The Role Of Identity In Dimple's Identity

She could maintain only infrequent contact with other Indian married women in the new place. However, this doesn’t replace the security of extended families in Calcutta. Her encounters with other women add to her social and psychological alienation. Though she is attracted by the freedom that some other Indian American women enjoy, she succumbs to the restrictions imposed on her life by her husband and his patriarchal family. The immigrant woman is frustrated gradually by the circumstances. She is isolated not able to meet the expectations of her husband, who looks forward in her a good Bengali wife taking care of her home and husband adapting the life in American society without very much influenced by American society. She rebels against

She wishes for recognition and she looks forward for an independent identity. Dimple kills her husband in an attempt to liberate herself. However she is confused and is not able to face the world and commits suicide in the end. Mukherjee presents an image of the oppressed woman who struggles with her identity. Mukherjee foregrounds the experience of a woman forced to confront her marginalization within her own (Indian) culture, while attempting to forge an identity within an alien (American) culture, both of which, however, are entrenched in patriarchal ideology. In delineating Dimple’s attempt at negotiating the cultural and ideological divides, Mukherjee provides for the contradictory interactions of culture, ideology, and identity. Dimple is both culturally and linguistically silenced. Denied voice, Dimple is unable either to validate her experience or her identity. When Dimple is seduced by Milt Glasser (without Amit’s knowledge), her isolation and despair become even more acute. “She was so much worse off than ever, more lonely, more cut off from Amit, from the Indians, left only with borrowed disguises … [living] like a shadow without feelings”

The characters eat Indian food, Dal, Parota, and pickles. They use Indian costumes like Sari, Kurta, Paijama and also follow Indian traditional and religious symbols i.e., wearing Bangles, Bindi and Sindhur. There is a need to clarify what India means to