Name: Supriya Bhandari
Country: India

Year: 2024
Volume: Volume-9, Issue-2 (July-December)
Page Number: 185-192

Anita Desai’s Journey to Ithaca (1995) is a novel of physical, psychological, and spiritual journeys in which the search for meaning and transcendence becomes the organizing principle of the narrative. Drawing upon C. P. Cavafy’s poem “Ithaca,” the novel presents the destination not merely as a geographical place but as a symbolic goal representing spiritual fulfilment and self-realization. This paper offers a structural analysis of the novel by examining the interconnected journeys of Matteo, Sophie, and Laila. While Matteo’s journey is marked by his persistent quest for spiritual truth, Sophie’s journey is shaped by her struggle to reconcile worldly relationships, rationality, motherhood, and her husband’s mystical aspirations. Laila’s journey, however, constitutes the most significant spiritual trajectory in the novel. Moving across Egypt, Paris, Europe, and India, she gradually transforms from a restless seeker, Laila, into Lila, a spiritually awakened figure who ultimately becomes the Mother and a source of guidance for others. The paper particularly examines the contrast between Sophie’s rational and worldly orientation and Laila’s mystical quest, while also exploring Desai’s representation of woman as a source of spiritual power. The transformation of Laila into Lila foregrounds the concept of Shakti, through which the feminine is associated with supreme power and divine energy. Thus, the novel’s structural movement from journey to destination becomes a movement from external searching to inner realization. Desai ultimately suggests that the truth sought beyond the self may already reside within it, making the journey itself the essential means of spiritual discovery.

Keywords: Anita Desai, Journey to Ithaca, spiritual journey, structural analysis, Laila, Lila, Sophie, Matteo, Shakti, self-realization