Necter in a Sieve

By examining the characters and actions in Nectar in a Sieve, it is clear that the caste system plays an important part in influencing the people’s lives and decisions that they make. First, the caste system effects who the characters end up marrying in the story. Since Rukmani’s sisters were very pretty and each of them had a pretty good dowry, they were able to marry high in to their caste of the Kshatriyas. However, Rukmani wasn’t very pretty and her parents didn’t have as much money any more, so she was forced to marry down in to the Vaishya caste with Nathan. This shows that the caste system decided who each character in the story would end up marrying which is a big part of their lives.
The caste system also decided where each character in the story worked. Since Rukmani’s father was in the Kshatriya caste, he had to be a ruler or warrior because only rulers and warriors make up the Kshatriya caste. The, Nathan and Rukmani worked as tenant farmers because they were in the Vaishya caste, the caste where you have to be a farmer, a merchant, atrades person, or an artisan. Therefore, the caste system told each character what jobs they had to have, and they didn’t get much of a choice to do something different. So, the caste system told them what they had to do for a living, which each character’s life is surrounded around and it’s what they depend on to get money and food.
Even though the caste system didn’t give the character much of a choice on how they lived their lives, it did bring people of the same caste together. When ever someone needed help throughout the story, other characters in the same caste were willing to help them. For example, when Kunthi needed food to eat, Rukmani and Nathan gave her some of their rice even though they really needed all the rice for themselves. This shows that they wanted to help her out because they knew that she was starving just like they were, and they decided to help her instead of letting her die of hunger. In addition, when Rukmani went to sell two old shirts, two saris, and two dhotis to Biswas, he told her “Very well, Rukmani. I will pay you what you ask, since I know it will help you.” This shows that he was willing to pay 75 rupees for Rukmani’s things even though he thought that they were only worth 30 rupees because he knew she was in the same caste as him, and he wanted to help her keep her house.
The caste system brought that characters together, but it also separated the characters. If one character wasn’t in the same caste as another, they wouldn’t trust each other. For example, Rukmani didn’t trust the tannery workers because she has never seen people who didn’t live in her village. She thought that they were loud and disgusting, and she didn’t want them in her village because she liked having everyone in the village like her. Also, Rukmani didn’t rust the people in the city, when she went to go visit Murugan because she never saw so many different types of people before. So, this shows that the characters hesitated to trust other people outside of their caste because they didn’t really know what they were like.
The caste system played a big role in Nectar in a Sieve. It decided how the characters lived their lives, and what they thought of other characters in the story. It made the decisions for the characters in the story and was one of the main themes through out the story.