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ISSN: 0974-892X

VOL. II
ISSUE I

January, 2008

 

 

Neeta

From Negation to Assertion: The Study of the Female Protagonist in Bapsi Sidhwa’s An American Brat

            Emancipatory instinct of Post-colonialism affected the place of woman, especially the Third World Woman in society. Her marginalized and gendered subaltern position of colonial period shifted towards the centre and she gradually started her efforts to occupy a distinctive position in the main stream. Her identity which used to be dependent on male, in the patriarchal order of society, has been modified and expressed freely. Domestic walls were no more a hindrance in her way of expression. She availed the opportunity to establish her ‘self’ which either remained unexpressed or the expressions of which were circumscribed due to the impositions from the social order. She dare break the myth which was usually jotted about the Third World Woman that she is “ignorant, poor, uneducated, tradition bound, domesticated, family oriented, victimized.”(Gandhi 86) By making herself aware of the growing influences of science and technology and keeping herself updated with the recent knowledge, she developed logical thinking and left the futile superstitions which were the main cause of her exploitation in the existing social order. Gradually she also became economically independent. As her mental capabilities flourished and horizons widened, she learned to assert her identity in every walk of life and got her ‘self’ free from the domesticated image. She too learned to create new spaces for herself where she could lead her life according to her own will. No field of life remained unaccessed by her - be it the science, fine arts or literature. In the recent years a number of studies were made about woman’s cause by feminists who acknowledge not only her problems but also the new spaces created by her. It is because of her changed position and enlighten state that she has become the protagonist of a number of fictional works.

Bapsi Sidhwa, a well-known name amongst the Third World Fiction Writers, is a Parsee Pakistani novelist, now settled in the U.S.A. Her novels deal with woman and woman issues as she herself is motivated by postcolonial call for freedom. Her protagonists often refuse to accept the role enthralled on them under patriarchal order. Bapsi Sidhwa used to give voice to the sufferings and pains of those who otherwise suffer in silence. In her novel Pakistani Bride, she portrays the efforts of a woman who “endorses a challenge to the structure of Patriarchy”2 while in Ice-Candy Man, also known as Cracking India she deals with the theme of partition which is narrated with the feminine perspective of an eight-year-old girl, named Lenny. Her next novel American Brat is the story of a girl who creates alternative spaces for herself breaking the cycle of this repression when she gets the opportunity to assert her ‘self’. She boldly takes up the challenges, posed before her by her family, community and nation. In fact, Sidhwa belongs to the group of creative artists whose purpose is to depict “determined women for whom the traditional role is inadequate, women who wish to affirm their independence and autonomy and are perfectly capable of assuming new roles and responsibilities.”(Kaur VII)  The novel is the story of Feroza Ginwalla, a sixteen-year-old Pakistani Parsee girl, the only daughter of Zareen Ginwalla and Cyrus. The time period depicted in the novel is the late seventies, when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was in jail and Islamic fundamentalism was making its pace in Pakistan under the reign of General Zia. Though the Parsee community used to be considered modern and progressive in its outlooks and views, Feroza’s behaviour often contradicts her being a member of this community. It was the impact of the contemporary socio-political environment that Feroza begins to negate even the identity given to her by her family and community and behaves in an un-parsee like manner. Sometimes she refuses answering a phone call at her home saying “What if it’s someone I don’t know” (An American Brat 10) or at other moments she objects her mother’s wearing sleeveless Sari Blouse at her school saying : “Mummy, please don’t come to school dressed like that.” (10) Such a behaviour disturbs the class consciousness of her mother and she expresses her worry “Instead of moving forward, we are moving backward. What I could do in ‘59 and ‘60 my daughter can’t do in 1978!” (11) In a way, the novel begins with the negation of the given identity by Feroza but the development of the plot reveals the story of her attainment of self-hood.

Considering the fundamentalistic and conservative environment of Zia’s reign, the only possible cause behind the negation of the heriditarically acquired identity of Feroza and timidity of her behaviour, Zareen, her mother plans to send her to the USA where her maternal uncle Manek studies in MIT Boston. She is of the opinion that the changed milieu would positively affect her for the assertion of her ‘self’. When Feroza comes to know about the decision, she reacts in a surprising way. She shouts in excitement while talking to her maternal uncle in America on phone, she hugs and kisses her parents and also hugs her aya passionately. Her over excitement and over joyous attitude is expressed in the following words :

Feroza slipped under her quilt, fully dressed, her eyes wide open, her mind throbbing with elation. She was going to America! She found it difficult to believe. She repeated to herself, “I’m going to America, I’m going to America!” Until her doubts slowly ebbed and her certainty too, caught the rhythm of her happiness. (27)

Her reactions and behaviour can be likened to a bird who has already started to adapt herself to the life of the cage in which she has been caught but somehow gets freedom and overwhelms. Her fundamentalistic behaviour seems merely imposed one in the light of her over joyousness. Her happiness clearly reveals that her un-parsee like self effacing personality is merely a self imposed denial of her identity and at her heart of hearts, she too wants to enjoy freedom and has a strong desire to lead her life in accordance of her will. Currents of time prove too accelerating for her to sustain a balance in her life and she begins to flow with them adopting the fundamentalistic ideology of the contemporary reign. In fact, she uses negation as a mechanism of self- protection in an atmosphere of frustrations, caused by the orthodox and traditional notions, pervading the nation at that time.

Ultimately she departs to America and during the journey seems to be very happy in anticipation of her arrival in the First world country. Her initial experiences with immigration officer who reads different motives in her arrival at States, perturbs her. When he tries to make her admit that the purpose of her journey is to marry Manek who is not her uncle, she gets upset and tears begin to roll down from her eyes. The officer takes undue advantage of the lack of her power of assertion and treats her as an inferior member of  the third world. But this experience makes her bold enough to face the further ordeals, those may come during her stay in America. Manek warns her to keep quite and assures the officer about the true nature of their relationship. From here onwards Manek becomes a role model for her to imbibe the progressive and modern culture of the USA. As usual, she suffers from inferiority complex for being a citizen of Third world country but Manek asks her to get rid of all this. “Sit, stupid. You must get over your gora complex. Once you know enough whites, you’ll realize how ignorant and dirty they are, and you’ll stop feeling sorry for bastard like him.” (84) Gradually she gets over all the complexes and becomes bold and confident by learning the independence of mind and spirit in the changed milieu. The attributes which are often neglected by the Third World Woman, are accepted by Feroza as she is desirous of adjusting with the conventions of the new world. Even the horrible experience at YMCA stairwell which might be a danger for her life, could not deter her from the path of gaining confidence. In spite of leading the sheltered and over protective life at her home in Pakistan, she dares become courageous.

An hour later they were snacking on chicken sandwiches, chips, and chocolate milk and Feroza, caught up in the excitement of this new travel, captivated by the green, unfolding New England landscape, buried the horror of the stairwell. (95)

She does not stop her march of moving ahead due to the dreadful incidents rather learns lessons for future. Gradually changes become visible in her way of walking, talking, clothing, eating, drinking, dancing etc. which definitely hint at her wish to assimilate in the culture of the U.S.A. At every step of her confusion Uncle Manek gives her advice and she becomes aware about western culture.

She makes plan to linger her stay in America to avoid the dominance of her native identity. She gets enrolled in a small college in Twin Falls Idaho. Her decision to stay some time more in America is motivated by the fact that there she finds better opportunities to re-assert her identity in comparison to the conservatism of Lahore where she has to live self-effacingly in case she returns. Her deliberate indifference to the national boundaries hints at her desire to create new spaces where she can easily establish her new identity:

Perhaps, instead of us crossing borders, the borders (multiple and virtual victors of energy, power, desire and capital) will cross and criss cross, deterritorialize and reterritorialize us ... We will no longer go to the border. The border will (be) come to us.(Herron 23)

Therefore, she decides to create new spaces where she can easily establish her selfhood. “It became clear to Feroza that to be this far from home, to have to cope with stranger and mysterious rites, was itself a test.” (116) and the test she wants to pass. At Twin Falls she meets her room mate Jo and through her she comes to know the unexposed side of America. It is Jo from whom she picks up the native manner of speaking and begins to use words like “Gimme” ... “lemme”. It is obviously her way to justify her ‘belonging’ in America. She meets her family at Boulder and closely sees the American way of living. It is in Twin Falls that she learns drinking and begins to flirt “modestly” with strange young men. She even begins to smoke, in spite of knowing that Parsees worship ‘Fire’ and tasting it is a kind of religious sin. Though she enjoys life like Americans, she is never capable of getting over her feelings of guilt. She often thinks what her family would have to say about her conduct if they knew. But at the same time, she felt:

She was being initiated into some esoteric rights that governed the astonishingly independent and unsupervised lives of young people in America. Often as she sets among them, Feroza thought she had taken a phenomenal leap in perceiving the world from a wider, bolder and happier angle. (164)

Such a quick acceptance of the foreign culture, breaking the barriers of her commitment to her community, nation and also to her sex shows that she definitely possessed a sense of freedom even at her native land but as it remained unexpressed owing to her self imposed restriction, here in the cities of the first world it got its vivid and rapturous expression. In other words the self-imposed negation of her identity at her native land instigated her for a speedy assertion at the alien land. On her trip to Pak, her mother Zareen could not even imagine her immense power of assertion:

Was this flamming, confident creature, who talked so engagingly and candidly and had acquired a throats, knowing, delectable laugh, the same timid little thing who had refused to answer the phone? (236)

Gradually Feroza’s horizons widen and she joins University in the city of Denver. She begins to live with the two American girls in whose company she further sheds many of her imposed social inhibitions. She does not hesitate in keeping a casual relationship with Shashi, an Indian boy residing there. Their relationship was more romantic than sexual but at her native land she could never even think about creating such a space for herself in the existed social order. In spite of knowing the strict rules of her Parsee community which  excommunicates the girl who marries outside the community, she falls in love with a Jewish boy David. Her assertion reflects her independent decision to marry David, breaking the cause of her land. It is evident that she becomes a truly liberated woman who feels free to be herself in the context of her own capacity and personality. The news of her selecting the groom is quite shocking to her parents at Lahore, she does not deviate from her decision because :

Feroza’s broden outlook does not feel any religious and cultural differences between she and David. His sentiments, his aspiration, were so like hers, and those of her family. And yet it was as if she had taken a leap across some cultural barrier and found herself on the other side of it to discover that everything was comfortingly the same, and yet the grass was  greener. (251)

Her mother’s arrival at the States to dissuade the decision of her daughter proves futile but she becomes successful in creating a sense of aversion in the mind of David for the rites and rituals which would be performed at the time of marriage ceremony, if he wishes to marry Feroza. David, in a state of confusion, breaks his relation with Feroza. In these  circumstances, she gets disturbed but does not lose her courage and confidence. She is not desirous to come back to Lahore for an arranged marriage with one of the boys, selected for her by her family.

Their preoccupation with children and servant and their concern with clothes and furnishing did not interest her. Neither did the endless round of parties that followed their parent’s mode of hospitality. (312)

This step further reflects her confidence and self-assertion and a desire for freedom from the social inhibition of the Third World. The girl who could not answer a phone call initially becomes bold enough to start her life from the fresh end, overcoming the sense of depression after an unsuccessful love affair. Now she is well satisfied in the spaces created by herself and is ready to face its positive or negative consequences:

Her break with David still hurt so much, especially the circumstances surrounding the break. If she flew and fell again, could she pick herself up again? May be one day she‘d soar to that self-contained place from which there was no falling, if there was such a place. (317)

Feroza, a Third World Woman emerges as a strong, independent minded, assertive woman who dares making alternative spaces to establish her ‘self’ in the First World, though for it she has to go against the set principles of her orthodox Parsee community, against the fundamentalism of her nation and also against the mythical image of being a female. The present day defeat in securing a space for herself does not lead her to pessimism rather she feels hopeful, “May be one day she’d soar to that self-contained place from which there was no falling, if there was such a place.” (317) Now she does not want to lose freedom that she acquired in America. She no more wants to go back to the nets of Islamic Laws:

These and other constraints would crush her freedom, a freedom that had become central to her happiness. They abandon with which she could conduct her life without interference was possible only because of the distance from her family and the anonymity America provided. (312)

She knows it well that in America, there is always a sense of dislocation and of not belonging but it would be more tolerable because it was shared by thousands of new comers like herself. The story of the novel truly justifies that in the contemporary social context, woman is capable enough to resist the forces of religious faith, community barriers and cultural compulsions, and can redefine her ‘self’ beyond these codes.   

 

 

Works Cited

 

Dhawan, R.K.,  Novy Kapadia, (ed.) ‘Introduction’, The Novels of Bapsi Sidhwa New Delhi, Prestige Books, 1996.

Gandhi, Leela Postcolonial Theory, A Critical Introduction. New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1998.

Herron, Jerry. After Culture: Detroit and the Humiliation of History. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1993.

Kaur, Iqbal. ‘Introduction’, Gender and Literature. Delhi: BR, 1992.

Sidhwa, Bapsi. An American Brat. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Milkweed, 1993.