Ila

In Ila who has traveled across the globe with her diplomat family. She was exposed to various societies
from early on. Ila unwittingly ejects borders. For her, the western culture supersedes her own as she
believes it allows her freedom.
She leads an independent life in London. She has out of reach of the conservative, restrictive, patriarchal
society of Calcutta, and makes her own rules. She is trapped between the two cultures being rejected by
one another. But while Tha’mma associates borders with the fight for liberty and national identity, Ila’s
map of difference is breakable. About Cairo, she says,

“Oh yes, Cairo, the Ladies are way on the other side of the departure lounge”.

At the end of the narrative, Ila too is unable to cross the shadow lines of borders of India, England, and
other countries. The lack of materiality in her imagination means that she cannot appreciate differences
in cultures and contexts. Ila bears the burden of representing a postcolonial female perspective. When
Conrad commenting on Nick’s sleeping with other women after his marriage to Ila. She replies,

“I never did any of those things: I’m about as chaste, in my own way, as any woman you’ll ever meet.”

Ila is the only universal woman in the novel, and liberality is constructed as suspect because of its not
being rooted in any one culture.