University of Osnabrück

Department of Literary and Culture Studies

Summer Semester 20007

Seminar: (7.120403) Contemporary Asian American

Literature: Themes, Topics, Concerns

South Asian American Literature -

Comparing Bharati Mukherjee′s

"The Management of Grief"

and Meera Nair′s "Video"

Blum

, Sonja

European Studies, 4th Semester

Submission date: September 30, 2007

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Table of Contents

Chapter

Page

1 Introduction 1

2 The Authors ­ Presenting Bharati Mukherjee and Meera Nair 2

2.1 Bharati Mukherjee 2

2.2 Meera Nair 3

3 The Stories ­ "The Management of Grief" and "Video" 3

3.1 Brief Summary on "The Management of Grief"

by Bharati Mukherjee 3

3.2 Historical Facts on "The Management of Grief" 5

3.3 Brief Summary on "Video" by Meera Nair 6

3.4 Analysis of "The Management of Grief" and "Video" 6

3.4.1 Silence ­ A Synonym for Submissiveness or Superiority? 7

3.4.2 Western Intruders into the Asian World 9

3.4.3 Indianness vs. Indianizing 11

3.4.3.1 Indianizing through Language 11

3.4.3.2 Depiction of India 13

3.4.3.3 Ghettoization 14

3.4.3.4 Indian Food and Clothes 15

3.4.3.5 Indian Customs 16

3.4.3.6 Relationship between Sikhs and Hindus 17

4 Conclusion 18

5 Bibliography 19

1

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South Asian American Literature ­

Comparing Bharati Mukherjee′s "The Management of Grief"

and Meera Nair′s "Video"

1 Introduction

The inclusion of Indian American authors into the genre of Asian American

literature is widely discussed and criticized. In my opinion as well as in the view of a

great amount of other people, "`Asian American literature′ is not an ethically or

nationally bound category of writing. Instead, it is a term which is used to refer to

texts written by North American writers of Asian descent".1

This is the reason why I have chosen works by Bharati Mukherjee and Meera

Nair for the following analysis. Both writers are born in India, both immigrated to

the United States of America, both deal with "the urgent negotiation and re-

negotiation of the problematics of gendered, ethicised and nationalised identity."2

However, either one of them reveals a different attitude towards their home country,

uses a different language style and enjoys different success. A brief look on the

authors′ biographies may already help in finding out in how far these aspects are

interrelated. Secondly, I will give a short summary on both stories, including the

historical facts on the catastrophe as described in Bharati Mukherjee′s storyline.

Furthermore, I will analyse "The Management of Grief" and "Video" with regard to

its treatment of particular thematic concerns of Asian American literature, namely

the silencing of women′s voices and the effect of Western influence on Indian

societies. Last but not least, I would like to display the degree of Indianness in each

story and show how the authors obviously try to Indianize their stories. Taking all

these aspects into consideration, I might be able to find an answer to the question if

"an expatriate writer is somehow distanced from his Indian roots and does not

portray an accurate picture of Indian life"3 or if it

is

this distance which can be seen

as "a special objectivity which enables [the writer] to portray details of life in India

accurately."4

1 Grice, Helena:

Negotiating Identities. An Introduction to Asian American Women′s Writing.

Manchester University Press, Manchester and New York, 2002, p.2

2 ibid. p. 16

3 Jussawalla, Feroza F.:

Family Quarrels. Towards a Criticism of Indian Writing in English.

American

University Studies. Series IV. English Language and Literature. Vol. 17. Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.,

New York 1985, pp. 133-134

4 ibid., p.152

2

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2 The Authors ­ Presenting Bharati Mukherjee and Meera Nair

2.1 Bharati Mukherjee

Bharati Mukherjee was born on July 27th 1940 in Calcutta, India. In 1947 she

moved with her family to England through which she was able to refine her English

language skills at a very young age. After having moved back to India three years

later, Bharati received her Bachelor′s Degree at the University of Calcutta in 1959

and a MA in English and Ancient Indian Culture at the University of Baroda in 1961.

She immigrated to the United States of America directly after she finished college in

India and obtained her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Iowa in 1963.

This is also the year in which she married the Canadian student Clark Blaise with

whom she will later move to his home country. Not being very happy in Canada,

Mukherjee and her family settle in America in 1980. Here, she says, she feels "far

more comfortable with her `between worlds′ status".5 In an interview with Erin

Soderberg from the University of Minnesota, Mukherjee states that her "14 years in

Canada were some of the hardest of her life, as she found herself discriminated

against and treated [...] as a member of the `visible minority′".6 I personally think

that this experience influenced Bharati Mukherjee′s depiction of Canada in "The

Management of Grief". As she writes about the main character′s time in Ireland and

the people′s friendly reactions towards her ("The Irish are not shy; they rush to me

and give me hugs and some are crying", p. 3367), Shaila states that she "cannot

imagine reactions like that on the street of Toronto" (p. 336). This sentence reflects

Mukherjee′s personal disappointment with the Canadian society and her bad

experience in the country. A few pages later, Shaila′s mother tries to persuade her

daughter to stay in India by saying that "Canada is a cold place" (p. 338). Quite an

ambiguous remark by the author since it could relate to the cold temperature as well

as to her perceived cold atmosphere in Canada. In summary, every reference to

Canada is connected with adjectives of coldness (cf. "We are deep in the Toronto

winter, gray skies, icy pavements", p. 344) and sadness which probably reveals the

author′s feelings towards the country.

5 Grice, Helena:

Negotiating Identities

, p. 210

6 VG: Voices from the Gaps:

Bharati Mukherjee.

http://voices.cla.umn.edu/vg/Bios/entries/mukherjee_bharati.html; as of September 10, 2007

7 All in-text citations refer to the following source: Hagedorn, Jessica:

Charlie Chan is Dead 2. At
Home in the World. An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Fiction.

Revised and Updated.

Penguin Books 2004

3

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Mukherjee holds the American citizenship since 1988 and presently teaches

at the University of Berkeley in California. She "describes herself as American and

not the hyphenated Indian-American title."8 From this statement one can assume that

Bharati Mukherjee is an author who is "more anglicized in [her] social, behavioural

and educational backgrounds".9 This anglicized background and her early perfection

of the English language boots her success as a South Asian American author which

will be pointed out later in this paper.

2.2 Meera Nair

Meera Nair is an Indian American writer who has not been as successful as many

of her national colleagues. Consequently, there are not a lot of facts published

concerning her biography. However, I do not want to deprive the few details that are

known about her.

She was born in 1963 in Kerala, India and immigrated to the United States of

America at the age of 34. There, she received a MA from Temple University and

obtained a MFA at the New York University. She now lives in Brooklyn, New York

with her husband and daughter.10

In contrast to Bharati Mukherjee, Meera Nair had already reached a certain age

when she immigrated to America. Consequently, one can assume that she does not

speak and write in such perfect English as Mukherjee who moved to England at the

age of eight.

Furthermore, Bharati Mukherjee derives from a wealthy family and enjoyed a

highly academical education (she holds a PhD), both aspects which have an influence

on her English language skills and her writing in general.

3 The Stories ­ "The Management of Grief" and "Video"

3.1 Brief Summary on "The Management of Grief" by Bharati

Mukherjee

"The Management of Grief" is taken from the short story collection "The

Middleman and Other Stories" written by Bharati Mukherjee in 1988. The story

8 http://alumni.eecs.berkeley.edu/~manish/authors.html, as of September 10, 2007

9 Jussawalla, Feroza F.:

Family Quarrels

, p.

135

10 cf. Hagedorn, Jessica:

Charlie Chan is Dead 2

, p. 362

4

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