Arranged Marriage Literary Elements

Feminist fiction

Present time. The stories are mostly set in the U.S. and India.

Each story has a woman as the narrator, except for The Bats and The Disappearance, where the former has a child of undisclosed sex and the latter has a husband as the narrator. Most of the stories are written in first person, except for The Disappearance (third person) and the The Word Love (second person).

Upset, Disappointed, Rebellious, Shameful, Unfairly treated

The protagonist in each story is a woman; the antagonist is usually the husband or in-laws or the patriarchal society in general.

Each woman is dealing with the realization of being treated unfairly as a result of a patriarchal society which comes out of the prevalent practice of arranged marriage.

The climax in these stories is usually when the women confront their husbands or the society in general.

In the story The Bats, the uncle of the narrator's mother says, "I guess they just don't realize what's happening. They don't realize that by flying somewhere else they'll be safe. Or maybe they do, but there is something that keeps pulling them back here." His words foreshadows the mother's returning to her abusive husband every time the narrator believes she has left him for good.

In the story The Disappearance, the narrator is surprised that his wife would leave the comforts of the life he has provided to his wife as well as his son, to get away form him. He is unable to imagine her hate for he thinks that marital rape or trying to control his wife is a normal thing. He underestimates the atrocities he commits on her.

The women are often chided for following their desires and are provided examples of mythological figures as Sita or Kunti as a perfect wife or daughter.

The imagery shifts to and fro from the wilderness of villages or the chaotic streets of Calcutta in India to planned cities of America. The Indian scenes are mostly to show the deep-set stereotypical values in Indian society, while scenes of America show hope for the future.

The narrator in the story, Meeting Mrinal, attempts to commit suicide by asphyxiation by closing her garage gates while her car is running, but the whole time she keeps on saying that she is not trying to kill herself.

Most of the stories run parallel where a woman puts her foot down against the patriarchal society. There is also parallelism in the stories like Affair, where the stories of Abha and Meena, two polar opposite women, mirror each other.

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The twisted wrought iron gates in the story The Maid Servant's Sari, are compared to broken legs and arms when a mob surrounds the gates to attack the aunt's house.