Miss New India: East-West Dichotomy

The Criterion: An International Journal in English
ISSN: 0976-8165 | Impact Factor: 8.67 | Peer-Reviewed | Open Access
Indian Literature

Miss New India: East-West Dichotomy

Dr Shashi Nath Pandey
Vol. 17, Issue 1February 2026Pages 153-167Article ID: 2026V17N1060

Abstract

Bharati Mukherjee is a phenomenal writer in English and she treats Indian characters, especially female characters in Western atmosphere seeking the liberation from claustrophobic native socio- cultural atmosphere in almost all her novels. So western country, especially America as liberating power, is attempted to be justified in one after another novels but in Miss New India she has added another dimension, irrespective to earlier ones, where her protagonist doesn’t not need to cross the blacksea in pursuit of the privilege what the western women do relish rather she attempts to create the similar atmosphere inside the native country i.e. in India itself, stamped and permeated with everything which America can offer with caressing patronage. In Miss New India she takes into account one of the Indian metropolitan city, Bangalore, thriving with all the potential that western country, especially America can offer in IT sector with its booming consumerist market to accommodate the aspirations of Indian youths, especially girls from orthodox Indian set up, and so to explore the facets of emancipation with their moderate education in Americanized Bangalore but unlike against the professed mission Anjali discovers on somany occasions to be caught into conflicting situations in colonized Bangalore and instead of being assimilated and Americanized to justify the obsession, under the passionate and promising patronage of Mr. Peter Champion. This paper intends to explore the different situations where East–West stand culturally juxtaposed and despite the helping western hands offered, Anjali doesn’t feel assimilated rather outragedon so many occasions, justifying the established belief regarding the differences between the east and the west and socio–economic, political and cultural superiority of occident over orient.

Keywords

Emancipation, obsession, conflict,, cultural-assimilation, denigration, East-West Dichotomy, occident, orient, Ambivalence etc.

How to Cite

Dr Shashi Nath Pandey. “Miss New India: East-West Dichotomy.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 1, Feb. 2026, pp. 153-167. ISSN: 0976-8165.

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