Bharati
Mukherjee's "A Father" - Cultural Clash and Gendercide
Mr. Bhowmick is
an Indian American middle class man who is unsettled in between two worlds. He
tries hard to attain this new culture of the "American Dream", while still embracing his Indian cultural values. He wakes up checking "his Rolex against the
alarm clock's digital readout, punched down the alarm..." and his wife
wakes up to cook him a new version of French toast for breakfast. The new
culture is present, however every morning he recites prayers to the patron
goddess of his family, Kali-Mata. He struggled to be accepted by his wife and
daughter Babli, who were more modern and agnostic. They often thought the
father was out of his mind because his rituals interfered with the families’
domestic lifestyle. His wife even hid Kali in a suitcase and accused him of
shutting her out of his life.
A culture clash
is what Mr. Bhowmick's family experienced as they were adapting to American society. Culture tends to change from generation to
generation, especially once you are removed from your original birthplace, and his daughter is the pure example of this situation. Mr. Bhowmick didn't
have a connection with his daughter and it was hard for him to love her. She lacked something, "Babli was not the child he would have chosen
as his only heir." She wasn't like the other Bengali girls in Detroit or
the unmarried girls of his adolescent days. Mr. Bhowmick needed some sense of vulnerability to gain power, however Babli was a strong,
successful and accomplished woman who had risen above the common stereotype. Her behavior was foreign to him and he was losing his masculine role. His escape was goddess Kali-Mata, where he tries to
save himself through prayer.
The story becomes
extremely ironic when Babli becomes pregnant. Being influenced by the American culture that surrounds her, she decides to raise her child on her own but Mr. Bhowmick takes that dream
away from her by rejecting her feminine independence and killing her child. Having a child independently out of wedlock was going against gender expectations and was not accepted by her parents. However, the father felt the
need to gain his control back by taking something away. Naturally, Mr. Bhowmick depended
on Babli because she was accomplished and financially stable. He couldn't
control her because she was becoming an independent woman with her own dreams. Mr. Bhowmick didn't have control over his family and struggled with adapting to the new world, therefore killing the baby was his way at gaining something back from his old world. After
reading these past couple of stories involving cultural gaps, it's evident that
there is a certain cost factor in becoming an American. Cultural values is what imprisoned Mr. Bhowmick from the American Dream.
