Nie tylko romans – przemoc w wybranych utworach Chitry Banerjee Divakaruni
Not Only Romance – Violence in Selected Works of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Author(s): Iwona Filipczak
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: Indian-American literature; romance; immigration; domestic violence; confrontation of cultures
Summary/Abstract: The covers of Hindu-American writers’ novels often suggest that romance, love, happiness and success are the main themes of the works. This is a clever marketing trick to increase the sales of the books. Frequently, however, the colourful and idyllic covers hide tragic stories, marked by violence on many levels. The article analyses the problem of violence in the early works of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. The analyses of three novels: The Mistress of Spices, Sister of My Heart and Queen of Dreams, and stories from two collections: Arranged Marriage and The Unknown Errors of Our Lives, focus on domestic violence and violence resulting from cultural differences experienced by Hindu immigrants in America. Divakaruni’s prose reveals the difficult situation of women in traditional Hindu society based on patriarchal order, and points out that oppression against women is often transferred by immigrant communities to American soil, and thus has a global dimension. The selected works show the difficulties experienced by women who want to move from the position of a victim and object in the home to the position of a subject in the public sphere. It is complicated, because for women from ethnic minorities, the private and public spheres intermingle, and without a strict separation, one cannot go beyond any of them. The second part of the article shows the situation of an immigrant - an unwanted Other who has to face up to the hatred directed against him and verify his ideas about America.

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