Unlock document.
This document is partially blurred.
Unlock all pages and 1 million more documents.
Get Access
1
Multicultural Maladjustments
It is not easy to live in your own country as a stranger. Those who live amidst two or more
cultures always have an uncomfortable feeling of being outsiders. This is poignantly brought out
in the three books I am now going to discuss, “The Namesake” by Jhumpa Lahiri, “Persepolis-2”
by Marjane Satrapi and “Anil’s Ghost” by Michael Ondaatje. All these three books deal with the
conflict that results from being between two or more cultures. In “The Namesake”, it is the
struggle for identity of a boy of Indian origin in America that is portrayed, in “Anil’s Ghost”, the
author describes the travails of a young Sinhalese woman, and in “Persepolis”, the heroine is an
Iranian educated in the West. All these characters have one thing in common , which is the
feeling of being an outsider among peers.
A feeling of perpetual disorientation and discord haunts the lives of the people who are
forced by circumstances to live as a part of multiple cultures. They can overcome this feeling of
alienation by consciously trying to become a part of the prevailing culture .
Thegraphic art novel “Persepolis” by Marjane Satrapi. was originally written in French.
A daughter of a noble family of Iran, Satrapi lived a comfortable life in Iran. In 1984, in her early
teens, she was forced to flee Iran and study in a school in Austria. She feels like an outsider
among her classmates at school, but struggles to acquire a sense of belonging. She returns to Iran
after graduation and finds her country changed. She starts to feel like an outsider in her own
country. In her autobiographical comic book “Persepolis” , Satrapi portrays the anguish felt by a
young person torn between two cultures. The central character of the book, Marji feels like a
stranger in both Austria and her own country, as Iran has changed into a different country during
her absence. It has become an intolerant society where the government sanctions chauvinism,
which she finds difficult to accept.
2
“The Namesake” by Jhumpa Lahiri is a contemporary novel where the author has brought
out the conflict the Indian emigrants feel in their adopted country , the United States, as well as
the alienation felt by their children who are born in America. Ashima, the Bengali housewife
who has arrived from India feels very homesick . When she is admitted in hospital during labor,
she wishes she could talk to the other American women in the room for reassurance , but desists
because, ”she has gathered that Americans, in spite of their public declarations of affection,
[…..], prefer their privacy.”(Lahiri 3) Ashima and Ashoke are caught unawares when they are
required to give a name to their baby son in the hospital. They are caught between the Bengali
custom of giving a “good name” and the American custom of giving a name at birth.
Matters are made more complicated when the expected letter from Ashima’s grandmother
containing the “good name” for the baby fails to arrive, and Ashoke is forced to give a name that
