Max Soto
ENGL 190
9/27/2015
Cultural Identity
In the short story “The Management of Grief” by Bharati Makherjee is a story that reveals a major change of the main character, Shaila bhave, who attempts to manage her grief throughout the story. Even though the main character seems to have managed her grief by the end of the story, the pressure of her losses is still very significant and she can't help from recalling her tragic losses of her husband and two sons in the result of the explosion. She pretends to manage her grief but in the bottom of her heart, her grief seems to be still alive and it will continue as long as she remembers her loss. The tragedy of the main character and her background makes her life really different from the life of many other Canadians with who she communicates in her regular life. She is very different in her background and in her life story which makes the process of managing the grief …show more content…
She has lost her cultural identity and since she can never truly come to be of the other culture, she is rootless. In one example from the story is marriage. As a Indian women, marriage in these terms is not a romantic bond, but a religious obligation for both partners. Someone that is single, is considered incomplete and can't perform certain religious duties without having a wife or a husband. The first mention that Shaila makes about her husband is her bond between both of them. She says, "I never once told him that I loved him...I was so well brought up that I never felt comfortable calling him by his first name" (p.388). Later in the story she goes back to India to her parents and they encourage her to avoid falling into self-destructive depression and mourning. Her parents tell her to get remarried like she is suppose to and expected in her indian culture. She doesn't follow the tradition of her culture and decides to follow a seperate
ENGL 190
9/27/2015
Cultural Identity
In the short story “The Management of Grief” by Bharati Makherjee is a story that reveals a major change of the main character, Shaila bhave, who attempts to manage her grief throughout the story. Even though the main character seems to have managed her grief by the end of the story, the pressure of her losses is still very significant and she can't help from recalling her tragic losses of her husband and two sons in the result of the explosion. She pretends to manage her grief but in the bottom of her heart, her grief seems to be still alive and it will continue as long as she remembers her loss. The tragedy of the main character and her background makes her life really different from the life of many other Canadians with who she communicates in her regular life. She is very different in her background and in her life story which makes the process of managing the grief …show more content…
She has lost her cultural identity and since she can never truly come to be of the other culture, she is rootless. In one example from the story is marriage. As a Indian women, marriage in these terms is not a romantic bond, but a religious obligation for both partners. Someone that is single, is considered incomplete and can't perform certain religious duties without having a wife or a husband. The first mention that Shaila makes about her husband is her bond between both of them. She says, "I never once told him that I loved him...I was so well brought up that I never felt comfortable calling him by his first name" (p.388). Later in the story she goes back to India to her parents and they encourage her to avoid falling into self-destructive depression and mourning. Her parents tell her to get remarried like she is suppose to and expected in her indian culture. She doesn't follow the tradition of her culture and decides to follow a seperate