Wanting Too Much, Feeling Too Little: Hyper-Realism, Ethical Crisis, and Social Texture of Prof. Vikas Sharma’s All Her Fires

Prof. Vikas Sharma’s All Her Fires presents a compelling portrait of the ethos of the Indian campus today. This paper argues that the novel uses hyper-realism not to merely depict the anxieties of youth, but to explore the ethical crisis behind this phenomenon of wanting too much and feeling too little. All Her Fires examines the mechanisms of social power structures that suppress empathy and heighten self-centred tendencies. Reading the novel as a campus novel, we discern the ethical cost of competitive social relations and the fragile social texture of contemporary life.

hyper-realism, ethical crisis, campus novel, Gen Z, social texture

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2. Redhu, Vishal. “Alienation, Identity, and Moral Conflict in All Her Fires by Prof. Vikas Sharma.” Research Journal of English (RJOE), 2026. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

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