ELTWeekly Vol. 5 Issue#37 | October 21, 2013 | ISSN 0975-3036
Abstract:
The novel One Amazing Thing a fiction by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni offers a wide scope of aesthetic exploration of cultural study. It begins with visiting strangers in the visa office in a city. The city is not mentioned anywhere in the novel. However, development of the novel tells, it is somewhere in America. A devastating earthquake occurs there and the visa office building collapses. Nine strangers of varied background and culture trapped there because the exit is blocked by rubble.
Article:
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni brings together nine persons in a visa office. These nine persons are Uma Sinha (an Indian origin), Malathi (a south Indian girl and clerk in the visa office), Mr. Mangalam (officer of the visa office), Mr. and Mrs. Pritchett (a Caucasian couple), Jiang (Chinese old woman), Lily (Jiang’s granddaughter), Tariq (an Islamic young man around his twenty) and Cameron (an ex-army man). Cultural conflict reflects in the visa office because remained people after earthquake are all from different cultures. They have been trapped there, and forcefully they have to stay with the people of the other cultures. They are together in such a precarious situation, but because of differences in culture, many conflicts occur. Moreover, Uma finds out to kill the boredom and to relax the mind from the fear of consequences of the earthquake. She suggests everyone to share one amazing thing from their own life. These stories also deal with some cultural conflicts like, the story of old Chinese lady Jiang, the story of Tariq, Malathi’s story of class-conflict, etc.
The whole story is situated in the visa office in America, a country, known as multicultural country, just like India. However, these countries are multicultural countries but still there are some basic differences as India is a multicultural country but almost all the people are native hence the country becomes native land for centuries. While America is another, rather issue. The multiculturalism in America is because of non-native people or the people of other nation. Migrants of many countries corroborate America their native but only for documental uncomplicatedness, but their mindset, culture, language, life-style are still rooted to their own nation. This way American multiculturalism fluctuates from India.
America is known as “melting pot”.
In the early twentieth century, the playwright Israel Zangwill coined the phrase “melting pot” to describe how immigrants from many different backgrounds came together in the United States (Owen 1).
“Melting pot”, a metaphor coined by playwright Israel Zangwill, means refugee or migrants of other nations migrate to America and makes it like a melting pot which permits every culture and refugee from every nation to live with it. Therefore, America possesses heterogeneous cultures, communities and people of most nations of the world. This part of the world is known as the biggest “melting pot” of the world.
Culture has been defined in many ways but all the definitions leave us with a feeling that it is something more. The expression of culture varies in different countries and although the abstract basis is the same, the outward expressions vary widely. Russian culture is essentially different from Indian culture or American culture. Culture is the best expression of a nation’s soul and every nation has its own distinctive expression (Srinivasan 224).
So, America is obviously different from any other country of the world. This distinction comes only from the “melting pot” nature of the nation.
Substantial support for the “melting pot” assumptions about racial and ethnic assimilation persist among the mass public. Survey data indicate that 95% of Americans believe that the United States is “the world’s greatest melting pot where people from all countries can be united in one nation” (Hunter and Bowman, 1996) (Owen 3).
Now this statement proves melting pot nature of this country. The reason, to emphasize and elaborate the quality of the nation, is the present novel also reflects this value of the nation. Many customers in the visa office come and leave but nine people in the office remain from starting to the end of the novel. They all belong to a different culture and from different native nations, though America becomes nation for them. They all wait for their visa respectively, and an earthquake occurs. This natural calamity shocks all of them. Now the office has with only nine persons in it. These nine people are traped there as the building collapse, and there is no exit for them. The door is blocked by rubble. These people are, as described in the novel, all from different races:
It was not uncommon, in this city, to find persons of different races randomly thrown together. Still, Uma thought, it was like a mini UN summit in here (Divakaruni 4).
The visa office becomes a metaphor of America. The people of different cultures found in the office provoke the multiculturalism in America. The visa office is symbolized as America, where the people from different cultures are trapped. They all come with a purpose to get visa for going India. This is a symbolization of their freedom. Though America is known as the nation of freedom. However, this so called ‘American Freedom’ is made for only Americans or ‘white’. Freedom is not free for other culture in America. However, the Declaration of Independence3 defines freedom as:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
This declaration admits equal rights and freedom only for Americans. American culture does not provide any freedom to other cultures. American culture does not provide any flexibility to other cultures. This is reflected in the story of Jiang. When she migrates to America with her husband, the author describes the pathetic condition of them as:
In America, they moved from city to city until Mr Chan was forced to accept the fact that his dentist’s degree was worthless here. Finally, they sold Jiang’s jewellery and bought a small grocery in a Chinatown. (Divakaruni 79)
This incident throws some light on freedom of American culture is not for other culture. Chan is the husband of Jiang. He is forced to leave his profession as a dentist in America. This incident reflects the conflicts in America. Further, Jiang admits:
‘Finally we came to Chinatown. He could not be a dentist, even though he longed for it. Instead, we were working day and night in the grocery. Also, I was sick with the pregnancy. Some days we were so tired, we had no strength to say even one word to each other. There was no time to think so silly things, moon and roses and romance. (Divakaruni 85)
Here, the materialistic culture of America is shown ironically. Americans have no place for feelings. Therefore, people of other culture have to be like that. Once, romance was everything in Jiang’s life, but now she does not have time for it. These things become ‘silly’ for her. Her conflict with American culture is shown more precisely as:
Everything Jiang required for daily life lay within the boundaries of Chinatown – markets, movie theatres, the houses of friends, the children’s schools. Was there another need? If so, she buried that hankering deep within herself. In this new, compacted existence, there was no necessary for her to speak English…By the time her grandchildren were born, she communicated only in Mandarin. (Divakaruni)
Jiang cannot fitted into American culture. There are boundaries for her and her culture. Therefore, she preserves her culture by communicating only in Mandarin, which is her cultural language. It is not she does not get love from her husband. She accepts once, she loves her husband, and her husband loves her. Hence, this isolation is only due to conflicts with American culture.
It is an essential need to quote Owen. She writes in her paper that:
A study conducted in June, 2005, found that 67% of respondents believe that immigrants should “adopt America’s culture, language, and heritage,” while only 17% believe that they should “maintain the culture of their home country.” Seventy-nine percent felt that immigrants should be required to learn English before they are allowed to become citizens (Rassmussen Reports, 2005).
This research provides sufficient information about American attitude for other cultures. American culture forces other culture to accept their culture to be the citizen of America. They have to leave their own culture.
Back to the novel, the visa office becomes dark without electricity. Electricity has been cut off because of the earthquake. This darkness symbolized as dark future in America for other culture, in America. Other cultures have no future in America, which is represented by darkness in the visa office. No American is shown in the visa office, which is again a symbol. This is symbol represents the darkness is only for other culture and not for American culture. Americans always criticize other cultures because they have the power structure, and they are elite. Other cultures are non-elite for them, so ‘tasteless’, ‘useless’ and stupid for them.
An interview with Chitra Banerjee is published in Oxford journal, where she is asked by Metka Zupančič as:
In your latest published novel, One Amazing Thing, you explore a new type of writing. Set in the post-9/11 United States, it brings together nine characters with nine different perspectives and backgrounds. They have never met before; yet they find a space of community and deep interaction in a very difficult situation…
How can it happen that people from different background find a space of community and deep interaction? Because, they all are rejected by American cultural standards. If not, they do not fit in those standards. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni answers same, but in indirect way. She replies to the journal that:
In One Amazing Thing, as in many of my works, I am trying to bring together things out of my heritage and actually going back deep into the ancient heritage of Indian literature, as well as the very global and multicultural society in which we live here in America and all over the world. The world has always been global, but more so now, it has also become multicultural. In One Amazing Thing, the nine characters are all protagonists. In the beginning of the novel they are trapped by a major earthquake in an Indian visa office in the United States, in the basement of a high-rise building. There is no way to escape and so they must make the best of their circumstances.
Here, she mentions about trapping incidents of the people. She wants to convey visa office as America. People of different communities trapped in America. They want to escape just like, the strangers from visa office. But there is no way, so they have to make best of their own circumstances. They have to make best of their own culture.
Works Cited
- CBS News. “Mixed bag” for U.S. Muslims since 9/11. CBS News. CBS Interactive Inc.. 10 Sep. 2011. Web. 30 Dec. 2011.
2.Divakaruni,Chitra, Banerjee. One Amazing Thing. New Delhi: Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 2010. Print.
3.HubPages. “What is Freedom in America”. HubPages. HubPages Inc.,n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2012.
4.Owen, Diana. “American Identity, Citizenship, and Multiculturalism”. The German-American Conference. Germany: Bundeszenrale fur politische Bildung and the Center for Civic Education, 11-16 Sep. 2005. Research Paper.Print.
5.Srinivas, R. Facets of Indian Culture. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1962. Print.
6. Zupančič, Metka. “The Power of Storytelling: An Interview with Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni”. Contemporary Women’s Writing. Oxford Journals. OUP, 10 Jan. 2012. Web. 28 Mar. 2012.