T 1290.pdf - Pondicherry University DSpace Portal

Sealey's The Trotter Name bear the marks of being such anexile. Eventhough an inheritor of Brahminlcal eleganceMukherjee would rather 'cash-ln on the other legacy of thecolonial vrjter-r1k.r dJallty. Hlstory forced Indlans to seethemselves as both the "We" and the "Other" and their languagereflected the:r slmultanelty. Perhaps, this hlstory-mandatedtralnlng In the ethnlc and qender-fractured world ofcontemporary Amerlcan flctlon, facllltates her easlly to"enter" llves flctlnnally, that are manifestly not her own.Amerlcan flctlon requlred both of Mukherjee and Malamudto "shed" thelr ethnlclty and "cater" to the demands of AmerrcaIn general. Staying aloof would help nelther of them.Marglnallty had the lmpllcatlon of standlnq apart, as theAmerican-Jewlsh writer was perceived to do wlth respect to bothsldes of the hypberi. Wheti-er there was the overlap between thecultures or a wanlng and an aldustment of the extreme conditionof allenatlon-the progress of asslmllatlon has continued toerode the traces of Jewlsh mores and ethos. The Amerlcan-Jewlshwrlter has slnce recsgnlzed that he 1s less marginally Amerlcanthan marqlnally Jewish. Even wher they are most 'modern' theAmerican-Jewlsh wrlters dramatlze the herltage they cannotescape. They still retalp thelr lrony and 'sacred' rage. Theyare In search of new lmages of divlnlty. The central thrust ofMalamud's strategy 1s to write about the slmplest and most