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Title: Identities at the dinner table: Commensality, self-perception, and relationships in Anne Cherian’s A Good Indian Wife.

 

Vol. 12(3), 2024, pp. 154-169

DOI: https://doi.org/10.46687/DRAZ7186.  

 

Author: Nayana George

About the author: Nayana George, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the Department of English and Cultural Studies, Bannerghatta Road Campus, Christ University, Bengaluru, India. She earned her PhD from Christ University and holds an MA in English from The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. Sparking from her interest in reading tantalisingly descriptive food writing, she has looked into the ideas of food intertwined with identity, space, and mobility in her doctoral research. Her areas of interest include food studies, memory studies, affect studies and more such investigations. She has facilitated undergraduate and postgraduate courses on popular culture studies, mythology, postcolonial studies, and more. She has published articles in the Economic and Political Weekly and the Journal of Creative Communications (Sage), among others.

e-mail: nayana.george@christuniversity.in              

nayana.george@christuniversity.in

ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0002-5024

 

Link: http://silc.fhn-shu.com/issues/2024-3/SILC_2024_Vol_12_Issue_3_154-169_16.pdf

Citation (APA): George, N. (2024). Identities at the dinner table: Commensality, self-perception, and relationships in Anne Cherian’s A Good Indian Wife. Studies in Linguistics, Culture, and FLT, 12(3), 154-169. https://doi.org/10.46687/DRAZ7186.

 

Abstract: Food studies is rapidly gaining ground as a multidisciplinary area of research. Within it, literary food studies brings an interdisciplinary perspective as works of literature are viewed through the lens of food that is informed by frameworks and concepts that are rooted in a variety of fields including cultural anthropology, sociology, and more. One such concept that is in focus here is that of commensality that is associated with food and food practices. Commensality, drawing from notions of conviviality, refers to the practice of sharing a table and consuming food together. Deeper meanings of communal identities come to the fore in this social practice, leading it to shape how identities are understood and projected. Commensality can be a complex site of belonging and alienation depending on the context, and this paper seeks to explore the representation of the same in Anne Cherian’s A Good Indian Wife (2008). Leila, the titular Indian wife in the novel, moves to the US from India after her marriage to Neel and grapples with finding her place in the foreign land. With this displacement comes the endeavor to reaffirm her new identity, which now includes the role of being a wife and the aspect of being an immigrant. Neel also deals with complicated feelings towards the projection of his identity. With food playing a crucial role in the everyday experiences of their lives, commensality becomes a point of enquiry into how they see themselves and how their relationships with each other and themselves evolve through the course of the narrative.

Key words: commensality, food, food culture, identity, migration

 

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