Fire on the Mountain: Key Quotations (Cambridge (CIE) IGCSE English Literature): Revision Note
Exam code: 0475 & 0992
Fire on the Mountain: Key Quotations
When answering exam questions about Fire on the Mountain, you will need to have a strong grasp of the key moments and themes of the text. To ensure your answers are as strong as they can be, you should support these points with quotes from the novel.
By showing that you understand how different quotes from the novel relate to the themes of the text, you will prove that you can link to direct choices the author has made. If using short quotations or key words, you must ensure they are directly connected to the point you’re making, so that your argument is grounded in the text.
Here, we will analyse key quotes grouped according to the following themes:
Solitude and loneliness
Trauma
Class systems
Patriarchy
Examiner Tips and Tricks
In Fire on the Mountain, some of the key quotes that you will take from the text are not directly from the characters, but from the narration. This often highlights how the characters think, and you can use the contrast of their thoughts and the narration with the words they use to examine the difference between what we know about them from the narrative and what image of themselves the characters are trying to present.
Just because their thoughts are not spoken aloud, it does not mean these are not relevant quotes for the characters.
Solitude and loneliness
“When they left, she paced the house, proprietorially, feeling the feel of each stone in the paving with bare feet” — Narrator, Part 1, Chapter 9
Meaning and context
This describes Nanda’s first day in her new house, just after her children leave having helped her move in
Nanda moves in to this new home quickly after the death of her husband:
Nanda was in an unhappy marriage, and this is her first chance to take something and make it her own
Nanda wants to appreciate being alone, and being in control:
She walks around the house, getting used to every detail on the soles of her feet
Analysis
Having lacked control in her life, Nanda wants to be alone, to be free to be who she wants:
Her children have become a burden, become a token of the life she was forced to live, and she feels like her time is done playing the role of mother
She was always surrounded by people and by the duty expected of her, and now Nanda believes that she will be happier alone
This is Nanda reacting to a time where she was unhappy and hoping very different circumstances will make her happy
By walking around barefoot, she is able to feel the bumps, cracks and texture of the stone, and other surfaces, that she now owns:
Much of her earlier life felt defined by her husband’s status and demands
This place, however, is untouched by her past, and she wants to feel the freshness, the difference, and the hope of something new
The use of the word “proprietorially” emphasises the importance of her ownership:
This may also be showing how she is proud of herself, finally having something of her own, and reclaiming her own identity with it
She has not been able to do this before, and at an older age, it is possibly with some regret that only now she can own a property
“She watched the white hen drag out a worm inch by resisting inch from the ground till it snapped in two. She felt like the worm herself, she winced at its mutilation” — Narrator, Part 1, Chapter 6
Meaning and context
Nanda thinks this to herself as she, unwillingly, listens to Ila talk on the phone:
Nanda does not want to have this conversation, and does not show any interest in having Ila as a friend
Nanda feels trapped in the call
Nanda is the worm, Ila the hen, dragging her out of her hole (the solitude of her silent home)
The metaphor speaks to Nanda’s dramatic hatred of any social inconvenience:
All Ila is doing is trying to talk to a childhood friend, yet Nanda thinks it agony
Nanda sees herself as a victim of Ila’s interest
Analysis
Nanda has tried to completely remove herself from her past, which includes any friends or acquaintances
Later in the narrative, Ila accidentally brings up the woman Nanda’s husband was having an affair with:
Ila is a reminder of this past
Any time somebody comes to see her, or speak to her, Nanda feels like that worm, being pulled out of her safe spot:
She is dragged away from what she pretends is the comfort of being alone
Nanda yearns for control, and to be pushed back into the life she is trying to forget, she feels her grip on control loosen
Like the worm, she is the victim here, and feels like Ila may break her in two:
This reminds us that, dramatic or not, Nanda feels immense pressure and strain, being metaphorically torn in two
“When a woman lives alone, her house should be extremely dilapidated, the mud wall should be falling to pieces” — Extract from When a Woman Lives Alone, Part 1, Chapter 8
Meaning and context
Nanda is reading from a book, a piece from within it titled “When a Woman Lives Alone”
This comes before Raka arrives to stay with Nanda, when Nanda is still alone and feeling in control of herself and her life
This is the life that Nanda envisioned for herself when moving to Carignano:
Here, she is relaxed, reading on the veranda in the late afternoon shade, enjoying tea and a nice book in comfort and peace
The book talks about a home that is lived in by a woman alone, and what the writer believes that should look like:
The home, and its grounds, should be messy and lived in, rather than neat, tidy and precise
Analysis
It may be telling that Nanda feels she needs to read books that give guidance to how a woman should live when living alone:
By the end of the novel, we see that Nanda is not so happy in isolation as she believes
She may be reading things like this to try and convince herself she is happy
It could also be for guidance, to find what others do that makes them happy, in the hope she can find happiness of her own
The passage in the book speaks of not having a home that has “everything just as it should be”:
It evokes an idea that no longer should a woman be looking to please others and keep up appearances
Nanda’s life before moving to Carignano was one where she would have to arrange things and keep everything looking good, up to a standard that was not hers
Nanda is now looking to be her own woman, have her own home for the first time, and she wants to have the control to be as tidy or untidy as she wants
There is some irony in the fact that Nanda is looking to be told what to do:
Nanda has not been in control, and does not know what she should do to be more free
As a woman who was controlled for so long, she is not sure of herself and how to just do as she pleases
The phrase “scurried about” is used later in the same passage, which suggests a woman lacking in autonomy
Here we see that Nanda is not sure what to do with her autonomy, and is insecure about it
This passage is a hint that the woman Nanda is presented as, both to others and to us the reader, is false:
She speaks as a person happily isolated and confident, but she is still insecure and unsure
“But Raka ignored her. She ignored her so calmly, so totally that it made Nanda Kaul breathless” — Narrator, Part 2, Chapter 4
Meaning and context
Nanda is annoyed in this moment that she is left worrying about Raka’s whereabouts and safety when she does not know where she is:
Raka returns home, and Nanda wants to scare her and show her anger with a look, but Raka is unconcerned and ignores her
Nanda has shown little interest in Raka until this point, and does not know where she spends her days:
Raka has been off down the hills and away from the house, with no thought for what Nanda might think
In this instance, we see how little Raka cares for Nanda’s authority:
It does not even cross Raka’s mind to look to Nanda and seek approval or disapproval
Analysis
In this moment, Nanda realises she is not as secure in herself as Raka, a small and sickly child:
Nanda is both impressed and taken aback by how little interest Raka has in her
Nanda sees herself as a strong and independent woman who enjoys solitude, but sees that her interest in others, even in hatred, shows she still cares:
Raka does not care if Nanda likes her or not
Nanda wishes she could be as uninterested as Raka
Raka’s lack of interest in Nanda contrasts with how Nanda deals with intrusion to her solitude:
At the start of the narrative, Nanda cannot relax as she sees a postman approaching, and is furious with his intrusion before he even comes to her
Raka, on the other hand, is truly comfortable in isolation as she is not even thinking of others, but of herself
This is the contrast between Nanda forcing herself to be this way, and Raka acting like this because she wants to, doing so without thought
Nanda’s constant performance is highlighted bit by bit throughout the novel, like with the book on a woman living alone, and with thinking to invite Ila to stay but stopping herself:
For Raka, all of this is natural, but Nanda finds none of this as instinctive, instead forcing it
Through all of this, we see Desai shows us that Nanda isn’t the person she tells herself and others that she is
Trauma
“One might just as well try to become young again” — Nanda, Part 2, Chapter 19
Meaning and context
Nanda describes to Raka her home in Kashmir when she lived with her father
She describes it with joy and calls it a “different world from Kasauli”:
This implies, especially after vivid description, that she prefers it to Kasauli
Raka replies to all this talk of Kashmir by asking her great-grandmother why she came to Kasauli instead of going back to Kashmir:
Raka is blunt and straight to the point, rather than showing much interest in the beauty of Kashmir
Nanda replies with the quote:
To her, going back to Kashmir was an impossibility
Analysis
Nanda presents this as truth here, though later revelations cast her narrative into doubt, that all of this was a lie to impress Raka:
The truth is that this was not the case, and she cannot go back there as it is a fantasy
The quote might also suggest why Nanda has moved into Carignano and towards isolation:
This may be her way of saying that you cannot recapture happiness or feelings from the past
Nanda has moved here to block out and try forget her past
The comparison to being young again may also be a point about not being able to relive moments:
Even in the fabrication of what her childhood was like, she cannot go back and recapture her youth
Nanda may well take Raka’s point to suggest she was happy there, so she should go back, but Nanda may be suggesting her happiness was of a time, not a place, and she cannot have that time again
That Nanda feels compelled to lie shows the influence of trauma over her life:
She wants Raka to think it better, more interesting
This not only makes her more interesting, but allows her to continue to paint a strong image of herself, rather than accept the fragile reality
“...Nanda Kaul on the stool with her head hanging, the black telephone hanging, the long wire dangling” — Narrator, Part 3, Chapter 13
Meaning and context
Raka runs in to speak to Nanda, to show her the fire she has started, and sees Nanda sat there
Nanda has just received the news that Ila has been raped and murdered, and is overcome by sadness and grief:
In this moment, it is revealed that Nanda has lied about her past, her father, her marriage, and her life in Carignano
She thinks now, and admits to herself, that all these things were lies she used to help her sleep at night, and to numb her sadness
With the news delivered to her of Ila’s fate, she no longer has the will, strength or resolve to keep up the act:
The novel ends with her sat this way, and, in the background, the fire that Raka has started
Analysis
It could be argued that this image of Nanda that we see at the end is how she has been throughout, but just hidden:
She is broken, alone, and too weak to do anything but keep living
Another reading of this is that could be Nanda dying or dies in this moment:
She goes limp and immobile, unable even to muster a noise to cry out
There is also the possibility that she is now too depressed and too weak to escape the fire that Raka has started, so her death is imminent
What we do see is her broken:
Nanda has been under significant mental pressure for a long time, and forced herself into isolation to try to block it out
Ila’s death shatters that security blanket, Nanda longer able to be numb to it all, instead shattered and upset by not just the death of a childhood friend, but such an undignified one at the hands of a brutal man
The trauma of everything she has faced and lived through, and her feelings, crashes down on her
Nanda also feels guilty, having sensed Ila’s life was dangerous and painful, but refusing to offer her help:
She has retreated into herself as a reaction to the trauma in her life, refusing to support a friend who is now dead
This moment has exposed that the choices she has made, from moving to Carignano to lying about her past, have not kept her safe:
This may be the moment she gives up
“Rainy days are lily days!” — Nanda, Part 2, Chapter 16
Meaning and context
After a big storm, Nanda says this to Raka:
This is her recalling to Raka something that Raka’s mother had said as a child when visiting Nanda at Carignano
After the rain, pink petals cover the ground all over the hillsides
This memory surprises Nanda, who seems to have very little recollection of her grandchildren in particular
It is said to come with a voice that was “hoarse with a true remembrance”:
It is spoken in a way that is out of character for Nanda
Analysis
It is rare for Nanda to recall anything of her grandchildren, whom she seems to have tried to ignore:
This could be a reaction to her trauma, as Nanda has tried to put her past entirely behind her, which includes her children, and therefore their grandchildren
It also speaks to the trauma that Tara, Raka’s mother, has been dealing with:
Tara was once a happy and lively child, but now as an adult in an abusive home, she is a shell of what she once was
This is a family with generational trauma, all coming from men who mistreat the women in their lives
As she remembers this, she speaks in a different voice:
This comes out of memories that she would usually suppress; she is almost surprised by it
That a sweet memory would be recalled in a hoarse voice suggests a sadness, regret that she has blocked this part of her away
That her family have become distant memories, and she cannot always tell whether she is remembering a grandchild or great-grandchild shows how her trauma has affected her:
To try and stop the pain of her past, she has had to forget the good with the bad
“Nanda Kaul saw that she was the finished, perfected model of what Nanda Kaul herself was — merely a brave, flawed experiment” — Narrator, Part 2, Chapter 4
Meaning and context
Nanda thinks this to herself as she watches Raka completely ignore her when coming back to the home
Nanda appears to realise that she is not as strong-willed and happy in her solitude as Raka is:
This is the first time we see Nanda question her notion of strength being alone
Raka can just ignore people she does not want to speak to, while Nanda gets angry
Nanda wants to be more like Raka:
She still isn’t quite admitting that what she is doing is a front
She still thinks she is on her way there, just “flawed” in it
Analysis
This is where we see cracks in Nanda’s view of herself, and her insecurity surfaces
Nanda is a woman who is telling herself she is happy and content in the way of life she has chosen:
She is not quite realising that it is a reaction to her trauma and an expression of depression
By isolating herself, she has not seen people, and she has not had anything to compare herself to
This moment shows her that indifference is not what she has been doing:
By caring, she sees that she is not content or relaxed
Raka does not care, and as such is what Nanda wishes she was
Nanda is not expressing admiration so much as recognition and self-judgement rooted in long-term psychological damage
This realisation is traumatic because it forces Nanda to confront the cost of her own survival:
By seeing herself as a “flawed experiment”, she acknowledges that her retreat into isolation has not worked
All this proves she still carries the resentment, longing, and need for control that come from her past
Class systems
“Isn't it absurd… how helpless our upbringing made us, Nanda” — Ila Das, Part 3, Chapter 7
Meaning and context
Ila Das says this to Nanda as they talk when she visits Carignano
She is lamenting that their upbringing taught them how to live in times of wealth and privilege, but not anything outside of that:
Ila is now struggling in poverty, with few skills that suit a woman living outside the ruling or privileged classes
Both Ila and Nanda were brought up in privilege, with fathers earning well and living in high status
Nanda and Ila were childhood friends, and so have shared very similar upbringings, at least on the surface
Analysis
This is Ila getting as close as she does to actually asking for help:
Her upbringing not only did not set her up for anything outside of privilege, it also made her reluctant to ask for help
To ask for help would be uncouth, not the kind of thing a person does if they are to act as expected in such class systems
Ila is floundering in poverty, even as an educated woman who worked at the university, learned languages and played the piano:
She does not have the skills to survive outside of privilege
This highlights that social status can dictate how people are educated:
Certain jobs and skills would be seen as beneath a person of a certain class
This also reflects the issues of sexism in traditional wealthy families:
A man would not need to worry, but as a woman, she has been left with nothing as her parents did not care for her security or care if she thrived as an individual
It also touches on sexism in society:
Girls would have been expected to marry well and live in service of their husbands
Nanda is an example of this, marrying an educated and important man, and thus looked after financially
Their upbringing trained them for “refined” roles and dependence, to be a viable wife for a husband of stature
“‘You should go in the evening, at the proper time,’ he said primly, suddenly recalling better days, spent in service of richer, better homes” — Ram Lal, Part 2, Chapter 6
Meaning and context
Ram and Raka are discussing Raka exploring the hills and surrounds of Nanda’s home
Ram suggests that Raka would be better going to the social club nearby:
He thinks she should be playing with children of her own age, rather than going off alone and into dangerous places
Analysis
Ram has been serving people at the top of the class system, and is ingrained in their ways:
He has expectations of what is best for young people
The use of “primly” suggests he does not approve of Raka’s behaviour, and is speaking in language that echoes that of serving English dignitaries:
He thinks the “proper” thing to do would be to go socialise in the way he has seen children he has served do
Ram Lal is emblematic of the social systems left behind after British rule ended, and how they were just taken on by higher-status Indians:
Little has changed in these structures, it is just different people wielding power and wealth
While better for India to have Indians in these positions, the poor are still living in poverty and clinging to the wealth that may filter down from the rich
“The main thing, she had trumpeted, was for Tara to rouse herself and make another try at being a successful diplomat’s wife” — Narrator, Part 1, Chapter 4
Meaning and context
Asha writes a letter to Nanda, telling her that Raka will be coming to stay
In this part of the letter, she speaks of her daughter Tara, Raka’s mother and Nanda’s granddaughter:
To Asha, any poor treatment is not as important as Tara being a good wife to her important husband
Moreover, she must “rouse herself”, suggesting it is her that needs to do better
Analysis
Here we see how traditional views reduce Tara to a supporting role for her husband:
Even her mother thinks she should be dutiful
Asha will see the role of being married to a respectable man as something to aim for, and something that Tara has achieved and must cling to:
This is reflective of the systems of power that are ingrained in the class system
Nanda is too disgusted to reply to this letter:
She has pulled herself away from it, having experienced a life of some similarity
Nanda recognises this as a horrible message to send to any woman
It is possible that Nanda was once of this mind herself, and thought she had done well to marry a distinguished man
There is a possibility to Nanda feels guilt, having pretended life with her reputable husband was good, leaving the impression on her daughter that inspires this thinking
Patriarchy
“He had been to drop some of the guests home — no, she corrected herself with asperity, one of the guests home” — Narrator, Part 1, Chapter 7
Meaning and context
Nanda recalls a memory of a social occasion at her house
She remembers that her husband had taken someone home
At first she thinks it may have been several guests, but she soon realises it was one guest:
We learn later of his affair, and this indicates, especially as the word “one” is in italics, so stressed, that it was the woman in question
Nanda had been thinking about the relentless nature of being a mother in a big family, and the lack of time she had for herself:
She waits for him to go in and go to bed, hiding in the dark herself, before moving out, so that she can have some time to herself
She considers this a “moment of private triumph”, such as she was starved of any space to herself
Analysis
Nanda had known about this affair throughout her marriage, but had stayed in it, as that was expected of her:
As the wife of a respected man, it was her role to support him regardless, maybe even accept it as something men do
The whole scene paints the picture of a housewife who was unhappy, one whose happiness nobody considered:
It seems her husband cared little for her, and her children were unaware
Equally, her tiredness and desire for space of her own would suggest that she was the one doing all the parenting:
This would have been a very common expectation in households across the world in this time
Women were seen as the caregivers
Nanda is so drained by the experience of parenthood that she struggles to love her children now:
Once a caregiver by nature, Nanda becomes cold and distant
The reader is consistently shown that Nanda has lost her identity, and we can see that this comes from having been forced into the role of dutiful wife in a patriarchal society
“But the line was cut suddenly as a thread is cut — snip — completely” — Narrator, Part 3, Chapter 5
Meaning and context
This quotation comes just after Ila is speaking, and suddenly stops herself
Ila has been talking about games of badminton they used to play at Nanda’s old house with her husband
She mentions the name Miss David and then seems to have a realisation about her words
We learn that this is the woman Nanda’s husband had a long affair with
Analysis
This highlights a culture in which people freely trade in rumour and gossip, but do not judge men for their actions:
Ila realises, as she speaks, that her words may cause harm
She is speaking of Miss David openly as she probably never felt a need not to
An affair like this may have been common knowledge, but widely minimised
Little shame is attached to men for such behaviour, even by other women, because male power normalises their misdeeds as natural
Ila’s decision not to speak ill of him, but instead to curtail her account, reflects this imbalance of power:
His behaviour remains largely unspoken and unchallenged
While there would be little shame attached to his leaving Nanda, the social stigma would fall on Nanda herself, for failing to “keep” him
Sources
Desai, A. (1999) Fire on the Mountain (Vintage)
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