The present paper describes Anita Desai’s probe into the problems of woman be it of a daughter, sister, mother, grandmother or a wife. Desai focuses on the gender roles of women seen through the lenses of female activities experiences goals, values, institutions, relationships and modes of communication. Men in her novels mostly exist only as projections of women’s point of view. Most of Desai’s women characters registered protest against the circumstances which oppressed them. Desai’s entire fiction traces the changing image of women in the face of existential dilemmas. The modern woman protests and dares to pronounce her convictions. Desai has presented three kinds of females in the peacock.