Bharati Mukherjee’s writings are usually regarding the experiences of migration and matters pertaining to it. She covers the issues relating to the status, sense of estrangement and numerous other psychological mayhems of the immigrants. By and large she focuses on South Asian women in her writings and especially Indian women. Bharati Mukherjee provides readers to take the challenge boldly against the traditional frame work of the society and to turn her way towards a new consciousness of her own worth and place in the society. She endorses the cause of women similar to her modern-day feminist writers, but she stands out from them as her fundamental concern is to demarcate the difficulties of cross cultural battles that the Indian women immigrants encounter.
Mukherjee uses autobiographical and fictional elements to demonstrate the complexity of identity inherent in diasporic witing. It is a novel with complex The protagonist Tara Banerjee explains the expectations of caste and family of Hindu tradition which determines whom they should marry. The novel begins with the child bride Tara Lata, who is five year old and is about to marry a thirteen year old boy from neighboring village. But he dies of snake bite in the wedding night. According to their custom she is considered as a widow and is cursed by everyone in her society.
Devi, who met only disappointments in the patriarchal world through her marriage with Mahesh and in the temporary relationships with Dan and Gopal, learns the strategies of survival and builds a brave attitude. Re-living the stories in retrospect, she understands the implications of her situation and becomes self-directed. These myths of various legendary women help her understand the significance of fighting back and the implication of standing on her own. All such stories of mythological women becomes Devi’s survival kit at the end of the novel and liberates her from the clutches of patriarchy where Devi is seen arriving at her mother’s home. The entire novel
She was influenced by the Naxalite movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. One of the major themes of works of Mahasweta Devi involves position of tribal communities within India. She has been working her heart and soul since a very long time for the political, social and economic development and advancement of these communities. She has been a regular contributor to several literary magazines as ‘Bortika’ dedicated to the cause of oppressed communities in India. In 1984, she got retired from her job as an English lecturer at Calcutta University only to concentrate more on her writing and to dedicate herself more towards the upliftment of these tribal
Mukherjee’s fiction powerfully evokes the torn identities and cultural tensions that her South Asian protagonists suffer. Her focus is also on Indian woman and her struggle. Her own struggle of identity is something which brings out the essence of her works. Her work features not only cultural clashes but undercurrents of violence also. Mukherjee published her first two novels while living in Canada, The Tiger’s Daughter being published in 1972 and Wife in 1975.
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is a famous Indian American author whose works mainly focus on the experiences of the South-Asian immigrants, and their related problems of adoption and adaption. She writes for adults as well as children and her fiction covers a wide spectrum of different genres like fantasy, realistic fiction, magical realism, and historical fiction. Divakaruni’s first notable attempt in the field of literature was a collection of stories Arranged Marriage (1995), which won an American Book award and many other prestigious awards. This collection of stories established Divakaruni’s literary reputation. Her major novels include The Mistress of Spices (1997), Sister of My Heart (1999), Queen of Dreams (2004), The Palace of Illusions (2008), and Oleander Girl (2013).
AN EXPATRIATE INDIAN WOMAN IN WIFE THE PHASE OF EXPATRIATION: Bharati Mukherjee, an Indo-American writer of the recent times, has presented her themes in a different dimension than ever before. Being the writer of the modern times, she has depicted in her fiction the problems faced by Indian and other third-world immigrants who attempt to assimilated into North American life-styles. Using and understanding prose replete with ironic developments and with observations, she focused upon sensitive protagonists who lack a stable sense of personal and cultural identity and are victimized by racism, sexism and other forms of social oppression. She started gaining recognition and reputation for her novels in United States. Her popularity shot up when her second book The Middleman and Other Stories bagged the 1988 National Critics Award in America.
She is a supernatural character for she directly interacts with the gods and devatas. She selected deities to bear her sons and that according to the author sets her apart from rest of the woman's in the epic. Similarly Kunti's grief at the moment of the departure of Pandavas is also referred to as Heroic grief by the author. Kunti's speech is shown as a potent weapon in the incidence when she reveals to her five sons that Karna was their brother only after he is slain by them. Although in the given incidence it is the secrecy of the speech which is powerful for Yudhisthira exclaims that "o..by the secrecy of your speech lady we are
DISINTEGRATION OF THE ‘SELF’ IN BHARATI MUKHERJEE’S WIFE Dr.P. TAMILARASAN JAYAPRAGASH JAssistant Professor of English Assistant Professor of English SRM University SRM University Abstract Bharati Mukherjee (1940-2017) is one of the most acclaimed writers of the Indian Diaspora whose novels are impregnated with issues of identity and the yearning for an understanding of the self in an alien land. She is well known for the portrayal of the myriad, complex personal and cultural negotiations that emigrants, especially women have to go through in their arduous journey of life in an alien land. Torn between two conflicting cultures of the homeland and the migrated land, the deformation and the transformation of the identity of women and the predicament of women who
Bharati Mukherjee, the eminent Indo-American writer deals with the problems of women immigrants who struggle to make their own identity and an autonomous life in America. Bharati Mukherjee differs from other writers in the sense that her basic concern is for the cross cultural conflicts faced by the Indian women immigrants. All her novels represent the contemporary women's fight to make her own identity, freedom and life in the patriarchal society. She writes deeply about the cross- ,cultural conflicts, the disputes, dilemma, confusion ,isolation and the tension these women face in the foreign country. They become neither real Americans nor real Indian .In between this they try to imitate the Western culture, but cannot totally withdraw from the inborn habits.