Crisis of Local Identity under the Invasion of Global Forces in Anita Desai's The Artist of Disappearance

Abstract

This research in Anita Desai's novella, The Artist of Disappearance, deals with the negative impacts of globalization upon cultural, social and economic arenas, thereby making a critique of it as the form of neocolonization which emerged with a big bang, especially since the decade of the1980s. Bhupen Mukharjee's desire to send his son to the school run by the Englishmen and later to England for higher education reflects his 'west is the best psyche'. Similarly, mass migration and brain drain are equally important issues in the first novella. Local products, identity of the locale, have been replaced with the emergence of multinational companies and other industries. With the growing popularity of English language and English literary studies, other minority languages like Oriya are on the verge of extinction. Along with the consumption of foreign products and goods, foreign cultures have been adopted overlooking their own cultures. Camera, one of the major global forces, is the central issue of discussion in the third novella. A television crew intrudes into the garden made by Ravi, a recluse without his consent disturbing his peace and penance, which is later used for business purpose. So, these novellas deal with the global forces that spread throughout the world with the accelerating globalization questioning the relevance of minority art, culture, social norms and values in particular and local identity in general.