Bharati Mukherjee Criticism
Bharati Mukherjee's literary contributions offer a complex and nuanced exploration of the immigrant experience, particularly focusing on Indian immigrants navigating identity and adaptation in the Western world. Her work has been both celebrated and critiqued for its portrayal of cultural dislocation, assimilation, and transformation. Mukherjee's first collection of short stories, Darkness, presents a critical examination of the challenges faced by Indian immigrants, such as racism and cultural displacement, revealing a rather grim perspective on Western hospitality. In contrast, The Middleman and Other Stories, which gained wider acclaim and even won the National Book Critics Circle Award, introduces a more hopeful narrative where personal empowerment and societal transformation are possibilities, as discussed by S.K. Tikoo.
Mukherjee's evolution as a writer is marked by her ability to vividly portray immigrant struggles and cultural adaptation, as praised by Bharathi Harishankar, who highlights her work as a bridge of understanding between diverse cultures. While her portrayal of Canada in Darkness faced some criticism, subsequent works received commendation for their expansive narrative and optimistic outlook, noted by Christine Gomez. Her novels, such as The Tiger's Daughter and Wife, delve into the cultural dislocation of Indian immigrants, while Jasmine, expanded from a short story, captures the essence of transformation and identity amidst American challenges, as observed by Michael Gorra.
The Holder of the World is another significant work that bridges time and culture, weaving narratives between contemporary America and historical India. This novel has been praised by K. Anthony Appiah for its meticulous attention to detail. Although some critics, such as Michiko Kakutani, have critiqued Mukherjee for ambitious plotlines in works like Leave It to Me, others, including Lorna Sage, commend her inventive characterizations. Gary Boire points out that her revisionary techniques redefine American literary landscapes.
Despite mixed reviews, Mukherjee's contributions to postcolonial literature are significant, offering a hopeful perspective on the confluence of diverse worlds, as noted by Victoria Carchidi. Her work remains a vital part of contemporary American literature, engaging readers with its empathy and depth in depicting the immigrant experience.
Contents
- Principal Works
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Mukherjee, Bharati (Contemporary Literary Criticism)
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After the Raj
(summary)
In the following excerpt, Ascher praises Mukherjee's The Middleman and Other Stories and states that "one of the great joys, for me, of reading The Middleman is experiencing a world that generally remains just at the edge of my consciousness."
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Call It Exile, Call It Immigration
(summary)
In the following review, Gorra discusses Mukherjee's expansion of her short story "Jasmine" into a novel and asserts "she's done so without losing a short story's virtues, above all its sense of speed and compression, its sense of a life distilled into its essence."
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The Middleman and Other Stories
(summary)
In the following review, Parameswaran discusses the stories in Mukherjee's The Middleman and Other Stories. Bharati Mukherjee's second volume of short fiction consists of eleven stories that are wide-ranging in both settings and themes. Following her self-proclaimed American identity stated in her first volume of stories, Darkness, she explores the American experience through various personae or protagonists, four of whom are white American males and six of whom are females (only three of the women are of Indian origin). The result is a curious mix of voices and experiences that go to make up the celebration of being American (as she states in Darkness) as opposed to being Canadian.
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Eyre and Anglos
(summary)
In the following review, Boire asserts that Mukherjee's 'Jasmine' is a tremendously interesting work, not simply because it foregrounds characters and situations and nationalities so often disguised or dismissed in the western/American tradition, but primarily because of Mukherjee's ironic nuance and sinewy revisionism.
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Giving Up the Perfect Diamond
(summary)
In the following review, Appiah lauds Mukherjee's The Holder of the World stating, "Ms. Mukherjee draws us with vigor and scrupulous attention to detail across time … and space … into the footsteps of not one but two extraordinary women."
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Playing Games with History
(summary)
In the following review, Gornick complains that in Mukherjee's The Holder of the World, the 'boisterous Hannah does in no way suggest the brooding Hester Prynne, and what Mukherjee has to say about repressed Westerners and sensual Indians is painfully familiar, not at all passionate or clarifying.'
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'We Murder Who We Were': Jasmine and the Violence of Identity
(summary)
In the following essay, Carter-Sanborn discusses the place of identity and violence in Mukherjee's Jasmine.
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Colonial Discourse and Female Identity: Bharati Mukherjee's Jasmine
(summary)
In the following essay, Kehde analyzes Mukherjee's focus on the myth of America as Eden and Jasmine's identification first and foremost as a woman in Mukherjee's Jasmine.
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Mukherjee's Jasmine
(summary)
In the following review, Leard states that, "With the connotations of both dislocation and progress within the tangled framework of the narrator's personal history, journey as metaphor in Jasmine stands for the ever-moving, regenerating process of life itself." Despite postcolonial readings of Bharati Mukherjee's novel Jasmine, Western critics have not placed in context the pivotal play of migrations, forced and voluntary, literal and figurative, found in the plural female subjectivity of the novel.
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A Madcap Search for Bio-Mom
(summary)
In the following review, Kakutani complains that Mukherjee's Leave It to Me is "a book in which her favorite themes have warped into didactic obsessions, and her stylistic idiosyncrasies have slipped perilously close to mannerism."
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Wrath of the Goddess
(summary)
In the following review, Sage asserts that "Devi [from Leave It to Me] is a brilliant creation—hilarious, horribly knowing and even more horribly oblivious—through whom Bharati Mukherjee, with characteristic and shameless ingenuity, is laying claim to speak for an America that isn't 'other' at all."
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After the Raj
(summary)
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Mukherjee, Bharati (Short Story Criticism)
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Refashioning the Self: Immigrant Women in Bharati Mukherjee's New World
(summary)
In the following essay, Sant-Wade and Radell discuss three short stories from Mukherjee's The Middleman and Other Stories, particularly the issue of immigrant women reshaping their lives and identities in the New World.
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Love and the Indian Immigrant in Bharati Mukherjee's Short Fiction
(summary)
In the following discussion of themes common to the short stories in Darkness and The Middleman and Other Stories, Pati illustrates how Mukherjee skillfully sheds light on the immigrant experience and the search for self-realization and integrated identities.
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Cultural Collisions: Dislocation, Reinvention, and Resolution in Bharati Mukherjee
(summary)
In the following essay, Morton-Mollo discusses Mukherjee's depiction in The Middleman and Other Stories and Jasmine of the cultural “process” and “reidentification” immigrants undergo as they adapt to and transform their new world.
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‘Orbiting’: Bharati Mukherjee's Kaleidoscope Vision
(summary)
In the following essay, Carchidi asserts that in the story “Orbiting” Mukherjee reveals the manner in which American society itself is remade by the immigrant experience.
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‘Singing in the Seams’: Bharati Mukherjee's Immigrants
(summary)
In the following essay, Banerjee examines Mukherjee's short stories and concludes that the author is masterful at describing the difficulties faced by immigrants and the extraordinary ways in which they create new identities for themselves.
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Expatriate Indian or Immigrant American? A Study of ‘A Father’ and ‘A Wife's Story’
(summary)
In the following essay, Barat considers two of Mukherjee's short stories and concludes that Mukherjee, despite her own denials, writes in the tradition of Indian women authors.
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Americanness of the Immigrants in The Middleman and Other Stories
(summary)
In the following essay, Chandra rejects Mukherjee's appraisal of The Middleman and Other Stories as being tales about the “transformation” of immigrants and United States citizens as the two cultures collide, and argues instead that the collection echoes post-World War II fiction in which violence and loveless sex become manifestations of American fear and isolation.
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The On-Going Quest of Bharati Mukherjee from Expatriation to Immigration
(summary)
In the following essay, Gomez claims that Mukherjee's two collections of short stories, both written after leaving Canada for the United States, reflect her new sense of integration into the New World, and that her personal sense of exile was portrayed in the earlier novels written while she was living in Canada.
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See(k)ing Differences: Constructions of Gender and Culture in the Short Texts of Bharati Mukherjee
(summary)
In the following analysis of Darkness and The Middleman and Other Stories, Harishankar maintains that Mukherjee's writings act as a bridge of understanding “between the mainstream and minority, or man and woman, or centre and periphery … to effect a recognition of a common humanity.”
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Place and Displacement in ‘The Tenant’
(summary)
In the following essay, Imtiaz uses Mukherjee's story “The Tenant” to explore themes of exile, displacement, and varieties of multicultural social relationships.
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From Expatriation to Immigration: The Case of Bharati Mukherjee
(summary)
In the following essay, Rao discusses eight stories from Mukherjee's Darkness and The Middleman and Other Stories and shows why in Mukherjee's own view they represent her desire to be thought of as a mainstream American author.
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The American Dream: Immigration and Transformation in The Middleman and Other Stories
(summary)
In the following essay, Tikoo examines several of the short stories of The Middleman and Other Stories, concluding that 'Mukherjee's stories ultimately present a fascinating picture of what constitutes modern America and the modern experience.'
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Spaces of Translation: Bharati Mukherjee's ‘The Management of Grief’
(summary)
In the following essay, Bowen explores how in “The Management of Grief” grief becomes a “complex force for change, cultural resistance, and moral choice.”
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An Interview with Bharati Mukherjee
(summary)
In the following interview, Mukherjee, with Byers-Pevitts, reflects on her writing process, the influence of her multicultural background, and feminist themes, positing that her work serves as a metaphorical exploration of the immigrant experience and female autonomy, shaped by her life in both India and America.
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Refashioning the Self: Immigrant Women in Bharati Mukherjee's New World
(summary)
- Further Reading