Examine with reference to language how Attia Hosain presents the feelings of the young wife in her first encounter with western culture?
“The First Party” is a fusion short story bringing together the western and the Asian cultures. It is about a conventional bride who has her first encounter with her husband's ‘emancipated’ friends. Attia Hosain one of the earliest women writers of the Indian diaspora, through “The First Party,” portrays the mannerisms and beliefs of the typical Indian bride through this newly wedded bride. To each turn of the story, Attia Hosain brings a superb imaginative understanding and a sense of the “poignancy of the smallest of human dramas." The short story reveals the hidden depths of Hosain’s work and brings out not only the partition theme but also the dilemma of the Indian bride and her relationship with her husband.
Ones first party is supposed to be a really exciting, unforgettable and enjoyable experience. However here the title suggests the irony of the situation. As east meets west, the experience turns out to be a very traumatic one. The Indian bride could be equivalent to the olden day western woman – delicate, meek and humble, expected to cater to the world of man and inexperienced to the nuciences of the world. The bride’s entry into the house of the party is just as her entry into her in - laws home for the first time. When the bride arrives at her new home, she takes care to enter, auspicious right foot first, gently kicking over a strategically placed measure of paddy as an augury of plenty for her new family. Here, however she stumbles against an “unseen doorstep” which is symbolic of a dividing line, the meeting point of east and west. It is the dominant “brightness” of the western culture that bewilders the shy new Indian bride. The brightness is personified and probably shows that rigid customs are not accepted by an emancipated society. The “firm grasp” into “her own limply” is yet another encounter between the diaspora of the Indo-western woman and the bride fresh from India. Alliteration such as “forsaken friend” and “bewildering brightness” intensify an already intensified situation as “her nervousness edged towards panic.” Both the brightness and the darkness are personified. She seeks comfort in the “darkness” of her withdrawn life from which she was protected form the absurdities of her new life. She probably prefers to remain in darkness as in the light; she is under scrutiny .We find the thinking of the bride rather unusual as she finds the brightness bewildering and the darkness friendly. In normal circumstances, one would feel vice versa. Usually brightness clarifies but here it confuses because it is the brightness of the western culture.
We see how male dominated her life is as her husband does not even give her a chance to think or even speak. His dress and attitude with his smoking and drinking and vulgar dancing is just like the Americans of whose culture he had adopted. However he betrays his Indian roots when he says “My wife” with no name attached, depicting that he is a typical Indian husband who believes that the wife’s identity is linked to his from marriage and hence feels that stating her name is not necessary or significant. “When the lady refers to the bride as “a shy little thing,” her husband says “She’ll get over it soon. Give me time,’ not “give her time.” He believes that she alone cannot make her self fit for western society, he will have to train and fashion her in order to make her suitable. Again we see his Indian mentality, of the wife being helpless and him having to save or rescue her.
It is said that only brazen women can look into the eyes of a stranger. We notice that this bride is not brazen in fact she lacks confidence with her “shy glance” and the “low voice of an uncertain child repeating a lesson.” Her husband has instructed her a little before the party in how to act and what to say in order to mix with your own people of a different culture and to fit in. She does not want people to know that she is scared of the vibrant and unregimented surroundings and also how ashamed she is of her own kind. Even the kind words of the hostess do not seem of any comfort to her.
The beauty of the story is in the symbols used. At first it was the doorstep, the meeting point of the two cultures. Now as the bride sits at “the edge of the big chair,” symbolising that she is new into the society and yet unwelcome. She is only at the edge of it and making a difference or trying to root her own people back to their original culture, customs or mannerisms would be a long way off. Her discomfort is conveyed through her body language. “Drooping shoulders” symbolise a lack of confidence. The sari too symbolises the conflict in her mind. She is trying to overcome her fears but is weighed down by her sensitivity and her culture back home. In a way her sari acts not only as a means to cover bare flesh but also as a protection from blaspheming ways. She felt over dressed with her red sari and gold embroidery and her rings and bracelets. In the Indian culture, it was custom for the newly wedded Indian bride to be heavily dressed as she was. The rings and bangles are a symbol of marriage for eternity for the bride and she is in awe to find “the others bare wrists, like a widow’s” for only when the wife finds out that her husband is dead does she break the bangles and remove the ‘sindoor’. She feels even more out of place when she sees the simplicity of their clothes as compared to her bright red sari with work on it. More like an “object on display” for the edification of others. Even though it was custom, she wishes she hadn’t gone through all the trouble as the people at the party didn’t care much for custom or seemed to have forgotten it. The ‘olive’ is yet another symbol of her disapproval. Her spitting out the olive symbolises her complete rejection and instant disapproval of western society. Though we wonder why she hides and does this. If she disapproves so much, why does she even remain and endure the discomfort when she could be satisfied in the comfort of her own home.
Animal imagery is used to convey her thoughts about the people and also about the situation she was in. She refers to them as “strange creatures,” even though they were her own people, she observed them like as if they were from another planet. She compares the woman’s “claws dipped in blood” to her own, which were unpainted and cut very short. In rural India, food was said to be enjoyed better if had with the fingers, as then none of the taste would be wasted on the spoons and forks. She has kept her nails short so as to not let them get dirty, as she has to eat with them. Her modesty was like a controlling device, which “put a leash on her thoughts.” Even though the dancing was suggesting indecency, she could not bring herself to think indecent thoughts, as women from her culture were not to think, act or speak indecently.
The bride, just like a child, keeps relating the things and persons at the party back to her motherland. We realise that she must have been very enclosed and we learn this from her old fashioned way of thinking. The tone of the story changes as her feelings evolve. We see how “her nervousness edged towards panic” and with uncertainty a “shy glance” and then “coldly self conscious.” The “pinpoints to discomfort” soon changes to “discomfort multiplied.” At first she was in “cold defence” but now she is completely silent. We also see how the word ‘discomfort’ is repeated several times to emphasize how uncomfortable she is in a place away from her home. From “shock and distress”, she turns to “disgust” she grows more and more in anger and bitterness. Even when it comes to the music system, at first the machine fascinates her but then her mind soon changes as she starts to hate the “shrieking and moaning and discordant noises it hurled at her.” Indian music is said to soothe the soul but when she hears the western music, she declares it as “harsh clamour” which produced “discordant noises”. In the end her feelings turn to anger, hatred, jealousy and bewilderment. Her violence turns to actions. She “gripped her chair,” “struggled” and through “clenched teeth,” tells her husband to leave her alone. All through she is trying to stand for Indian cultures and “generation-old foundations” yet here she seems to have given up at the end of it all. She cannot take it anymore. In Hindu custom, in the ‘jaimala’ and even the ‘agni pradakshina’, the bride and groom garland each other in formal mutual acceptance and they walk around a sacrificial fire called ‘pheras’ in which they vow never to leave each other and take on the world. She vows to accept him however he is, yet here he and his ways disgust her and she now sees him as a ‘destroyer.’ If the Taj Mahal of India did not want a change of scene and experience then she should have stayed at home instead of going along for the party and embittering herself while ruining her husbands evening as well.
Her preconceived expectations of her people are shattered as she sees them already adapted to a culture she disapproves of. “ Home away from home” was what she expected to find instead all she finds is insecurity and loneliness and a longing that she had not wished that she would be on such a threshold of marriage. An inferiority complex is what she suffers from as she grudgingly admires the woman with “a wine glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other/wondered how it felt to hold a cigarette with such self-confidence.” She feels out of place when she cannot even relate to the talk of women of dress and appearance, which sounds so “unfamiliar” to her world where instead of relating clothes to time and place, the Indian woman would relate it to occasion. They are in a world of their own and she is all alone in hers in private emotions, discomfort and disapproval. We see the conflict in the brides mind, as she wants people to be around her yet she doesn’t want them to talk to her in fear that she wouldn’t be able to relate to them. Silence somehow was a refuge for her. She cannot bring her self to come with terms with the fact that these people had severed their Indian roots to abide to the western. With their bilingual talk and talk of showing their limbs and skin, which she found shameful. In the Indian culture it was only appropriate for the woman to show her face and hair, which was the essence of her personality, and the rest of her body was to be covered. She “pulled her own sari closer” when the sari of another woman had slipped off.
She uses various strategies to protect herself. Conversation is “crippled,” at first cold defence with short replies and then silence. Her sari too acts as means of protecting her body from the snares of others and from the world as she “pulled her sari closer.” She asks for an orange juice as a protection against the ‘persistent’ questions of “Will u have a drink?” Pretence is her only escape; she does not even drink the orange juice that is given to her she only puts it to her lips. In India, it is improper for women to drink and she is confused with the peoples “reversal of values.”
“East is east, west is west, and never the twain shall meet”. I personally believe that this is not true in many cases. Here the bride could have made more of an effort but she had been narrowed by one field of vision and traditions. Her rigid attitude and maddening air of righteousness prevents her from seeing the good in people, because under all the behavior, they may be nice human beings. The hostess was very charming and did her best to make them feel comfortable. I sympathize with the bride, as she does not even know how to react to such ways and people who are supposed to be Indians. She’s a fish out of water with her dressing and customs. She is not only in awe but she is more offended. The bride is too sure of herself. Indian womanhood was shaped on how the Indian physkee should react. She cannot expect to live with old values in this world. One is expected to change attitudes according to time and place. Normally when we are around different people, we try to adapt to their ways in order to fit in. What is admirable about this woman is that she does not give up her beliefs, even for the sake of her husband in order to feel more comfortable and fit in. Her customs do not saturate even though she is in contact with a different culture who actually came from where she came. She wants to be a good wife and share in her husband’s happiness but her will power not to indulge in ways she does not accept shows that she will not perspire when her beliefs are questioned. Though she is very rigid in her attitude, and unchanging in her ideas, I empathize with her as I myself would find it very difficult to adapt to new ways so soon. Maybe if there were some sort of induction day then she would have reacted better. I take pity on her repressive Indian condition. She thought that marriage would be an escape from the fixtures her family held her in but what a disappointment it turned for her. She thought that it would be an adventure, which she would go along happily for. Little did she know that it would be her mother’s traditions and strictures that would be holding her back in this new place as well. She would have felt less left out if her approach were less judgmental and more to ‘live and let live’. Attia Hosain has indeed made a statement about the Indian woman. The Indian woman is strong, just, faithful, beautiful, a good wife, a good mother, and a role model for women of all cultures.
