How Prawer-Jhabvala Highlights the Culture Clash Between India and England in the Young Couple

The industrial revolution in both the United States and England relied heavily on roles in the household and society. Men, woman, children and minorities all had a set place in society before the industrial revolution. During the revolution and sense of enlightenment changed the roles of these individuals. In the middle of the 1800’s there was change in the role of men, the workplace was no longer a farm or working in the town, rather men were expected to be entrepreneurs. Men, unlike woman, were seen as aggressive and built to work in a savage work place were they could bring home the bread for the family. In England several factory jobs were quite laborious, as well as in the US, however many emigrants that came to the United States had a different sense of what labor as a man meant. Labor was no longer

The feelings and emotions that make this a powerful and thought-provoking story on stereotyping and general ethnic insensitivity are carried primarily as the author provides you with the internal narrative dialogue and careful observation of a young Cherokee girl named Arletta. Much is communicated without a spoken word by her throughout the essay. Much is said in a one sentence reply to her foster mother at the close of the story.

There are also themes of immigration and culture. It is interesting that cultural responsibilities to her husband is what really separates Nea and Sourdi. Coming of age and the role men is also something. Yet again, it is the cultural instance of the man Mr. Chhay that takes Sourdi away; despite any protestations of his uncouthness Duke actually may have made for something more inclusive for Nea as he is delayed in development like Nea; symbolized by the fact Duke and Nea even held hands while present with Nea in the car. With Mr. Chhay in the life of Sourdi, there is very little role for Nea; perhaps this is why Nea hates so much that fact that he calls her ‘little sister’ (Chai, 2001). Overall Sourdi represents a choice to become that her mother became, a wife and mother.

Both of these stories deal with two culture groups, Indians and Americans; Mr. Kapasi has trouble relating to Mrs. and Mr. Das because of the vast amount of differences in their culture: Mr. Kapasi has an arranged marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Das did not, so he also “found it strange that Mr. Das should refer to his wife by her first name when speaking to the little girl.” He thinks, “Mr. and Mrs.Das behaved like an older brother and sister, not parents.” The only way Mr. Kapasi is able to relate to Mrs. Das is that fact that she currently is in a loveless marriage, similar to his marriage, and even this is not enough to bring understanding. The difference in these cultural constructs is vast and continues throughout these stories. Miranda has very little knowledge about India: when Laxmi mentions “[h]e has a Punjabi mother and a Bengali father,” Miranda “thought it was a religion,” but later realizes it is place in India called Bengal. Miranda and Dev share a large cultural difference, “the only Indians whom Miranda had known were a family in the neighborhood where she'd grown up.” She wants to please Dev though, so she learns more about Indian culture and changes her normal routine to incorporate some kind of Indian culture in her schedule. As the meaning of “sexy” is unearthed, Miranda finds it is very different from Devs construct of the word. The cultural differences between all of these characters are as confusing as they are fun, but these differences sever the

Struggling to organize my mind I attempt to return to the place I’d been, trying to grasp any bit of the context of my thoughts. While thinking I fell upon a new topic, a topic I haven’t considered much about. As it begins to form I feel a sense of understanding comes over me and I know I’ve fallen upon something important. I watch my father and siblings work and begin to wonder whether other families work together as a unit like ours does. Do the children help with the work traditionally for men? If so, are they as willing as we are? I realize my family isn't like the typical family you see nowadays. We are strange, different, and united. There was a time when I felt disappointed with my family for not being like other families I knew, but through deeper reflection, I decide it is something to be proud of. We are the way we are and it works. We’re all our own people with our own thoughts, personalities, and ways of doing things. One trait that we all share is our willingness to work. Doing the “man’s job” has taught me that I am as strong as a man and have the capability to do the same things they do. I witness this being carried out with my

Jess’ parents held on strongly to their religion and traditions and never fully integrated with Western ways of life. They lived in Hounslow neighborhood of West London, a community filled with Indians, and did not allow their children to make friends with anyone outside of their culture in order to avoid their children being negatively influenced by Western culture. “A stricter parenting style is believed to be necessary to develop the coping abilities to deal with racism and discrimination.” (Friedman, Bowden & Jones, 2009, p.384). Jess’ mother wanted both of her daughters to learn to cook traditional Indian food at a young age and find an Indian boy to get married to. She said, “I was married at your age. You don’t even want to learn

At times people struggle with issues around their identity, hopes, and dreams, race and more. Dealing with poverty, complicates all of these issues. Unfortunately, these are the conditions that many people face day-to-day. In order to succeed or simply survive when faced with these conditions, one must be resilient. Native Americans who live on reservations must be resilient in order to survive. These people have very little yet they hold tightly to their heritage. Sherman Alexie shares the community’s struggle in his novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian. The main character, Junior encounters many setbacks causing him to react as someone who is persistent. In The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, Sherman Alexie portrays Junior as a comic hero because he experiences setbacks while struggling against blocking characters, he’s witty and resourceful and he demonstrates resilience.

It isn’t false that the initial transition from one country to another is difficult- in some cases an entire language has to be learned, a home has to be bought, a job has to be found. In the short story “Hell-Heaven”, a character named Pranab moves from Bengal to Boston in order to attend graduate school; he struggles finding a place to live and something to eat, but luckily recognizes Boudi’s (the narrator’s mother) traditional Bengali dress and acquainting himself with her family, who offers him a place to stay. Interestingly, it is not Pranab but rather Boudi who experiences a culture-shock in this story, when she is stunned by Pranab’s decision to marry a white American girl as opposed to one of the Bengali girls his parents had arranged

Kapasi for example is shocked to see the Indian family acting so westernized because they had traditional Indian names, but were not invested in the culture because they had settled in America. Therefore, they were raising their children to also not be so involved with traditional Indian culture. For example, Mr. and Mrs. Das’s children were running wild to the point their son, Bobby, got beat up by a monkey. It is perceived by Mr. Kapasi, that Americans are more distant from their families and are more selfish and into technology than helping their children learn the importance of family commitment and how important it really is to carry on traditions in their cultures even though they do not live in India anymore. Mrs. Das even did not want to take her own daughter to the bathroom and it is learned later in the story that she had had an affair and Bobby was not her own child. Globalization has made an impact on my countries either turning Indians into true “ugly” Americans who cannot even respect their own culture because they have grown accustomed to other ways of life and no longer have respect from their own ancestor’s way of

Bride and Prejudice, directed by Gurinder Chadha is a film that puts a unique spin on the classic novel Pride and Prejudice written by Jane Austen. Although, Chadha copies a similar storyline and characters, some of the major themes she presents in her film are noticeably different from those expressed in Austen’s novel. One of the major themes the viewer can see portrayed in the movie is culture. Unlike Austen’s novel, Chadha’s film conveys different cultures from India to Britain, to American. It is through her use of multiculturalism where the theme of globalization is also made apparent. Chadha has the film jump from one location to the next over the globe, pushing different types of people and culture into the view of the camera. Two of

Have you ever felt a cultural conflict within yourself? The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri is a novel about a character named Gogol who struggles with living an American lifestyle, while also sticking to his Bengali heritage. Through the people around him and his very own name, Gogol has an inner conflict between his Bengali side, and his American side. Gogol responds to this by neglecting his Bengali side and being more American.

Nair attempts to interpret and relocate the characters from their succinct semantic images on paper and re-cast them as believable entities embodying social, economic and psychological baggage in an essentially postmodern world order. In Lahiri’s novel, a world order presents itself where people like Ashoke and Ashima are subconsciously put on the fringes of the mainstream American society, in part by their attitude and approach to the new, almost alien societal and cultural experiences and circumstances and in part by the reaction to their reaction by the world around them. And this is essentially a conflicting world order where there is an intent to adapt to this bewildering newness around while there is equally strong a yearning for the familiar and much cherished roots. The two characters (Ashima more visibly so) are torn, as it were, between the two worlds, and struggling to conform to either! Into this palpable melee comes the son. The second-generation of Indian immigrants and a first-born American citizen of Bengali origin who is bestowed with a name borrowed from a Russian writer of repute, Gogol Ganguly endeavours to be efficaciously functional in a space that might be essentially regarded as an interstice or gap between the American ‘public’ sphere as Nikhil, truncated or anglicised to the convenient ‘Nick’, and the Indian ‘home’ sphere as Gogol, while trying to make peace or strike a middle path with his baffling name and social, national, cultural and ethnic

English being the lingua franca in India has established itself so firmly that even in the movie

It is noteworthy that the subject, “They” referred to the whole English community that urges Lesley, Blakiston as well as the red-nosed boy have no alternative but to follow them. The latter, as Hamidullah mentions, used to be nice to him, but the longer as he stays in India, he begins to detest the Indians as his senior generation and the majority of the English. Thus, this discrimination against Indians becomes an inheritance for every English in India. For Indians, they are indoctrinated and internalize the subordinated position where

Ruth Jhabvala’s first novel reveals world order in which a stubborn identification with one’s inherited culture is both realistic and desirable. This identification has its genesis in the ancient code of laws laid down in the Dharma Shastras. An adherence sustained over the centuries to the social order created thereof, with its ramifications of caste and class and separations attendant upon them, still shapes and colours the Indian outlook as Ruth Jhabvala sees it. The characters of her novel identify with a well defined area, predetermined by birth and heritage and share a common conviction that only disruption and unhappiness can result from a violation.