter Raka has recently had typhoid fever and is still too ill to travel. Nanda Kaul feels an almost physical resistance to opening the letter. It explains in detail how Asha managed to reconcile Tara and her husband, and all the work Asha had to do to prepare Tara to travel to Europe. And it announces that Asha and Tara have decided to send Raka to recuperate with Nanda Kaul over the summer before traveling on to Geneva. Nanda Kaul drops the letter back into her lap and looks toward the horizon as she wrestles with feelings of “anger […] disappointment […] loathing” and helplessness to oppose her daughter’s plan.
Although Nanda Kaul has yet to reveal any of her own history to readers, it clearly has to do with domestic life. She resents her children and grandchildren as much as she resents the loud baby hoopoes nesting in the eaves of her house. And she finds something particularly difficult in facing the sad story of Tara’s marriage. In turn, Tara’s story—especially given her mother’s evident collusion with her abusive husband—suggests the limitations and violence imposed on women in early 20th-century Indian society.
Themes
