Social Struggle of the Protagonists of Bharathi Mukherjee in her stories, “The Middleman and Other Stories”

Abstract

In the modern short stories, social problems play an important role in the lives of the protagonists as the stories are character dominant. In the character dominant stories, the conflict is usually seen between the individual and society. The protagonist’s existence in the society depends upon his status in the society whether it is in India or abroad. Sometimes the protagonists are prone to struggle hard to prove themselves to fit into the society. The protagonists of Bharati Mukherjee struggle to establish their identity and fit well into America and American society. Married to a Canadian writer Clark Blaise, almost all of her short stories depict her dilemma between the two cultures, the East and West. This conflict forms the main theme of most of her short stories. After completing her studies in America she went to Canada along with her husband where she had faced acute racial prejudice. It is explicit in her second volume of short stories “The Middleman and Other Stories”.

Keywords: Bharati Mukherjee, Social Problems, Protagonist’s struggle for existence, America and Canada.