Migration of the human population began over a million years ago beginning in Africa and later across Asia and Europe. Since the beginning of human existence, migration has continued through both voluntary migration within one’s country or elsewhere and through involuntary migration, which includes the slave trade and human trafficking. The movement of labor to capital can simply illustrate modern migration, in its purest form. Because of the constant migration of humans across the globe, the assimilation of many cultures was forced. This in turn led to inherent problems such as cultural alienation and cultural fragmentation to exist within society. In each of the short stories, “One Out of Many” written by Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul and “The …show more content…
Naipaul tells the story through an Indian man by the name of Santosh, who is emigrating from Bombay to America with his “master”. Santosh’s actions and thoughts of American life and culture is demonstrated unequivocally throughout the work. Naipaul begins his exposition of cultural alienation through the analysis of class. The author allows the reader to observe Santosh’s discomfort while he is on the plane traveling to America. (Norton 1662) Through this observation, the reader notes Santosh’s loss of his traditional Indian caste identity and his subsequent acquirement of his new hybrid identity. Therefore, He was now simply considered an impoverished Indian immigrant. Thus, Naipaul incorporates the first element of cultural alienation, …show more content…
Lessing begins by allowing the reader to enter the mind of the narrator in its innocent childlike state. Thus, the reader is able to understand the cultural standpoint from which the narrator is speaking from as the story progresses. This childlike state also allows the reader to see the importance of race in their society. This is evidenced through the quote: “It was this instilled consciousness of danger, of something unpleasant, that made it easy to laugh out loud.” (Norton 1477) Children, often considered the pinnacle of innocence, also contributed to the rigid class and racial structure that is present within the society in the text. As the text progresses, the reader further observes the narrator and her struggle with the change in dynamics pertaining to class and race. This is perhaps most evident when she encounters Chief Mshlanga who hails from the village not far from her home. In the narrator’s encounter with the chief, the narrator completely sheds her synthetic privilege that she has created and immediately becomes curious with chief’s intentions and heritage that he has beheld for essentially his lifetime. This is important because, as a result of this, the narrator later in the text goes
Jhumpa Lahiri, the brilliant author of The Namesake, made a significant point about second-generation immigrants having dual-identities in America. In terms of dual-identity in The Namesake, a person is encountered with choosing between cultures, lifestyles, and decisions. Gogol Ganguli, a protagonist, faces the problem of dual-identity throughout the book. Furthermore, he was faced with the idea of becoming either a true American or Bengali. Gogol’s problematic dual-identity journey started from the day that he was born till the day he found a true balance between his dual-identity.
• AW’s work is deeply rooted in oral tradition; in the passing on of stories from generation to generation in the language of the people. To AW the language had a great importance. She uses the “Slave language”, which by others is seen as “not correct language”, but this is because of the effect she wants the reader to understand.
W.W.Norton and Company. The Norton Anthology World Literature. Ed. Peter Simon. new york: W.W. Norton and Company, 2013.
Charlemagne was once quoted having said “To have a second language is to have a second soul” (Kushner 29). In achieving full comprehension of another language, one also gains insight into the culture of foreign individuals. It is common knowledge that in the modern world, English is the dominant tongue. Yet, bilingualism, even multilingualism, is a sure sign of possessing the scarce knowledge of cultural diversity. As American society becomes more accepting of various cultures in its politics and education, foreign voices also appear more in American literature. The diversity of origins of the latest young writers is vast: In The New Yorker’s 2010 “Top 20 Under 40” list of new American writers, over one-third were not born in this country. Their homes cross the globe, from Latvia to Peru (“Top 20 Under 40”). The rise in popularity of stories of these bicultural writers can be attributed to the changing of attitudes in America. Our history and present is laden with the accounts of immigrants. Their perspectives are fresh and bursting with talent. Jhumpa Lahiri, a female Bengali author, gained prominence after she was listed in the 1999 edition of the “Top 20 Under 40”. That same year, her collection of short stories “Interpreter of Maladies” was published, and went on to sell millions of copies worldwide. Lahiri in particular is well known for, in the words of Aviya Kushner, “translating the immigrant experience for us, often lyrically…as the English-born child of immigrants, she can move smoothly between both worlds, marveling and assuring us that, yes, it will be all right” (Kushner 27). In many of her short stories, Lahiri focuses on that transition from a foreign culture-in her case, Indian-to American culture. More than oft...
Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Peter Simon. 3rd. ed. Vol. B. New York and London:
The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Volume 2. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2013.
“Mrs. Sen” from Jhumpa Lahiri’s, 1999 short story collection “Interpreter of Maladies” deals with the experience of the Indian immigrant to America. Mrs. Sen is constructed around her experiences of immigration and the cultural differences between Indian and America. Additionally, this story discusses the issues of identity, cultural displacement and the difficulties of those who are physically and psychologically displaced. In his book “The Postcolonial Short Story,” Paul Russell states that it Lahiri’s stories focuses more on dislocation rather than location and thus this dislocation has become a dominant trait and theme in her stories (np).
Lawall, Sarah N., and Maynard Mack. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Second ed. Vol. B. New York: Norton, 2002. Print.
Lawall, Sarah and Maynard Mack, eds. Norton Anthology of World Literature. New York: WW Norton and Co., 2002.
The diasporic characters face a sense of alienation of exile. The absence of the sense of belonging, the lingering awareness of ‘‘clutching at a world that does not belong to them’’ leaves them isolated and willing to create ‘‘home’’, a ‘‘community’’ in their own way. The protagonists are not averse to the idea of acculturation accompanied by a sense of loss and heart-breaks but they also want to ‘‘adapt and adopt.’’ The nine-short stories in the anthology deals with characters that are, or feel displaced from home. If we try to classify them, we find that the characters are first-generation and second- generation Indian settlers in the US (‘Mrs. Sen,’ ‘The Third and Final Continent,’ ‘When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine’), Indians in the native country (‘Interpreter of Maladies,’ ‘A Real Darwan’) and finally an American (‘Sexy’). In almost all the stories there is a longing for the native land, the life led in India before their migration to the US. Even the second-generation settlers are not free from the connection they have with the country of the birth of their parents. Politically and nationally they are Americans but the ‘added baggage’ of their parent’s memories of their country is something that they have to contend with. The first-generation settlers fear that the children may forget the traditions and culture of their parents and become completely Americanized. Thus they have
Bharati Mukherjee’s story, “Two Ways to Belong in America”, is about two sisters from India who later came to America in search of different ambitions. Growing up they were very similar in their looks and their beliefs, but they have contrasting views on immigration and citizenship. Both girls had been living in the United States for 35 years and only one sister had her citizenship. Bharati decided not to follow Indian traditional values and she married outside of her culture. She had no desire to continue worshipping her culture from her childhood, so she became a United States citizen. Her ideal life goal was to stay in America and transform her life. Mira, on the other hand, married an Indian student and they both earned labor certifications that was crucial for a green card. She wanted to move back to India after retirement because that is where her heart belonged. The author’s tone fluctuates throughout the story. At the beginning of the story her tone is pitiful but then it becomes sympathizing and understanding. She makes it known that she highly disagrees with her sister’s viewpoints but she is still considerate and explains her sister’s thought process. While comparing the two perspectives, the author uses many
Puchner, Martin. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Vol. A. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2012. Print.
Marginalization of the people of this region could be seen in vogue in the historical writings as well as the theoretical framework of the intellectuals. Popular intellectuals of the academic circle such as Eric Wolf’s ‘people without history’, E.P Thompson’s ‘ unsung voices of history’, Genovese’s ‘ objects and subjects of history’, Ranajit Guha’s ‘Subaltern’, Lacan’s ‘ others’, Sharia’s ‘ hybrid histories’ and many other intellectuals continuously questions the validity of the existing orthodox historical discourses of the marginalized down through the ages. The mainstream society carries on a continuous, harsh and systematic attack on the social system of the Northeast, their culture, their tribal identity and their way of life. The debts of mainstream India to the efforts and struggles of the tribes of this region during the colonial regime and even in the pre- colonial days should be acknowledged by re- writing the history of our country. The history of their struggles is not only documented in their scripts but also in their folktales, dances and songs that passed on from one generation to the other. In sh...
Migration, the movement of people from one area to another, results in the introduction of new ideas and styles of living. Often times, these new ideas conflict with a person’s previous ideas causing dilemma; the person’s dilemma leads to the hybridization of two ideas or cultures. “Bharat Changes His Image”, by Yasmine Gooneratne, should remain in the Migrations unit because the characters struggle to find a balance between Sri Lankan and Australian cultures while establishing themselves in their new home. Their actions and struggles parallel the unit’s essential questions and enduring understandings.
The term immigrant refers to residents who come to U.S. from other countries. The second generation refers to the U.S. born children of immigrants. This particular novel Queen of Dreams narrates this hyphenated identity, the ways in which the characters chart the process of journeying: whether it is though a complete shift in life style and perspectives. Divakaruni’s writing is compared to Bharti Mukherjee’s novels Desirable Daughters and Jasmine. Queen of Dreams is a novel about Rakhi. Divakaruni’s narrative of this novel focuses on Rakhi, the daughter of immigrant couple who have settled in California and wish to bring up their only child as an American, shielding her from their past lives in India. The daughter has never been to India but is determined to identify her ‘roots’ so that she can understand her identity as an Asian American appropriately. She has imagined India only through photographs and other images available through globalised networks of communication. Though Rakhi never sees herself as an immigrant, it is a part of her parents’ lives and by logic, her own life. Thus she feels incomplete without internalised this other side of her existence. The novel emphasises how the experience of the people generates the identity of a space and how it is important to capture the spirit of the place to understand the people that