Conflict between Aspirations and Reality: A
Study of Bharati Mukherjee’s Wife
Dr. Satrughna Singh
Associate Professor
Department of English
Raiganj University
West Bengal, India
Abstract:
This paper deals with the novel called Wife written by Bharti Mukherjee
and the major concern here is the difference between expectations and reality.
The present novel revolves around the major character called Dimple Das Gupta
who is an ambitious girl and what happens with her is the major concern of the
novel. The major themes of this novel are ambition, sexual mind-set,
expectations vs. reality, pressure of the expatriate life and mental disorder
that has been resulted from the over expectation. The style of the novel is
simple yet lucid and it was it has the power to bind the readers. The way
novelist has described the characters and the situation is quite
extra-ordinary. The novelist has also discussed the problems of the
contemporary women and their suffering in this patriarchal society still the
females characters are courageous enough to take the risk and also to counter
them. Thus, the novel is a wonderful piece that explorers the contemporary
society at its best.
Keywords: Ambition; Expectation; Marriage; Reality;
Society
Wife is the second
novel of Bharati Mukherjee that is written in 1975. This novel, like many of
her novels, deals with the expatriate life in a foreign land and has the theme
of difficulty in marriage because of the expectations which are unfulfilled.
The present novel revolves around the major character called Dimple Das Gupta
who is an ambitious girl and who has the desire to go to abroad in order to
live luxurious life as a wife of a rich man and to be involved in an altogether
different culture which is more free and more glorious than India. However, she
has a phobic personality and the reader can certainly find the imbalance
between her mind and body. She expects so many things from life but life offers
her some strange things and therefore, she is torn in her life. Thus, let’s try
to find what life offers to her and how her entire life changes through the
novel. Thus, the contemporary situation has been expressed beautifully by the
novelist in this novel.
From the very start of the novel, Dimple is quite obsessed with the idea
of marriage. She expects a lot from marriage. She believes that “marriage can
bring you everything.” However, her aspiration and the imagination of an ideal
husband is quite different from that of the concept and ideas of her father who
looks for an engineer whereas Dimple wants to get married to a Surgeon.
However, because of middle class background and dreams of luxury, fashion and
fantasy she can marry anyone. Her father has some other plans. In the very
beginning of the novel, the character of Dimple is expressed by the novelist,
Dimple Das Gupta had set her heart on
marrying a neurosurgeon, but her father was looking for engineers in
matrimonial ads… She fantasised about young man with moustaches, dressed in
spotless white, peering into open skulls. Marriage would bring her freedom,
Cocktail parties on carpeted lawns, fund-raising dinners for Nobel Charities.
Marriage would bring her love. (Wife, 3)
However, it can be noticed that Dimple has been an ugly girl as she
herself thinks so. She is not happy with her physical appearance and that is
the reason why she hates everyone around her. Her body and her physical
appearance have made a lot of negative impact on her mind and she continues to
have mental disturbance. She has been troubled all through her childhood and
has mental disorders. Her idea of the family relationship begins to be
distorted and that is the reason why she does not like people as the novelist
says,
She hated the family album, hated all those
stiff, tiny rectangular moments from the past yellowing in the Corners where
father's thumb had glued them decisively to the page. (Wife, 13)
However, she finally gets married to an engineer as she goes to the USA
with her husband but before that she has to face a lot of trouble. Dimple is a
girl who regularly reads fashion magazines and the idea of voluptuous breasts
comes from those fancy magazines into her mind as she wants to be very much
fashionable, sexy and attractive. However, the mother is a kind of conventional
women who believes that one must be satisfied with what is given to him/her by
the destiny. However, Dimple does not believe in all such things and remains in
dark, away from everyone. She often thinks of death as she does not like her
life. However, the novel is specifically about the sexual fantasies of this
girl. Meanwhile, her father has been successful in finding an engineer who has
already applied for the immigration to the USA and Canada. For the further,
Amit would be an ideal match for the daughter. Thus, he conveys this to Dimple
who eventually accepts it in the belief that marriage will bring happiness in
her otherwise distorted life. Thus, she marries to Amit Basu. Her mother-in-law
Mrs. Basu is a conventional woman and she does not like Dimple Das Gupta as Dimple
always fantasises about a perfect man from various advertisements. Dimple is a
kind of woman with modern mindset and therefore, she does not want pregnancy
soon after marriage as it may harm her plan to go to abroad. She does not want
a life of family worries and she always wants to be free from such troubles.
The birth of a child would not be ideal for her plans.
Soon both of them go to abroad and she is very happy and full of
fantasies of the luxurious life she will lead in the USA. She is also quite eager
to meet the people of the USA. She tries to Americanise herself by drinking
beer and attending parties. She also watches TV serials and shows that show the
scenes of rape, sex, and violence. However, slowly she develops dislike for
Amit for his crudeness. She suffers from insomnia. Meanwhile, she develops
friendship with Ina Mullick and Milt Glasser. Soon she suffers from the
psychological disorder again as she becomes more and more psychic. She hates
life and think of different way of dying. She continuously thinks of dying.
Dimple enters into the really amazing imaginative world and her mental strain
has been huge. She is under amazing pressure as she cannot even tell her real
situation to Amit, her husband as the novelist says,
She did not tell him about the imaginary
beginnings. She did not tell him about the immoderate daytime sleeping either.
They were unspeakable failings. She had expected pain when she had come to
America, had told herself that pain was part of any new beginning… (Wife, 115)
She even thinks of killing Amit and fantasises about hiding his body in
the freezer. The exotic way of murdering her husband makes her quite excited.
However, here we can certainly say that Dimple mixes the imaginary scenes of
the TV serial with the real life situation. Thus, she is the one who lives in
the world of imagination. Her character has been affected from the split
personality and has been suffering from neurosis, schizophrenia and death
instinct. The major themes of this novel are ambition, sexual mind-set,
expectations vs. reality, pressure of the expatriate life and mental disorder
that has been resulted from the over expectation.
This novel has been written by having the deeper layers of the concerns
which are based on existentialism. Dimple desire to have a pessimistic life in
the American Society but soon discovers that she is not fit for that kind of
society because of her physical appearance as well as fantasies. However, it
disturbs her. It is seen that more liberty she takes, the deeper she plunges
into abyss of despair and depression. However, the way this cycle of expatriate
has moved, makes a disturbing impact on her as she finally wants to collapse.
All these things prove to be lethal as she loses the control of her mind. She
imagines things which are unbelievable. The novel is set in two countries,
India and USA. The style of the novel is simple yet lucid and it has the power
to bind the readers. The way novelist has described the characters and the
situation is quite extra-ordinary. The dialogues are realistic and can be
specimen of the contemporary society. Thus, the novel is a wonderful piece that
explorers the contemporary society at its best.
Works Cited
Mukherjee,
Bharati. Wife. Houghton Mifflin, 1975.
Choudhury, Enakshi, “Images of Women in Bharati
Mukherjee's Novels,” edited by Anand T.S. Literary Voice. 2
oct.1995, Ludhiana: Academic Association Trust. 81-87.