Diaspora Deconstructionism

Following the end of World War I one and British Imperialism all together, diaspora has become a prevalent literary genre, especially in the melting pot that is the United States. Authors like Jhumpa Lahiri have transformed first-hand experiences into penetrating works of fiction that explore identity and culture through the perspective of displaced Indian immigrant. No less profound than Lahiri’s work is the short fiction of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and Attia Hosain; two particular short stories, “Clothes” and “The First Party”, both utilize American commercialism and pop culture to explore the fluid nature of identity, culture, and the struggle of immigrants to maintain a “self” through the unforgiving process of assimilation. Divakaruni and Hossain conduct this exploration through varied literary elements including setting, characterization, and point of view. However, Divakaruni and Hossain explore both sides of the spectrum of assimilation by highlighting their character’s successes and failures. 

Both “Clothes” and “The First Party” weave American and Indian clothing throughout the narratives to underscore the symbols and tokens that encapsulate the traditions of the two cultures. The character in “The First Party” is unable to understand the American custom of  “relating clothes to time and place and not just tradition”(Hosain 17) while the character in “Clothes” ironically recognizes that foreign, American clothing liberates her from the rigid customs of Indian culture. The use of clothing also serves to reinforce the displacement both characters feel. While the women in “Clothes” wears a pair of jeans and “[marvels] at the curve of [her] hips and thighs, which always have been hidden under the flowing lines of [her] saris(Divakaruni 4),” the women in “The First Party” is tenaciously attached to values and customs her clothing represents, labeling her fellow Indians who wear immodest American clothing as “disgusting, shameless hussies” (Hosain 18). Certainly, there is an irony to this comment in that she uses an American idiom to denigrate those who have betrayed Indian custom. These authors do not simply use clothing to encapsulate a metaphor; these symbols and tokens also present significant philosophical implication relating to the self and the construction of identity. 

The prevalence of clothing and other symbols of American commercialism present difficult questions about the nature of identity.  Both female characters in the two narratives define themselves through their clothing and their outward expressions of allegiance to their culture. However, Divakaruni doesn’t simply turn the issue into a binary paradigm; she fractures her character’s identity and forces her audience to wrestle with themes and symbols that simultaneously compliment and contradict one another. In her own analysis, Lisa Lamor suggests that 

One continual theme among characters and story-lines is the point at which the threshold of fracture is reached, creating a crisis level in identity formation. For some characters, the crisis is reached upon initial arrival and early living in the U.S., while for others it is reached when their level of fracturization coincides with other character fragmentation. Either way, it is a phase that is worthy of examination, as that is often the site upon which the literature is based (28). 

Mita’s experience in “Clothes” echoes this notion as she is forced to confront the nature of her identity while choosing whether she wants to return to her life in India. 

Mita’s experience at the end of “Clothes” captures the idea behind Lamor’s analysis and challenges the reader to consider the implications looming behind her experience. Following the death of her husband, Mita chooses not to return to India and become a “Dove with cut-off wings” (Davikaruni 8). As Mita gazes at herself in the mirror, she comes to the realization that, for the first time in her life, she is free to choose her path and not bound by the rigid constructs of Indian culture. She introspectively claims, “I straighten my shoulders and stand taller, take a deep breath. Air fills me—the same air that traveled through Somesh’s lungs a little while ago. The thought is like an unexpected, intimate gift. I tilt my chin, readying myself for the arguments of the coming weeks, the remonstrations. In the mirror a woman holds my gaze, her eyes apprehensive yet steady. She wears a blouse and skirt the color of almond” (Divakaruni 8). These final few sentences of the narrative are flooded with the rich symbolism of the whole story. The gift Mita refers to presents the reader with a difficult question. The gift she has been given was only made available through the culture she has now decided to abandon, while this gift also requires her to remain in a world where “everything is frozen in place, like a scene inside a glass paperweight. It is a world so small that if I were to stretch out my arms, I would touch its cold unyielding edges. I stand inside this glass world, watching helplessly as America rushes by, wanting to scream” (Divakaruni 6).  However, what shines out of these closing statements is Mita’s realization that she has the ability to choose, which makes her radically different from her counterpart in “The First Party.” 

The greatest discrepancy between the two characters of the two stories is the inability of the women in Party to come to the realization that she is able to construct her own identity like Mita does. Clothing again becomes the medium by which this idea is presented. As this woman’s sensibilities are attacked by the alleged promiscuity and immodesty surrounding her, she is clearly apprehended from finding any value or meaning in the actions of those around her.  The juxtaposition of characters in this narrative reinforces this point. This young woman is surrounded by “women who were her own kind, yet not so, were wicked, contemptible, grotesque mimics of the foreign ones among them for whom she felt no hatred because from them she expected nothing better” (Hosain 18). The palpable hatred that bleeds out of this comment speaks to the woman’s inability to value any other culture or custom foreign to her. The customs of American culture are so alien to her that she even wonders “how it [feels] to hold a cigarette with such self-confidence” (Hosain 1). The disparate experiences of these two women synthesize together to engender important perspectives relative to the nature of identity and subjectivity. 

Before delving into the views these stories present about identity, it is important to compartmentalize these ideas and nuance them from other contemporary theories about identity. Hosain and Divakaruni are not postmodernists or even nihilists. One could even argue that their stories were not written to function as a medium for a philosophical analysis of identity. In fact, in her own analysis, Hilary Hester reports, 

As an Indian immigrant to the United States, Divakaruni, aching to break free from stereotypes, used her past experiences--and the desire to communicate the plight of Indian women in America-- as the driving force behind her writing. Unable to connect or sympathize with the situations of the American and British authors she was reading, Divakaruni turned to her inner consciousness to develop a new narrative (29).

This comment surely sheds light on Divakaruni’s motivation for her writing, and the same motive can be assigned to Hosain; however, given the authors intention often takes a back seat to their intentions, the feasible interpretations related to the nature of identity are pervasive throughout both narratives. 

While some may suggest that identity is somehow an innate part of selfhood, the experiences of the characters from these two texts reveal the identity has a much more fluid nature than some may assume. One scholar has referred to this fluid nature of identity as polygenesis. Aparajita De explains, “Polygenesis is a continual self-refashioning that characterizes diasporic identity. This identity is inflected by multiple socio-cultural and political forces that shape and reshape it…it is a continual birthing process resulting in the evolution of the self under diverse contexts” (36).  This is the very cycle the reader witnesses Mita experience. Her evolution as a character, unlike the woman in Party, is not defined by a binary like person/other or here/there but occurs as a synthesis of both American and Indian cultures. For example, even as she feels liberated wearing a new pair of American jeans, she is still finds value in them simultaneously through her native culture, “I’m wearing a pair of jeans now…I love the color, the same pale blue as the nayantara flowers that grow in my parents’ garden” (Divakaruni 7).  This newfound identity is forged within her ability to synthesize and inject value into objects that function as symbols of her newfound identity.

This process that Mita is seemingly successful at negotiating is at odds with the experience we see the woman in Party go through. The diction of the entire narrative underscores her unwillingness or inability to synthesize her culture with the alien one she has been thrust into. As she constantly castigates those around her for their wickedness, the reader is not only unable to sympathize with her plight, but also her unwillingness to forge her own identity is highlighted through her language. This woman never comes to the realization that Mita does, that being she is free to explore this newfound world and develop an identity that is outside the constructs of her native culture. This assertion carries with it the dubious assumption that one ought to assimilate into a new culture willingly. However, authenticity becomes a key issue within that debate. Throughout these narratives the reader is confronted with the question of whether mechanically conforming to the constructs of culture constitutes an authentic identity. If these narratives are any indication, it seems this mundane conformity results in confusion, bitterness, and identity crisis. This issue of authenticity becomes the greatest discrepancy between these two texts. While the reader is left to look at Mita with hope and admire her choose to her own path, the reader has no choice to look at the woman in Party as if she is Lot’s wife, self-righteously looking back at her native culture and “put her head against a pillar and wet it with her tears” (Hossain 19). 

As the world continues to shrink and the various customs and traditions of cultures continue to blend together, the rigid structuralism of the past is beginning to sway. While this process is often painful, confusing, and resisted, literature has become a significant vehicle by which these phenomena is being explored. The fiction of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and Attia Hossain is especially significant given that it comes from individuals who hail from societies that are defined by their rigid adherence to tradition. Stories such as “Clothes” and “The First Party” not only give voice to a generation of women who have been silenced by tradition, but it also carries significant implications related to the freedom individuals have to be authentic and reject the claims of those who would suggest that their traditions and tokens are innately valuable. Diasporic literature has attempted to liberate those trapped between two worlds and supply those same individuals with a blank canvas on which they can find value and meaning for themselves.

Works Cited

De, Aparajita. "Mapping subjectivities: The cultural poetics of mobility & identity in South Asian diasporic literature." UMI Dissertation Publishing 1 (2009): 1-185. Pro Quest Research Library. Web. 3 Mar. 2013.

Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee. "Clothes." Arranged marriage: stories. New York: Anchor Books, 19961995. 25-37. Print.

Hester, Hilary. "Breaking the bonds of silence: The immigrant experience in magical realist novels of Katherine Vaz and Chitra Divakaruni." UMI - Dissertations Publishing 2003 5 (2003): 1-52. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Full Text. Web. 1 Mar. 2013.

Hosain, Attia. Sunlight on a broken column. New Delhi, India: Penguin Books, 19921961. Print.

Lamor, Lisa. "Fractured Identity -- The Jagged Path of Diaspora in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's "The Mistress of Spices"." ProQuest, UMI Dissertations Publishing 2011 2 (2011): 1-95. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Full Text. Web. 4 Mar. 2013.