“A Wife’s Story”

Fiction Text Discussion led by Jason Bollich

“Love Me or Leave Me”

Non-Fiction Text Discussion led by Lynn Starkey

Both texts written by Bharati Mukherjee

Recorder: Andrea Perkins

AUTHOR’S BACKGROUND:

Bharati Mukherjee was born to an upper-middle class Hindu Brahmin family in Calcutta, India. In 1947, she and her family moved to England where she lived until 1951 – a move which gave Mukherjee an opportunity to develop and perfect her English language skills. Mukherjee earned a B.A. with honors from the University of Calcutta in 1959. Later in 1961, Mukherjee received Master's Degree in English and Ancient Indian Culture and followed her childhood dream of being a writer by attending the prestigious Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa in the fall of that same year. She planned to study there to earn her Master's of Fine Arts, and then return to India to marry a bridegroom of her father's choosing in her class and caste.

Everything changed, however, for during a lunch break on September 19, 1963, she impulsively married Clark Blaise, a Canadian writer, in a lawyer's office above a coffee shop after only two weeks of courtship. She received her M.F.A. that same year, then went on to earn her Ph.D. in English and comparative literature from the University of Iowa in 1969. She and her husband returned to Canada where she became a naturalized citizen in 1972. She was not happy in Canada, for “she found herself discriminated against and treated, as she says, as a member of the ‘visible minority’." In 1980, her family moved to the United States where she was sworn in as a permanent U.S. resident. At the time of the writing of the source, Mukherjee was a distinguished professor at UC-Berkeley.

Her form of writing is categorized as "new immigrant" literature. She said in an interview

            If you insist, on this beautiful May afternoon in 1996, that I describe myself in terms of ethno-nationality, I'd say I'm an American writer of Bengali-Indian origin. In other words, the writer/political activist in me is more obsessed with addressing the issues of minority discourse in the U.S. and Canada, the two countries I have lived and worked in over the last thirty odd years. The national mythology that my imagination is driven to create, through fiction, is that of the post-Vietnam United States. I experience, simultaneously, the pioneer's capacity to be shocked and surprised by the new culture, and the immigrant's willingness to de-form and re-form that culture. At this moment, my Calcutta childhood and adolescence offer me intriguing, incompletely-comprehended revelations about my hometown, my family, my place in that community: the kind of revelations that fuel the desire to write an autobiography rather than to mythologize an Indian national identity . . . First of all, I don't think that the writer starts to work on her novel by saying, "I'm going to invigorate all of American writing." Any writer who does so will end up producing a sterile, agenda-ridden text and not literature. What I, as immigrant writer, hope for is to transform as well as be transformed by the world I'm re-imagining and re-creating through words. I'd like to think that ideas and feelings generated by my fiction will trickle into other cultures and literatures through translation, and provoke re-thinking of what citizenship entails. Jasmine has been translated into 18 languages. I'm very touched and humbled by the letters I get from immigrant readers who have read the book in their own language and have integrated Jasmine's adventures into their own personal/cultural experience.

Sources:      http://www.motherjones.com/mother_jones/JF97/mukherjee.html

http://voices.cla.umn.edu/authors/bharatimukherjee.html http://social.chass.ncsu.edu/jouvert/v1i1/bharat.htm

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

            Since Mukherjee writes similarly in both her fiction and non-fiction, we grouped our literary and cultural objectives together.

Literary Objectives:     1b – To criticize as well as celebrate the immigrant or American  

Dream narrative

                                    2a – First generation writer

                                    2b – Setting: covers homeland, journey (Air India, Iowa), America

                                    3a,c – Markers and genre-bending

Cultural Objectives:    1a – American Dream v. American Nightmare: Contrast –

voluntary participation in “American Dream”

3        – “New Immigrant Model” – Air India, AT&T wire, marries   

            Canadian

6 – To acknowledge and criticize the different values projected on

            ethnic homelands and on America – Shy around lovers,

            rejected arranged marriage, sharing rent on a condo with

            lover, sleeping with doctor for plastic surgery.

DISCUSSION:

FICTION:  “A Wife’s Story” introduced by Jason Bollich who brought out the following points:

- The piece is written as a narrative with a specific order of events, though the story is written from the first person point of view.

- The story moves at a rapid pace and does not become bogged down or hindered by too many details and description.  There are just enough details to fill in pieces of the story, yet allow the reader to use his/her imagination.

- The story consists of the main character with a cast of supporting characters such as the husband, Imre, and the roommate, Charity Chin.  By focusing on a small cast of characters, the author was able to pull the reader in deeper by allowing for stronger character development depicting relatable traits.

- The character of Charity Chin is a bit stereotypical and has seemed to fulfill her American Dream, but has done so as an Oriental Hand Model. (p. 67)  We find her to be very materialistic and shallow contributing to her simplicity in a supporting role as to never be able to upstage the main character.

-    The dialogue consisted of a great amount of slang usage such as the dark man on page 72.

Starkey pointed out the following non-fiction markers:

-          The use of real places and people:  There is reference to Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross” (64); Budapest (65); Dubrovnik, Mostar, Zagreb (74); WPLJ (66); MCI, ConEd, Bonwit Teller (67); Lakshmi Cotton Mills, Ahmadabad (69), etc.

-     Time placement:   The movie Numero Deux (71) came out in 1975, but there are no obvious time markers

-          Explanation/Exposition:  The author tends to explain certain comments to the reader as if speaking one on one and therefore removes herself from the storyline – making her distant.  For example on page 65 – “I don’t hate Mamet. It’s the tyranny of the American dream that scares me. First you don’t exist. Then you’re invisible. Then you’re funny.  Then you’re disgusting. Insult, my American friends tell me, is a kind of acceptance. No instant dignity here. A play like this, back home would cause riots. . .”  Then again on page 69, “I know how my husband’s eyes look this minute, how the eye rims sag and the yellow corneas shine. . .”

Fiction Discussion Question: Bollich -- In the last few paragraphs on page 75, the narrator leads us to understand sex will be involved.  Do you think this is a fitting end or merely her chance to say "sex" since she grew up in Calcutta when one was not allowed to say "sex"?  Might this be representative of her newly found American freedom?

Discussion per recorder Andrea Perkins (respondents’ names not recorded):

            In response to the ending of the story where the audience gets the impression that sex is involved, it’s common for Americans to wrap every thing up with sex.

            It was note worthy that she took the time to value her body and feel beautiful.

            “You couldn’t get away with this type of ending and description in non-fiction.”

            “ I’ve read sexier books.”

            She’s doing the American thing by pleasing her husband, but she gives the sense that she’s doing it her way.

            Using sex to convince him to let her stay is the American way.

NON-FICTION:  “Love Me or Leave Me” introduced by Lynn Starkey who brought out the following points:

-          The use of real places and people:  There is reference to Vassar College, New York City, Air India (187); University of Iowa, Iowa City, Calcutta, Doris Day, Metro Cinema on Chowringhee Avenue (180); and James Cagney, James Mason (190).

-          Lack of personal dialogue:  Outside of the very short conversation with her sister at the beginning of the narrative, Mukherjee did not have any personal dialogue with anyone. The only dialogue was between the movie characters.

-          Explanation:  She uses the passage beginning with “He sent us to America, a country he himself had not seen, instead of to Europe. . .” on page 188 to explain her father and his views about his daughters and education.

-          Exposition:  There is a definite focus on her emergence as an independent person, fueled by her father, although he probably would have preferred her to be a little more traditional, i.e. arranged marriage. In a way, she was becoming post-traditionalist as her native India was becoming post-colonial. Both of them were sensing their independence like Doris Day’s character. This comes from the quote on page 194 beginning with “ There was a cost. There was always a cost. Ruth didn’t know or couldn’t admit that cost to herself. . ."

Bollich pointed out the following fiction markers in the non-fiction text:

- The story reads like her fictional story, more as a narrative.

- There is a great amount of dialogue, telling the story to help progress more rapidly.

- The author gives the readers "flavor" in the narrative using cynicism and sarcasm as seen on page 189.

- There is usage of embellishment when telling a story within a story.

- We see so much focus on Doris Day and the character of Marty making the readers feel like they are almost reading a soap opera or something.

Non-Fiction Discussion Question: Starkey – Without the integration with the Love Me or Leave Me movie dialogue and characters, would the read have been as enjoyable and moving? Was there more fiction or non-fiction elements in this piece?

Discussion per recorder Andrea Perkins (respondents’ names not recorded):

The story keeps talking about oriental people with cameras. Is this fiction or nonfiction?

            The story never mentions the mother, however the mother obviously told the story.

            This contributes to the nonfiction markers.

            “There is a lot of dialogue and the line of development is intellectual.”

            “The only dialogue came straight out of the movie.”

            “She talks with her sister, but very little.”

            It was noticed that the airport has been renamed.

            “The father in the nonfiction piece sounded so fictional.”

            The reader sees scenes with dad that have a fictional flavor.

            “Doris Day as a nonfiction marker in the sense that dream of Doris Day is only ideal in what father saw.”

            The chronological order of the movies was not correct. “Doris Day movies were pillow talk movies; early pictures almost gets into level of myths.”

            “Is the immigrant narrative a myth or reality?”

            A student in our class (Chantel) was named after a Doris Day character.