Errant Subjectivities in Bharati Mukherjee's Fiction

Abstract

Subjectivity refers to a sense of possibility in an apparently difficult environment. Bharati Mukherjee's mongrel characters demonstrate this possibility overcoming sundry hurdles life poses in the way. Critics have praised and castigated Mukherjee for what they believe her rejection of tradition and uncritical adoption of Western culture and ways of life. I find her work more complicated than that. Her immigrant characters try to find a balance between tradition and modernity, neither absolutely rejecting nor uncritically accepting either of them. Their practical identity defies any form of binarial division in which critics attempt to position Mukherjee and her work.