For verification of this paper, please visit on http://www.socialresearchfoundation.com/anthology.php#8

This paper deals with immigrant’s experience and various aspect of self as an individual identity in the novels of Bharati Mukherjee. The study deals out with different kinds of the characters in the novels. In Indian culture have different types of norms and customs which serve the purpose of patriarchy set up of the society. As a diasporic writer, Bharati Mukherjee tries to demonstrate all the issues associated with immigrant’s experience in the United State. Bharati Mukherjee’s takes different types of characters and they all are from different parts of the world having ethic, values, religious and traditions. Mukherjee’s work based on social problems and the issues which are relate with women suffering. 

As a diasporic writer, Bharati Mukherjee tries to demonstrate all the issues associated with immigrant’s experience in the United State. Bharati Mukherjee’s takes different types of characters and they all are from different parts of the world having ethic, values, religious and traditions. Mukherjee’s work based on social problems and the issues which are relate with women suffering. 

Actually, her stories are based on her personal experience. “Mukherjee has established herself as a powerful member of the American Literary scene. Her most of the memorable works reflects not only her pride in Indian heritage, but also her celebration of embracing America as said in an Interview in The Massachusetts Review, “the immigrants in my stories go through extreme transform America and at the same time they alter the country’s appearance and psychological makeup”[1]

She considers her work a celebration of her emotions that she brings out of her heart. Bharati Mukherjee as a diasporic writer trying to focusing on the problem of immigrant’s experience, identity crises, rootlessness, nostalgia, alienation and homesickness. The protagonists are fighting between the two cultures. They are trying to adopt a new culture but it’s very difficult to forget their culture and accept the new one.

Indian women are more conscious about the ethics, moral values and norms of society. Indian culture is the most orthodox on the ground of ethos and feminine world. Many Indian Writers reveal this serious issue to help the society to become a developed one in respect of women. The society should not be biased in designate roles to women. “We live in a world of assumptions and ideas. One significant determining influence in our lives is our understanding of human nature, from which flows our beliefs or ‘religions’ about gender.”[2] Identity is a state of mind that is granted by the interaction with the beings in the society and, by the acceptance in the society. Women’s effort to seek their independence and self-identity started a revolution all over the world. A woman’s identity crisis is that where she struggles to achieve as a human being in its full sense against those forces of society who tie her in chains. Earlier, woman sought her identity in the relationship as a wife, mother and daughter. She accepted all these identities.

"Women and Identity addressed how women can challenge, neutralize, and modify the widely held social imperatives that restrict their mobility and fulfillment I society. A primary focus is how women can live more meaningfully through heightened identity awareness and more expansive commitments. Action flows from beliefs, and to the extent that women empower their convictions or “religions” about themselves, others ultimately become responsive and supportive of their new autonomy. Ways through which women can escape their confining roles are emphasized rather than the sources and nature of limited identity and entrapment reference.”[3]

‘Quest for identity’ the discussion highlights the importance of communal belonging. It suggests that the quest for identity may lead individuals to follow many directions. The quest for identity is a basic human need, the need to structure one's personal identity. Where a person has to create personal identity along with community, he needs to keep his individuality and rootedness together. This influence is visible in Mukherjee's personality and character.

“Pleasure is western society’s permanent special offer for women. But some drive is required to take up that offer. And it is female desire which makes us respond and take up that offer. To be a woman is to be constantly addressed, to be constantly scrutinized, and to have our desire constantly courted— in the kitchen, on the streets, in the world of fashion, in films and in fiction. Issuing forth from books and magazines, from films and television, from the radio, there are endless questions about what women desire, endless theories and opinions offered. Desire is stimulated and endlessly defined. Everywhere it seems female desire is sought, bought, packaged and consumed.”[4]

But now-a-days woman rejects this relational identity. Now she is able to understand the duplicity of this identity that is imposed on her by society so that she may restrain herself as a being. But now, women are capable to take the decision herself. She is equal to man in society. She also does not like the support of man in making her own identity and also knowing herself as someone’s daughter, wife or mother, rather than seeks separation from these relations and wants to make her own identity that shows her originality.

“In India too, both men and women writers have seen women in these relationships. Sociologists regard India as a traditionally male-dominated society where individual right are subordinated to group or social role expectations. In these roles, personality must not dominate the roles assigned in the societal frame work. Consequently, in such a set-up, a purely social, platonic or intellectual relationship between man and woman becomes nearly impossible. A woman’s individual self has very little recognition and set-effacement is her normal way of life. Indian woman too, as a part of that set up has accepted it and lived with it for ages.”[5]

 After all she except all the norms of society. But in modern age the women identity is big issue in these days. She revolts against the conventional/ orthodox image of Indian. She is conscious of herself as a being, not as an object. A woman is not the “other”. She is an autonomous being, capable of through trial and error, finding her own way to salvation. Therefore, a new modern girl is reluctant to play the conventional role of a sex object and a yoked wife. In a sense, she is the symbol of the independent woman.

Bharati Mukherjee is a diasporic writer whose works are based on sense of immigrants. “Bharati Mukherjee’s own struggle with identity first as an exile from India, then an Indian expatriate in Canada, and finally as an immigrant in the United States has led to her current contentment of being an immigrant in a country of immigrants”[6]. The word immigrant defines a physical movement from their homeland to an unknown land with frontward attitude, it indicates an inescapable isolation and a nostalgic anchoring in the past.

“The term immigrant and expatriate in general refer to persons who lives outside their own country either by choose or otherwise. But in the works of Bharati Mukherjee’s these two terms assume distinct connotations. The ‘immigrant’ willingly transforms herself/himself to fit in and absorb the best in the host culture. The immigrant experience, therefore, becomes a transformative process of the ‘self’ in its relation to society. The ‘expatriate’ on the other hand is more a reluctant entrant into the new culture and finds it hard to let go a familiar way of life.”[7]

Immigrant is also a kind of exile in which the people shifted from one place to another. The word exile evokes the feeling of detachment, relationships with the mother land and feeling of alienation. There are many types of exile like self- imposed exile, forced exile, political exile, and social exile and so on. In India the migratory movements were started by the labor class and the trading communities.

Mukherjee’s writing largely reflects her personal experience and crossing cultural boundaries. In novels such as Jasmine, The Tiger’s Daughter, Wife as well as in her short stories. Her novels focus on exploring various themes like sense of dislocation, emigrant feelings of alienation, isolation, identity crisis, discrimination, the mistreatment of Indian women, and identities. Mukherjee’s novel Jasmine, which explores female identity through the story of an Indian peasant woman. Feeling of alienation and isolation, identity crisis, discrimination, the mistreatment of Indian women, and exploring identities. Mukherjee’s novel Jasmine, which explores female identity through the story of an Indian peasant woman.

In novel Jasmine

“Her journey through life led Jasmine through many transformations—Jyoti, Jasmine, Jase and Jane through large geographical locals like Punjab, Florida, New York, Iowa and finally towards California. At every stage of her life Jasmine revolted against her fate and the path drawn for her.”[8] The protagonist of this novel suffers a lot. When she starts moving from different place, people start calling her from a different name.  So, this change shows the identity crises.

“Jasmine is the story of an uneducated, simple but courageous Punjabi peasant girl Jasmine, who travels, from an inconspicuous village in Punjab, though the breadth of the U.S. in order to fulfil a far-fetched dream. Her determination and resilience help her in the new land. The beauty as well as the brutality of America is encapsulated in the experiences of Jasmine who changes names and identities with equal ease. The first two are unable to come out of their alien status and become an integral part of their new milieu while Jasmine succeeds in experiencing life to the full with all the “exuberance of immigration”[9].

She faces many problems in her journey from India to Lowa. “The past is Jyoti’s childhood in the small village of Hasanpur, Punjab, her marriage to Prakash, the young ambitious city man, who always thrashed traditions. Pygmalion- like he had given her a new identity and a new name Jasmine for she was small, sweet and heady and would quicken the whole world with her perfume.”[10] Jasmine willingly undergoes transformation of the self from Jyoti to Jane to Jase to Jasmine. At every conversion of the personality, she stands unyielding in resistance to her providence and destiny. It is not the uncertainties of the new continent that challenge her but the uncertainties of her life in an unknown terra ferma. Her journey to the New World is a huge change in her life.

“Jasmine, on the contrary, has broken away from the shackles of caste, gender and family. As Meena Shirwadkar has pointed out, a woman on way to liberation trying to be free from inhibition is rarely seen in Indo-Anglian literature. Jasmine has learnt to live not for her husband or for her children but for herself. But she has achieved a new identity only through and with the help of her cultural past. She brings death to half-face as goddess kali, she brings happiness to Duff and Taylor as a traditional, self-sacrificing Indian woman and she is offering love To Du as a loving Indian mother who exults in her motherhood. It will take many more years for the likes of Dimple and Jasmine to completely sever their links with their past however exhilarating or exciting the foreign experience may appear to them.”[11]

In novel Jasmine Mukherjee is focusing on the identity shifting according to the place and time. “In her novels Jasmine and Tiger’s Daughter, Bharati Mukherjee has shown a dual cultural shock. Jasmine and Tara leave their respective countries in search of their dreams. This migration or “cultural transplant” leads to a crisis of identity and final reconciliation to the choice.”[12] The novel "The Tiger’s Daughter" was written during a phase of  Separation in Canada. The protagonist in the story is not confined by a singular faith, ethnicity, race, or culture. Through her novels, the author attempts to showcase the process of adapting to American society. Which depicting the characters as lacking a strong connection to their roots. “In her novels she tries to adapt to American society and how, in consequence, are portrayed as rootless. In these, the novelist seizes upon the moment as it is lived in all its intensity, confession and desperation by people who have broken away from their culture and historical roots.”[13]  

In The Tiger’s Daughter, Bharati Mukherjee focuses on immigrant’s identity. The protagonist of this novel Tara who split-self caught between her inner and outer worlds. She also redefines the notion of identity and the notion of home as an immigrant perspective. She defined an Indian woman shocked by her immersion in American culture and, after seven years she returns to India, by a changed Calcutta.

In novel The Tiger’s Daughter

The real goal of the family is the feeling of dependence on each other. Isolation, loneliness and loss of consciousness from human life can certainly be overcome by family dependence. Tara in The Tiger’s Daughter went to America for her study. There she got married to a white man, whose name was David Cartwright. “The Tiger’s Daughter is the story of a rich industrialist’s pampered daughter –Tara- who returns to Calcutta “in search of the Indian dream” after seven years in the U.S. Unable to fit into the culture of Calcutta where she grew up, she finds that she us as much of an alien at home as she was abroad.”[14]

After her marriage she wants to come back India for rerooting herself and to know more about her native land’s culture. But when she landed in Bombay airport there, she finds all relatives who come to receive her at airport. But she had forgotten her relatives “She had not remembered the Bombay relatives’ nickname for her. No one had called her Tultul in years; her parents called her Tara moni when they wanted to show special affection.”[15] She forgets her relatives name and even her nick name too and because of detachment towards her land she forgets her relatives name and culture.

The Tiger’s Daughter depicts struggles of Tara Banerjee in western society. The novel reflects Mukherjee’s own story of marrying with Canadian man. Tara marries an American Jew, whose name is David Cartwright. She has to face the disapproval of her parents and society who expects her to live as per their values and culture. But she visits India for first time after marriage without her husband. Her relatives react with shock and doubt Tara’s visit to India without her husband, because they want to see both of them together.

After coming here, she understood that she had to come with her husband. Her relatives want to see with whom she got married. “Perhaps her mother was offended that she, no longer a real Brahmin, was constantly in and out of this sacred room, dipping like a crow. She thought her mother had every right to be wary of aliens and outcastes.”[16] But her parents do not agree with her decision and because of her marriage decision her mother may seem to stop loving a daughter when the daughter has defied tradition

In novel Wife 

“But her observation on Wife comes very near my stand that it cannot be treated as a novel on immigration: “It is difficult to treat the novel as a study of cultural shock for even while in Calcutta, Dimple is an escapist and lost in her private world of fantasy.”? Dimple’s vision of Sita’s docility, sacrifice and responsibility is a flag with many messages. She wants to break through the traditional taboos of wife. She aspires for freedom and love in marriage.[17] Actually Dimple is typical women. After her marriage she expect from her husband to spend some time together. But he had no time for her.

“Dimple husband Amit thinks that Ina is breaking their marital peace by keeping Dimple talking on phone, and forcing him to eat his breakfast all by himself. When Leni breaks rhinoceros-shapes ashtray, Dimple thinks it is symbolic of her freedom from exploitation by housework and fear for self-expression: “She decided it was best to regard the broken ashtray as an end of an era in her own life. But nowhere in the novel Amit seems to have exploited her by cruelly either burdening her with household work or by neglecting her pleasures in life.”[18]

Women have some expectation from her husband. Specially housewives, because they are living in four walls only. Same happened with Dimple but her husband doesn’t give attention on her.  When Leni breaks an ashtray, Dimple interprets it as a symbol of her freedom from household exploitation and fear of self-expression. However, Amit's character in the novel doesn't seem to cruelly burden Dimple with housework or neglect her pleasures, making Dimple's interpretation a fine perspective on her own life.

“For Dimple the loss of old culture is neither an exciting nor an exhilarating experience. She is disillusioned on all planes—physical, mental and emotional. Freedom from the ponds of caste, gender and family instead of turning her hilarious, leaves her utterly lonely and desolate. Her killing of her husband is partly an act of desperation and partly an outcome of her guilty conscience. Judging herself by the Indian standards of marriage and womanhood, she is uneasy about her extra-marital relationship with Milt Glasser. Unable to cope with the crisis, she kills her husband.”[19]

Dimple's nervousness is rooted in her internal conflict, where she measures herself against traditional Indian standards of marriage and womanhood. This internal struggle is intensified by her engagement in an extra-marital relationship, causing her to take with social expectations and her personal desires. In the face of this crisis, Dimple finds herself unable to cope, leading to the extreme and irreversible act of taking her husband's life. The narrative underscores the intricate web of cultural dynamics, personal choices, and social norms that shape Dimple's tragic story, emphasizing the complexity and depth of her internal conflicts.

Bharati Mukherjee depict the stories of women’s who are shifted from their native land to foreign land and they are fighting for their liberty and fraternity. They have a task to established self and make her particular identity. The protagonist of Bharati Mukherjee they all are independent women. Who are willingly stands for their identity. This issue of identity and the clashes between the cultures, she very clearly depicts in her novels.

To sum up, it can be said that Bharati Mukherjee's novels provide a distinctive lens through which explore the interconnected themes of immigrant experiences, cultural displacement, adaptation, the search for selfhood in the context of immigration and women's identity. The narratives are layered, offering readers a profound understanding of the challenges and triumphs that accompany the process of forging a new identity in a foreign land, while also shedding light on the evolving roles and perspectives of women in these transformative journeys. Mukherjee's novels offer a fine examination of women's identity, going beyond the conventional narratives. Her female characters are not confined to traditional roles but rather emerge as dynamic individuals’ complexities of both their cultural heritage and the evolving landscapes they find in themselves. The exploration of women's identity in Mukherjee's novels becomes a convincing journey of self-discovery, empowerment, and redefinition against the backdrop of social expectations and cultural shifts.

1. Alam, Fakrul. Bharati Mukherjee: Critical Perspective, New York, Twayne Publishers, 1996, p. 10.

2. Hall, C. Margaret. Women and Identity Values choices in a changing world, Hemisphere Publishing Corporation, 1990, p. 2.

3. Ibid, p. 2.

4. Diocaretz, Myriam Diaz and Iris M. Zavala. Women Feminist Identity and Society in the 1980’s: Selected Papers, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1985, p. 26.

5. Raja, Yamuna (Ed), Yashoda Bhatt. THE IMAGE OF WOMAN IN INDIAN LITERATURE, B.R. Publishing Corporation, 1993, pp. 1-2.

6. Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex, Vintage Books, 1973, p. 43.

7. Stephen, Stanley M. Bharati Mukherjee A Study in Immigrant Sensibility, Prestige Books, 2010, p. 18.

8. Dhawan, R.K. The Fiction of Bharati Mukherjee, Prestige Books, 1996, p. 48.

9. Nityananda, Indira. Three Great Indian Women Novelists, Creative Books, 2000, p. 64.

10. Diocaretz, Myriam Diaz and Iris M. Zavala. Women Feminist Identity and Society in the 1980’s: Selected Papers, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1985, p. 26.

11. Dhawan, R.K. Indian Women Novelists, Prestige Books, 1991, p. 108.

12. Dhawan, R.K. The Fiction of Bharati Mukherjee, Prestige Books, 1996, p. 47.

13. Ibid, p. 40.

14. Nityananda, Indira. Three Great Indian Women Novelists, Creative Books, 2000, p. 64.

15. Mukherjee, Bharati. The Tiger’s Daughter. Fawcett Columbine, USA, 1996, p. 17.

16. Ibid, p. 50.

17. Dhawan, R.K. The Fiction of Bharati Mukherjee, Prestige Books, 1996, p. 42.

18. Ibid, p. 44.

19. Dhawan, R.K. Indian Women Novelists, Prestige Books, 1991, p. 109.