Upamanyu Chatterjee: A Study of his Image and Symbols

There is no doubt in the dictum what French critic Buffon asserted long ago ‘l style est l home meme’ (‘style is the man himself ’). Though the dictum became a cliche in the arena of twenty-first century English studies, yet the dictum has its resonance in Upmanyu Chatterjee. Generally the students of literature begin their respective English studies at the graduate and post-graduate levels with Francis Bacon who happens to be the most economical writer till now (in respect of word-placement and syntactical pattern) in English literature.

Keywords: Protagonist, waffle, lower middle class families

The following passage emphatically shows the climactic ending of the novel:–

“Jamun is aware that Shyamanand’s letter doesn’t afford a complete picture of life at home. If he telephones Burfi in his office, for instance, he’s likely to be fusilladed with just how fiendishly difficult their father has been. Jamun is unhappy that Shyamanand is unhappy, but he’s also vexed by his own guilt, and by the selfish, emotional demands that his family members make on one another even in absence. He is sad, too, at the swiftness with which his mother’s augury–about Shyamanand’s misery after her passing–is being vindicated; at moments, he detests both his parents, one dead, one dying, for continually coercing him to choose between them; always, in their weaning of their sons away from each other, Shyamanand (as in the letter to Jamun) and Urmila have both, mindfully or semiconsciously, fibbed to them, or at least hidden from them bits of the truth.”14

Rightly asserted by Firdaus Kanga in ‘The Tribune’ that “Chatterjee is a mercilessly gifted observer. Basically the novel is about the family disturbance and insane modalities of a family. Though s...

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...ar, Boria, ‘The Hindustan Times,’ 24th Jan. 2001, P.–06.

18. Chatterjee, Upmanyu, ‘The Mammaries of the Welfare State,’ Penguin Books, London, 2000, P.–05.

19. Ibid. P.–14.

20. Ibid. P.–26.

21. Ibid. P.–305.

22. Ibid. P.–323.

23. Iyer, Sharda ‘Colonial Consciousness and Racial Conflicts in Upmanyu Chatterjee’s Novels’, Swaroop and Sons, New Delhi, 2005, P.–61.

24. Chatterjee, Upmanyu, ‘The Mammaries of the Welfare State,’ Peguin Books, London, 2000, P.–324-325.

25. Ibid. P.–345.

26. Ibid. P.–437.

27. Chatterjee, Upmanyu, ‘Weight Loss’, Penguin India, 2006, P.–04-05.

28. Ibid. P. –19-20.

29. Ibid. P.–27.

30. Naik, M.K. ‘Quest for Identity in Upmanyu Chatterjee’s Weight Loss’, Indian Writing in English: Past and Present, (ed.) Amar Nath Prasad, Swaroop and Sons, New Delhi, 2004, P. –56.

31. Chatterjee, Upmanyu, ‘Weight Loss’, Penguin India, 2006, P.–416.