Student Question
What is the significance of the two epigraphs in Clear Light of Day?
Quick answer:
The epigraphs by Emily Dickinson and T. S. Eliot are highly significant to Anita Desai's novel Clear Light of Day. The lines from Emily Dickinson focus on the dual pain and joy of memory, which Bim experiences directly. The quotation from T. S. Eliot speaks of the need to let go of oneself and one's pain to find renewal, which happens to Bim by the end of the story.
Anita Desai begins her novel Clear Light of Day with two epigraphs. The first is from a poem by Emily Dickinson: “Memory is a strange bell – / Jubilee and knell –” The point of these lines is that memory, here compared to a bell, presents both cause for celebration and cause for sorrow, just like a bell rings to announce celebration or sorrow. This quotation is highly appropriate to the novel, for much of the story focuses on the memories of Bim and her family.
Bim recalls both good times and bad times as she looks back over the past. She remembers the death of her parents and her abandonment by her brother. She recalls the time her sister Tara ran away in panic when Bim was attacked by some bees. As Bim remembers, though, she realizes that she loves her family even with all their hang-ups and challenges....
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She embraces forgiveness and reestablishes her commitment to caring for the people she loves. Indeed, memory has brought Bim both sorrow and joy.
The other epitaph at the beginning of the novel, a quotation from T. S. Eliot, focuses on transformation:
See, now they vanish,
The faces and places, with the self which, as
it could, loved them,
To become renewed, transfigured, in another pattern.
This quotation is also especially relevant to the novel, for Bim and her memories are both transfigured and renewed by the end of the story. Bim, however, has had to let go of herself in the process. She has long been resentful toward her siblings. They have hurt her, and she sees them through the lens of that pain. She focuses on her brother's abandonment and her sister's new life and her other brother's constant need for care. These things eat at Bim until she faces them directly. When she does, she discovers that the problem is partly in herself. Then the memories transform as she sees them more clearly. She, too, changes as she releases the pain and learns to love again, seeing her family in a new light, a new pattern, and receiving a renewal in herself.