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Theme Of Bye Bye Blackbird

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Anita Desai, the grand dame of Indian English literature, was born in Mussorie on 24 June 1937, of a Bengali father and a German mother. This identity of her plays a significant role in the portrayal of characters in most of her novels especially Bye, Bye Blackbird as it presents the cultural crises suffered by her main characters due to the East-West encounters. This novel is considered to be most intimately connected to her own experience as she herself has mentioned in an interview thus, “…of all my novels Bye, Bye Blackbird is the most rooted and experienced and the least literary in derivation (Dhawan 92).”
This novel details the traumas of cross cultural maladjustments, the fear and the anger, the turmoil and the tribulations, the shame …show more content…

As it is clearly illustrates, "he is perfectly aware of the schizophrenia that is infecting him like the disease to which all Indians abroad, he declares, are prone…He is not sure, any longer". Contrary to Dev, Adit is rather a well settled Indian with an English wife and at the beginning of the novel, he seems to be a seemingly contented individual. His attraction towards England is justified by his critically sharp remarks on his observation of India that has been ever disappointing as he says:
As he is compelled to leave India for better life style and consistent economy, he has derived a gradual compromise to put up with the mistreatment of emigrants and insults shot at him. He admires the Western life thus, “I like the pubs, I like the freedom a man has here-economic freedom! Social freedom! … and I like the Thames. I like old Ma Jenkins who cleans my rooms … And I like weekend at the seaside. I even like the

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