Racial Discrimination and Cultural Dominance in Anita Desai's Bye-Bye Blackbird

Abstract

Anita Desai effectively depicts Indian immigrants' problem of acculturation in England. She calls
these immigrants as 'blackbirds' who have been fluttering their wings in an alien land of white
people. She presents blackbirds as marginalized, dislocated, rejected and unwanted foreigners
who have been struggling to make their existence more significant. However, the feelings of non-belongingness, emptiness and barrenness make their lives more insecure and scratchy. The novel
opens with the arrival of Dev, Adit's friend in England. Adit is an Indian immigrant, marries Sarah, a
British girl. Their inter-racial, inter-cultural marriage invites clash between two cultures i.e. the
Oriental and Occidental. The present paper makes an attempt to perceive how the occidental
(white) culture dominates and discriminates Oriental (Asian-black) culture on the basis of color,
origin and nationality