Joseph-Mukherjee-4/13

Notions of cultural limbo run throughout Mukherjee's 'The Managment of Grief'. I found the most immediately striking dissonance to be that between Judith and the rest of the community. Judith is earnest, but she cannot bridge the essential gap between cultures. Most strikingly, she states ""We have interpreters, but we don't always have the human touch, or maybe the right human touch." Just writing "We don't always have the human touch" would have gotten across the message. However, Mukherjee adds or maybe the right human touch to support her most powerful proposition: Grief is universal, but the treatment of it cannot escape age old cultural divisions.

The story is full of twisting double bind sentences such as the one above:


*Pam, a heavily westernized girl, expresses her desire to waitress at McDonald's. She comments "If it's a choice between Bombay and Wonderland, I'm picking Wonderland."(It's particularly ironic that McDonald's is seen as the Wonderland, given that 'do you want fries with that?' has become the joke towards those who are at the lowest rung of the capitalist dream).  She ultimately ends up giving make-up advice to Indian and Oriental girls in Vancouver.

*Shaila's freedom from the traditional roles of women in Indian culture is only achieved through a kind of stained branding: Due to the fact that she is a widow, she will not be pressured or desired in regards to a new marriage.

*The doubling that exists in the meeting between Shaila and the Sikh family. A shared grief is expressed(at one point the narrator remarks that the grieving are now 'relatives'), but communication is irrevocably limited. Mukherjee writes, "I try to explain to them that the government wishes to give money, not take." He raises his hand. "Let them take", he says. "We are accustomed to that. That is no problem." The couple only hear the take fragment of Shaila's dialogue. Moreover, the only way that Judith knows how to cope is to give,give,give. She needs to be constantly working in order to cope, and this contrasts with the coping responses of the families. In actuality, Judith's attempts to manage the grief of others only serve to reinforce the isolation of her own response.

*The stoic narration justifies the appearance of mystical forces. It's introduction is unapologetic. The narrator's decision to return to Canada(and continue with her life) is motivated by a mystical appearance of her deceased husband.