Abstract

Social Identity in Bharati Mukherjee’s Days and Nights in Calcutta

Mohammed Lateef Aziz Twayej

Volume: 12 Issue: 4 2022

Abstract:

The study is an attempt to discuss Bharati Mukherjee’s social identity in a remarkable work of diasporic Indian literature, Days and Nights in Calcutta, based on Henri Tajfel’s theory. Days and Nights in Calcutta is classified as one of the most prominent works in diaspora literature. It is a shared work of Bharati Mukherjee and her Canadian husband, Clark Blaise, in which they record their daily life for fourteen months in India. While reading the text, it is easy for the reader to capture the two opposite perspectives, the Western and Eastern. The Western attitude is represented in Clark Blaise’s section, in which he conveys his own experience in India by describing the streets, hotels etc. He reflects the Western eye of Indian culture by drawing the contradictions of the Indian culture with the Western one. The Eastern lens is presented in Mukherjee’s section when she narrates her leaving India when she was a little girl to Europe and her return after a long absence to her homeland. In her narration, she seeks reconciliation and reunion again with her origin. She suffers the culture clashes and racial discrimination for most of her life. Her identity is torn between the Eastern and Western cultures. European culture treated her as an Indian due to her skin colour, while in India, she is Western due to her looks. Thus, the study attempts to discuss Mukherjee’s social identity in the light of social psychology and to examine whether the writer can adopt a new culture to get a reunion after a long absence. Moreover, it also focuses on the transformative experiences of Mukherjee, which she acquires while abroad, such as racial discrimination in alien cultures due to her race, culture, and origin, leading to discrimination against her people in the homeland.

DOI: http://doi.org/10.37648/ijrssh.v12i04.030

Back Download

References

• Adjaero, N. M. The Structure of the Family: A Social Institution. Onitsha: Spiritan, 1996.
• Bhattacharya, Parimal. Person and Personality. Conversations With Bharati Mukherjee. Ed. A. C. Bradley. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009. 3-9.
• Connell, Michael, Jessie Grearson, and Tom Grimes. An Interview with Bharati Mukherjee and Clark Blaise. Conversations with Bharati Mukherjee.
• Crain, William. Theories of Development: Concepts and Applications. 6 th Edition. Essex: Pearson, 2014.
• Erikson, E.H. Childhood and Society. New York: Norton, 1964.
• Erikson, E.H. Identity, Youth, and Crisis. New York: W. W. Norton, 1964.
• Erikson, E.H. The Problem of Ego Identity. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 4 (1) 1956, 56-121. https://doi:10.1177/000306515600400104
• Hancock, Geoff. An Interview with Bharati Mukherjee.‖ Conversations With Bharati Mukherjee. Ed. A. C. Bradley. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009. 10-24.
• Jung, C. G. Memories, Dreams, Reflections. New York: Pantheon, 1963.
• Kamala Naiker. “Changing Names, Changing Places: The Transformation of Female Identity through Translocation in Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine.” International Academic Research Journal of Social Science, Vol. 1(2), 2015, pp. 7-11.
• Layder, Derek. Social and Personal Identity: Understanding Yourself. London: Sage Publications, 2004.
• . Mead, George Herbert. The Philosophy of the Act. Eds. Charles W. Morris. Chicago & Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1938.
• Mukherjee, Bharati, Clark Blaise. Days and Nights in Calcutta. New York: Penguin Books, 1987.
• Mukherjee, Bharati; Clark Blaise; Michael Connell; Jessie Grearson; and Tom Grimes. 'An Interview with Bharati Mukherjee.' The Iowa Review 20.3 (1990): 7-32. Web. Available at: https://doi.org/10.17077/0021- 065X.3908
• Nagaraju & Saradha Rajkumar. “Identity Crisis in Manju Kapur’s The Immigrant and Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Name Sake.” Man in India, Vol. 2, 1997, pp. 83-90.
• Tajfel, H. Human Groups and Social Categories: Studies in Social Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
• Tajfel, Henry. Social Identity and Intergroup Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
• Tajfel, Henry (Eds.). The Social Dimension: European Developments in Social Psychology. Vol 2, London & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984.