ELEMENTS OF MULTICULTURALISM IN INDIAN ENGLISH LITERATURE: STUDY OF SUNETRA GUPTA NOVELS

ABSTRACT

The study of culture is nowadays treated as Cultural Studies. Cultural studies became a major area of interest during the rise of the nineteenth century and in the first half of the twentieth century. The study of culture helps one understand and examine the approach to social life. Culture establishes national and individual identity. It evaluates human life and society. The study of culture is the study of relationship between all the elements that contribute to a way of life. In a particular social and historical context, culture endorses the public consciousness of the intellectuals. It celebrates the quality of life of the middle and upper classes. It is well known that Sunetra Gupta is an Indo-British diaspora. She migrated to England after her studies in Bio Science and works in a university in London. She has additionally taken up creative writing and has so far written five novels. In all these five novels, she dwells upon the relationship between Indians and westerners. The meeting of west and east has produced multicultural atmosphere. The novels depict how the people of two different cultures react to each other which leads the rise of multiculturalism. In this chapter, the novels of Gupta are undertaken to study how multiculturalism is created and how it affects the people involved in this mixed culture.

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