The Matcox

The sheer variety and scope of Ashapurna Debi's stories tendsto defy any critical evaluation of them. But the common thread stringing themtogether into a multifaceted whole is the delineation of the emotions of themiddle classes, living lives outwardly devoid of sensational events, but inactuality containing a psychological and emotional terrain almost terrifying inits complexity. Her forte is the domestic life, what she described as the fourwalls of the home - walls which contain a variety of unique experience withinthem. The stories in The Matchbox bear this out - each story is not jut anexploration but also a working out of an inner complexity, usually revealed in adichotomy between the character's outer facade and their inner world.