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In the growth and development of the Indo-Anglian novel, the feminine sensibility has achieved an imaginative self-sufficiency which merits recognition in spite of its relatively later manifestation. Anita Desai presents "the welcome creative release of the feminine sensibility" (Rao, 1972 : 50), which emerged thoroughly in the post-Independence era. Desai is a novelist of considerable merits and has enriched the Indian novel in English in various ways. It is her thematic concerns and technical innovations that have been chiefly responsible for making her "a disturbing and demanding presence in Indo-Anglian fiction". (Maini, 1977 : 216). Desai's interests are far more psychological than social, political or sociological. Exploration of the deeper and inner-most core of the consciousness of her characters, particularly, her female protagonists, constitutes, by and large, the singular forte of Anita Desai as a novelist and also as a woman-writer.However, before detailing the feminist dimension as portrayed by Anita Desai in her novels, it is highly pertinent here to have an overview of the critical theory and praxis of feminism, in general, the world over, and in India, in particular. Feminist critical theory is considered to be a political discourse, a literary and theoretical commitment to the struggle against patriarchy and sexism and not merely a gender study in literature. In fact, feminist critical perspective and theory become pertinent to the study and analysis of the social, institutional and personal power relations between the sexes.