The Notion of American Dream: Interrogating
Manjushree Thapa’s “Tilled Earth” from Diasporic Perspectives
Arpita Roy
Assistant Professor of English
Indian Institute of Legal Studies
Cooch Behar, West Bengal, India
&
Ph. D. Research Scholar
Department of English
School of Languages and Literature
Sikkim University
Gangtok, Sikkim, India
Abstract:
This research paper attempts to analyse the
problems faced by a diasporic soul in a land and society full of promises and dreams,
proclaiming to be a nation liberated from deeply rooted stereotypical and old
ages articulations, providing space and opportunities to the people inspired
with life; search for newer possibilities associated with human life. Therefore
this paper tries to recapitulate the idea of migration from global and
existential critical perspectives
focussing to reconstitute
a spatial location
to reinvent ones cultural identity where one is found to
struggle with the way of life. The paper in its endeavour tries to examine
Manjushree Thapa’s short story “Tilled Earth” in situational contexts of
progressive projection, a dream never ending, and existing reality in the
reference of globalized world.
Keywords: Diaspora, Hybridity, Mimicry, Indigenous
identity, Self-consciousness, Trauma
Manjushree Thapa is one of the prominent contemporary writers and
translators writing from South Asian region. Her writings fundamentally depict
the situational dilemma and crisis of diasporic people, that particularly
emanated after 9/11 event and developing geopolitics of post global era. The
post 9/11 was not only instrumental to transform the global politics but it
also created new ideas concerning with the issues of minorities, ethnicity and
migration. These changes not only affected the global politics at the
international level but it also attempted to eradicate the very foundation of
human bonds, leading to intrinsic social and ethical changes. This new
situation for the people in society or at large became obscure for their
survival. This also inspired a large number of populations to migrate from
their ancestral place to new locations for security, livelihood and dreams.
These dislocated positions were generally based on the rubrics of
fragmentations aligning with socio-cultural roots.
“Tilled Earth” is a short story penned by
Thapa that belongs to her collection of short stories Tilled Earth, published in 2007.The preeminent character of the
story is migrated to America from Nepal and she discovers herself in an in
between space where neither she belongs to Nepal nor to America rather she
becomes an “Illegal alien” there. The story beautifully depicts this girl’s
physical journey by crossing the boundaries of her homeland as well as another
journey towards her inner self-consciousness, which results in a kind of
rebirth for her. Here the idea of American dream has been reprehended through
the story of this girl who has moved to America and where she finds it
difficult to fit in. Thapa seems to encapsulate the problematic aspects of
American dream dwindling between root and uprooted social and cultural
situation. This story describes how the process of physical and geographical
dislocation from socio-cultural as well as political aspects starts to affect
the inner self-consciousness of the girl.
The very idea of migrating from the
developing countries to the developed one stimulates a sight of dream, hope and
expectation for new beginning; it gives a chance to reinvent ones cultural
identity where one is expected to reinvent the possibilities of life. Migration
in a sense is extension of human possibilities in a new social and cultural
soil, which Diasporic people seem to think, is ideal to grow in the developed
countries. This is not merely a change in physical domain affecting the
established or conditioned foundations in one’s life but it is entirely
recalibration for an invention, which has to fit in new social and
psychological space. In this situation,
unknowingly the dislocated people find themselves committed to the diasporic
group for the reconstruction of indigenous land, culture and identity by going
beyond their own boundaries. This tendency of reconstructing home, leads them
to the process of liquidification of identity that gives birth to a new
identity, or culture that according to Homi K. Bhabha is ‘hybrid in nature’.
Bhabha mentioned in his book The Location
of Culture (1994) that in diasporic condition “home is no longer just one
place. It is locations” (75).That signifies that for them home does not mean a
particular place; it changes according to their migration to the different
locations. This concept of hybrid identity and culture for the dislocated
people is positive in the sense that it gives them the opportunity to exceed
the limit of nation state and it helps to exclude the binary between developing
and developed countries. As Robin Cohen said in one of his work called “The
Politics of International Migration Flows in the Post-War World” (1989), that
diaspora gives birth to “a group...that can be seen as transcending the limits
of the nation-state” (162).
On the other hand, the process of
hybridization has negative facet too. This process is an unremitting process of
becoming someone else or attaining a higher state of being which includes the
act of mimicry from the part of dislocated people. Somehow, one can say that
for the diasporic people the process of hybridization and the act of mimicry
both are the continuation of colonization (not physically but psychologically)
in another form or the lingering effect of colonization even after the colonial
era. In the process of formulating new identity, diasporic people find
themselves in a state of bafflement and somewhere they move away from their own
indigenous culture, identity and self. Although identity is something that we
perform but our indigenous identity comes to us with a natural flow through the
indigenous cultures, religion, food habit, clothing, education system, language
and most importantly the way of living in that particular place where we can
relate us or associate ourselves with the reality. In the case of migration or
in diasporic condition the idea of performing the new identity is so much
dominant that the diasporic people start to move away from the reality, root
and their true individual self. The more they focus on performing new identity,
they start to find themselves in duality and in between space where neither
they can achieve the identity in complete sense that they dreams for nor they
can go back to their own indigenous root. In this continuous process after
certain point of time, these diasporic people start to feel themselves
culturally and socially alienated, isolated, excluded, discriminated, lost and
exiled which is traumatic. Avatar Brah in her book called Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities (1996) described
diaspora as “traumas of alienation, disjuncture and displacement” (193). At
this point they try to come out from the illusions regarding the idealistic
views on the developed nations and faces the crucial reality of it; therefore
an urge for finding their roots, indigenous identity, culture and most
importantly their urge for regaining their eliminated sense of true self start
to take place in their soul.
The narrative structure of the story is not
simple and smooth; it seems to assert in the beginning that this is not a
linear account of description. At the beginning of the story “Tilled Earth”
Thapa uses the word ‘Antipodes’ by which she actually wants to set the two
countries America and Nepal in opposition to each other. She mentions about
“America’s myths” (172) and states that the girl does not believe in this myth.
Historian James Truslow Adams in 1931, has mentioned about ‘American Dreams’
in his book Epic of America, and he
says: “The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be
better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according
to ability or achievement.” What have had been exhibited by various narratives
and accounts, to know about America in general, is that life seems to be better
in America in terms of every facilities but it has been projected in such a way
that attracts the people who are living in the developing countries. Thapa’s
story is the result of her keen observation on the idea of “American Dream” and
through her story; she has beautifully demonstrated the effects of this
attraction towards “American Dreams” and has tried to show the reality by
evaluating and commenting on it.
The story describes how the concept of home
manifests through the memory of the diasporic people. Something, which is not
important such as ‘dust’, that is dear to the girl and that reminds her of
‘home’. Thapa here portrays the relationship of reality by associating it with
elements of culture, geography, and demography. The unnamed protagonist, the
girl feels isolated in her diasporic condition, according to her the way people
speak in America is animated and it makes her feel difficult to adjust in this
place. The naming is understood as a method of assigning identity with a
culture but here it donates a distance and unoccupied mind having capacities to
pass a fair judgement. This also indicates her own uncertain and rootless
position. Although, she knows that, she must have to adjust with her friends
but she does not know how to formulate her expressions through language. Where
her friends talk about cartoons, she thinks about “the plump flesh of aubergine
of burned fenugreek and spinach. Bitter ground is her favourite dish, deep fried
with slices of okra” (173). ‘Home’ is present in her auditory, visual, tactile
experiences.
Language seem to ‘mock’ her when she tries to
say things to her friends about her life in Nepal. The girl’s housemate Mariana
who is migrated from Russia to America feels irritated to listen her. Moreover,
she feels that it is because she belongs to Nepal that is why they do not
listen her; they would have listened her if she would belong to India. Making a
normal conversation is a kind of big task for her. Her constant attempt to
explain herself to Jenny and Mariana can be interpreted as a journey of
self-exploration and investigation for assertion, at the same time
disconnection. The notion of ‘self’ in a particular way is connected to the
discourse of ‘home, linking with the root of soil and birth. Through retelling,
personal tale, she is trying to remake or reconstruct herself and home in a new
socio-cultural milieu. The act of retelling is the process of assimilating self
from the rubrics of past wastes which may be a history, culture etc. The
natives always look at themselves as inferior, illiterate, ignorant, in order
to recreate or reconstruct them, in comparison to the West, which suppresses
their cultural identity and leaves them in a state of confusions. Cultural
assimilation in diasporic condition sometimes includes self-negation, rejection
of indigenous self and acceptance of progressive one, is not easy task. She
herself says that “the American education system is better” (175) and she did
not like to study in Nepal. When she calls her cousin, one can mark that her
cousin knows about the American world. In this conversation, the desperation
for American citizenship can be noticed as her cousin suggests her “Don’t say
you’re not American” (176) for getting job in America.
‘Home’ becomes very much graphic for her and
shows a deep rooted relation with subtle nuances. She envisages a vision/
version of homeland and bewilders to know why a kind of longingness is
intrinsically active inside of her. The physical displacement is never a
complete project. It is an impossible task to denounce root completely even if
self gets highly sublimated and placed in high class or a better dream. The
home is related with consciousness and is beyond any definition. Although home has been a place of danger for
her but these visions of homeland make her nostalgic and emotional. She does
not fall into the limits of respectability therefore; her exile becomes more
painful. She is not in search of economy but for emotional, moral, and social
support. Even after several months she is not able to speak to her friends;
language is not serving being utilitarian to her. Ketu Katrak in her work Politics of Female Body: Postcolonial Women
Writers of the Third World (2006) says that in third world countries
traditions are mostly relates to the women. In this story when the girl tries
to tell Jenny about her relationship, she mentions that her lover “is fourteen
years older, with the cut features of a Gurung man” and “He was from another
whole tribe” (177) because of which her parents in Nepal would not support them
for marriage. Obedience becomes the manifestation of love in the case of women
from third world countries. Home is miscoded here as obedience where tradition
plays an important role. However, the narrator says that in America if a person
follows this kind of tradition he/she will be called “indecisive, unsure, or
weak”. The girl mentions about the Baptist preachers who invite her for prayer
but they “make her feel like a foreigner”. Therefore, she does not like to meet
them rather she focuses on her own works. She gets letter from her parents,
which again reminds her of the winter fogs of Kathmandu and she waits for her
lover’s letter.
When she tells her cousin about her fear for
job at Jack in the Box, he says “Try McDonald’s. Try Burger King. Don’t be
afraid, that’s the most important thing. Pretend you’re American” (178).
Identity as performance has been critiqued in the story. Performance itself is
societal construction where an individual is always performing his/ her
identity. This new construction of identity somehow includes the act of mimicry
where an individual pretends to be something else or someone else. While
performing their new identity they are displaced from the reality. The use of
the words and phrases in the story such as ‘jurisdiction’, ‘prerogative
dominion’, ‘district’, ‘territory compass’ are talking about space. The
narrative shows how despite of borders heterogeneity is difficult to maintain,
how borderlines become the places of differences as well as similarities and
they overlap on each other. When she receives handwritten letter from her lover
she finds the sound of his words ‘unnatural’ and the narrator says that she has
started to accept the American way of using words, which makes the Nepali way
of using words unnatural to her; therefore she “puts the letter off”. In
response to the letter, she just sends an email to her lover that is very
formal kind of correspondence as there is no intimacy and it shows a kind of
ritualised relation. The narrator also mentions the phrases such as “Do your
own thing”, “You’ll have to decide that for yourself”, “If you don’t look out
for yourself, no one else will”(179) that show that individualism is more
celebrated as American term. The dominant concept of individualism in America
makes the people more self-cantered which is completely opposite to the
traditions in third world countries.
The people from third world countries bear
the thought that it is easy to get a job in America with high salary, which is
a misconception. The narrative shows this reality explicitly that how it is
difficult to find a job in America as the girl visits various places asking for
a job. The narrative also questions the natural human relationships in the
story when the girl thinks that she has not said many things to Jenny who is
her friend as the narrative describes “she wonders what kind of friendship are
formed here” (180). When the narrative describes about her experience in job,
we find that she becomes a mother figure for her co-workers Matt and Denise; it
happened because she was from a conventional background. “The air is moist in
this yearlong monsoon of her life” this line suggests that there is no sunshine
in her life and it is always moist. Flowers like Holly, Magnolia, and
Rhododendron make her to think about home but she also accepts that fact that
she never had seen Rhododendron the national flower of Nepal closely in Nepal
bur she sees them in America. The narrator says that the girl starts to run in
shorts one day; she develops a kind of conversation with her body and starts to
listen her body. Which she never thought of to do in Nepal she starts to do it
in America without any hesitation. Her body itself becomes a new host land in the
process of remaking herself.
Her lover’s calls do not create any kind of
excitement inside of her anymore. She somewhere starts to accept the American
way of living, which she could not accept in the beginning. She also accepts
the invitation of the Baptist preachers; the landscape is not outside of her as
if she is married to the place and it is shaping her consciousness. She is
looking for the representation of herself and her new life that is more
adventurous. The story also refers the radical shifting of her thought process
through her actions. Now she starts to vocalise her confusions and she tells
her lover that she is not sure about their marriage anymore that they planned
before, which is really a big decision for her. Here for the first time the
narrator describes the life story of the girl where the girl tells a story to
herself. This story is very personal as well as political. Although it is her
personal story but here, she represents every woman who belongs to the
developing countries where traditions seem to be cruel to women. May be this is
the reason for what the narrator has not mentioned the girl’s name throughout
the story. This girl mentions in her story: “She grew up in a very traditional
society, where women were considered the property of men- either their father
or husband”. Her own home seems to be a prison house for her; “She didn’t love
her lover any more, and she didn’t love her parents. She just wanted to escape”
and she falls “in love with a larger dream of freedom” when parents send her to
America (183). The narrator uses words like “ulterior”, “vacillate”, “walled”,
“xenophobia” that unveil the feelings of the girl regarding her relationship
which she detects as an impediment in her way to achieve freedom.
The girl does not tell her friends that she
is not going to stay anymore in America and she does want to share her plans
with them. She learns to deal with the customers at her working place and she
can be found here to join the conversation with her co-workers Denise and Matt,
which seemed to be difficult for her in the past days. When she meets Jenny and
her husband for dinner, Jenny’s question “Do you eat salad in Nepal?” appears
to her “remote”. Although Jenny never visited Nepal, she asked this wired
question out of her previous experience in Kashmir, which is not the part of
Nepal, by Saying that “When I was trekking in Kashmir we didn’t eat anything
that hadn’t been cooked thoroughly”(185). This kind of question and statement
shows that how the people in developed countries bear the idea that all the
developing countries have same kind of food habits and other things even if
they do not have idea about the different locations. She feels that all these
people whom she met in America “She won’t remember their faces a year from
now”. During the last days before leaving America, she barely goes out of her
room and she informs Mariana that she is “going to Indiana” (185). Although she tried hard to accept the
American way of living in every aspect, but when her lover for the last time
says, “I love you” in English she finds it artificial. Here one can find this
girl with strange kind of emotions regarding her experiences (her idea of
American dream and breakdown of that idea in reality, the challenges she faces
in assimilating herself into that condition, her attachment towards freedom,
disconnection with her loved ones in her homeland and her journey towards her
inner self consciousness) that she gained during the period she lived in
America as being “illegal alien”.
Before she moves to Indiana from America, she
informs her parents by calling them. Here the mentioned numbers of consonants
and vowels from Nepali language, as the narrator describes, “she speaks the
thirty-six consonants and twelve vowels of Nepali a little less quickly than
she used to” show that how the girl is using her own language in a limited way
even if she talking to her parents. She tells them that she will be living with
her cousin in Indiana and she repeats this thing three times. This kind of
conversation shows a kind of disconnection with her mother tongue and breakdown
of her relationship with her parent. However, she neither informs them about
her diasporic condition of living with the identity of “illegal alien” nor she
tells them about her plan for not returning to her homeland; because “these are
the messages the Nepali language does not relay”. Being a girl from the
conventional background of Nepali culture she is not allowed to take such kind
of decisions about her future, that is why she informed her parent in limited
words without giving any details about her plans. The narrator further
describes, “That’s neither here nor there. In Nepali, the expression goes:
“Neither from here nor from there.” (186).
Thapa uses the definition of “Zero-sum” to show
the real condition of this girl at this point of her life. She came to America
from Nepal with the hope that she would get better education; job moreover a
secured better life there. At first, she faced different kind of challenges in
the processes of accepting the new location, a different environment, different
way of living, food habits, foreign language etc. At some point, she started to
accept all these things by recovering all her limitations, which helped her to
become a new person who can make her own choices and decisions about herself
but still she remained “illegal alien” there. However, this process of becoming
someone else made her to go away from her homeland and even made her to do away
with the memories of homeland; it pushed her to that extent where she was not
able to speak comfortably in her own mother tongue with her parent and she
denied to go back to her own place. She is completely lost in it, neither has
she become an American in complete sense nor she remains a Nepali girl who used
to like the dust around her homeland, “the plump flesh of aubergine of burned
fenugreek and spinach. Bitter ground....” (173). She thinks that the story she
narrated to herself, she did it “in a language that is completely foreign”
(186). Finally, she says good-bye to her
friends and they wish her good luck. The narrator suddenly says: “There was a
woman. There was a woman who” and this sentence remains incomplete. The reason
behind the use of this incomplete sentence is that the story of this girl is not
yet finished, her journey as “illegal alien” still is in process because she is
going to Indiana where again she have to face new challenges as she faced
earlier so the girl’s story does not have an end. The narrator says at last
that the girl is “longing for what she can’t return to” when she was about to
leave from her place at America. Even if she misses “The warm vapours of tilled
earth, her lover’s breath”, she can’t return to her place. Home is present only
in her memory, in the memory of “tilled earth” (187).
Thapa intentionally writes her tale to
unravel existing reality, which lies in global projection of possibilities
engaging people to dream high or to search beyond definite possibilities of
human being. Her attempt to dismantle the concept of “American Dream” is based
to critique fundamental diasporic imagination and at the same time to
foreground new meaning to diasporic conceptualisation leading to insightfulness
to the discourse. Thapa seems to add new resonance and meaning while imagining
American Dream. Thapa has tried to expose the unexplainable situation
encountered by a diasporic soul in a land of dream and society full of promises
and dreams, juxtaposing to the deep rooted stereotypical and old ages
articulations, and providing space for the proliferation of human
possibilities. Through the narrative “Tilled Earth” Thapa examined the
situational contexts of progressive projection, a dream never ending, and
existing reality in the reference of globalized world. She also seems to
suggest that there is no accomplishment of a desire or dream and life keeps on
moving and inventing newness and possibilities at each moment.
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