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
Once, Nanda Kaul took care of others with an almost religious fervor. But the source of that devotion dried up after the Vice-Chancellor died, when her children helped her pack up the house and delivered her to Carignano. She remembers how she “drifted” around the garden on that first day. She found it perfect in its austerity. She can’t imagine adding a child—Raka—to this setting any more than she would have added a fountain to the dry garden.
The book never makes it fully clear how much of Nanda Kaul’s service to others arose in response to the expectations of her society and her husband and how much represents her own desire to connect with others. This, in turn, suggests the ways that sexist and patriarchal limitations can poison a person’s natural inclination through coercion.
Themes
On the day before Raka’s arrival, Nanda Kaul visits Ram Lal in the kitchen. She helplessly asks what he will cook for the girl—she left her cookbooks behind when she left her old life. Tentatively, Ram Lal suggests potato chips with ketchup. This sounds cheerful, if inadequate, to Nanda Kaul. She leaves the kitchen, and Ram Lal frets over his advancing years.
Nanda Kaul once knew what to do in situations like this. She could still pull up that knowledge if she wanted to. But she doesn’t—she prefers to abdicate adult responsibilities for others, like her servant Ram Lal, to take care of. While her past life makes this attitude understandable, it still suggests a concerning selfishness and lack of consideration for how she impacts others—especially those with less privilege.
Themes
