"The Management of Grief"

Paper Summary:

The paper examines the short story "The Management of Grief," by Bharati Mukerjee", and how it addresses the cultural conflicts within the Indian community in Canada through three female characters. The paper first looks at Pam who has no interest in her Indian heritage and attempts to escape it, and contrasts this attitude to that of her mother, Kusum, who cannot function properly in Canadian society without the support of her family. The paper then focuses on the narrator who is a mixture of these two extremes by being a more progressive Indian woman.

From the Paper:

"Pam is a young Indian woman who was most likely born in Canada. Over the course of this story, she is shown to reject her Indian heritage and desires to fit into Canadian society. While many of the Indian women in this story do not work and simply rely on the men in their lives to provide for them, Pam has a job of her own and decided that she would rather work all summer than spend any time in India with the rest of her family as, "She was going to spend July and August with grandparents because Pam wouldn't go. Pam said she'd rather waitress at McDonald's. 'If it's a choice between Bombay and Wonderland, I'm picking Wonderland,' she'd said" (Mukerjee 950). She has constant battles with her mother over her lack of "Indian-ness" because she seems content to dismiss the entire culture, while only worrying about how she is perceived by the rest of society."

More papers on "The Management of Grief":

• Analytical Essay # 141125 : "The Management of Grief"
• Analytical Essay # 141601 : "The Management of Grief" by Bharati Mukherjee"
• Book Review # 98211 : "Death and Grief"

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