Isolated Incident By Bharati Mukherjee Analysis

Bharati Mukherjee in her writings criticizes the assumptions entrenched in the western minds about the immigrants from India and other countries. She addresses the issue of multiculturalism which has a tremendous influence on the making of “new” Americans. She insists that the greater presence of non-European immigrants after the liberalisation of immigrant laws in 1965 has a terrific impact on the national identity of America. She maintains a clear distinction between Canada and USA and condemns the Canada’s official policy of multiculturalism which sanctions racial bigotry.
Mukherjee tells Alison B. Carb, “America, with its melting pot theory of immigration, has a healthier attitude toward Indian immigrants than Canada. Although this country
The story is the view point of Anne Vane, a Canadian citizen who works in Human Rights commission. Her initial enthusiasm wanes gradually as she finds that she cannot be of any help to the victims as a human rights official. At the most, she may be able to gather some statistical data. The human rights officials are careful enough not to give any assurance to the victims in line with the official policy of Canada. The police officials too, betray the immigrants by refusing to register the attacks on them as racially motivated. In the introduction to Darkness, Mukherjee through her personal experiences reveals the negative attitude of white Canadians towards coloured immigrants. “If I may put it in its harshest terms, it would be this: in Canada, I was frequently taken for a prostitute or shoplifter, frequently assumed to be a domestic, praised by astonished auditors that I didn’t have a “sing-song” accent”
The soldiers cut her nipples with their bayonets, and leave her in a ditch thinking that she will die soon. Christian missionaries rescue her and later send her to Iowa. The Brandon farmers in Van Buren County in Iowa adopt her. Angela, now a teenager, has cordial relations with her new found parents and other members of the family. She does not suffer from nostalgia, but she compares her wretched and dangerous life in Dakha to the secure life in Brandons’ farmhouse. Angela’s acculturation and assimilation into the socio-cultural space of America is complete. The process of acculturation is not painful to Angela as in the case of other immigrants. She transcends the barriers of race and colour. The Americanization is so intense that Angela does not bother with the religious beliefs of Islam though she was born in that religion. “On Sunday, after church, we sit down to a huge pork- roast-pigs aren’t filthy creatures here as they are back home--” (9).
As an orphan in Bangladesh, she was deprived of affection and emotional bonding. In Bangladesh, she was just an orphan girl. Here, in USA she has an identity, and she is able to relate herself to others in the society with dignity. Her feeling that the past is lost to her is paradoxical. However, it shows her determination to let go the past and reinvent a new identity. “The coach has put