The Narrator’s Attitude
In
Monica Ali’s Brick Lane
A Literary Critical Analysis
سليم محمد غضبان
Salim Ghadban
June 2016

Københavns Universitet
Det Humanistiske Fakultet
Institut for Engelsk

1-Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to critically analyze Monica Ali’s first novel Brick Lane (2003) and to focus on the narrator’s attitude towards women’s roles in general, Bengali community’s stereotypes, and towards Islam as can be concluded from reading the novel. The main characters’ features will be explained thoroughly, other secondary characters would be referred to in many places through the paper. The contrasts and similarities among the main characters would be pointed out.
Brick Lane is a postcolonial and immigrant novel, which was written, in the post-9/11 era. Ali’s family is from Bangladesh, which was part of Pakistan, and escaped the war of independence in 1971 to Britain. The novel was on the bestseller list, translated into 25 languages, and shortlisted for the Guardian’s First Book Award. The director Sarah Gavron made it into a movie, and Abi Morgan and Laura Jones wrote the screenplay. During its filming, the Bengali community blocked the filming, claiming that Monica Ali is not one of them anymore, and launched a campaign against the film.
This paper is a literary examination of the novel that describes the life of a Bengali girl (Nazneen), who becomes involved in an arranged marriage to a Bengali man (Chanu) who is twice her age. He takes her to live with him in East London in Brick Lane, where there is a large Bengali community. Nazneen loves her educated man, but only in the beginning. Later on, she hates him and his way of living, but her religion and traditions do not allow her to leave him. Nazneen does not integrate into British society as long as she lives with Chanu, who himself cannot cope with it. She is caught between two cultures and is unable to have a hand in her destiny. The incidents develop dramatically. Chanu wants to leave Britain for good and return to his country, Bangladesh. This was the limit for Nazneen. She refuses to leave, and she keeps her daughters with her. The story ends with this sentence: “’This is England’, she said. You can do whatever you like.”[1] Nazneen adapts to English culture, and is now practicing her favourite game: ice-skating, an English sport. The narrators lets Nazneen get a new life and get rid of her unbearable man who stands as an obstacle in her way towards her integration in the new society. It is obvious that the narrator compassionate with Nazneen through the novel.





2-Nazneen
The narrative follows the life of Nazneen since her birth in 1967. One notices that this is the same year as the author’s birth. This raises the question of whether or not both persons have some commonalities. This in turn leads to another question: What is fact and what is fiction, considering the two personalities? Nazneen was born as a premature baby believed to be dead. Her forehead is large and her eyes are too close to each other. She is average in length. In the beginning she refuses to suckle from her mother’s breasts. If this is a fictional scene, why did the narrator choose it? Is it symbolic and does it refer to Nazeen’s refusal to accept her motherland’s culture? The story almost begins with this scene and ends with the scene of Nazneen’s refusal to cling to her original culture.
The narrator shows Nazneen as an ordinary human being who has her own emotional and sexual needs that need to be fulfilled by her own decision. Nazneen has an affair with another Muslim man, Karim, but she does not marry him. Karim comes to Nazneen’s house on a daily basis, bringing her cut garments for her sewing job. The narrator presents this scene as if to say that Nazneen is an ordinary woman who has her sexual needs that she shares with other human beings. On the other hand, the reader gets the feeling that her man does not fulfill her needs in a proper way. There is maybe a mangle of compatibility between the personalities of the pair.
Although Chanu advises her not to have any contact with British people, Nazneen actually admires British values, but does not dare to admit it. She is caught between two cultures and is unable to decide which one to choose.
Throughout most of the story, Nazneen practices a traditional gender role as an oppressed Bengali woman. Most Bengali social activities are based on a masculine/ feminine basis. She considers her husband to be a good man merely because he does not beat her. (An example, of the narrator’s harsh critic of Bengali’s social stereotypes.) The problem is that some people cannot cope with a change in time or place. Nazneen escapes the situation by freeing herself from her passivity by only tolerating what can or should be tolerated and rejecting offensive, inhuman, and silly behaviours, looking towards happier alternatives. The narrator shows the possibility for Nazneen to change her destiny as she lives in Britain- but not for her sister Hasina who lives in Bangladesh. As if the place and culture has a decisive role in life of individuals.
According to Seabrookt, the life prospects of Dhaka women are limited:
“There are three options for young women in Dhaka, all involve clothes. They can make clothes for other people in the factories; they can wash clothes for other people as domestic servants, or they can take their clothes off for other people as sex workers.”[2]
The first problem in the relationship between Nazneen and her husband Chanu is that she was not the one who chose to immigrate to Britain. Migration, in Bengali culture, is restricted, so only men emigrate first, while women follow their husbands afterwards. Migration is considered to be an adventure, and only men have the privilege of adventures and the right to influence the couple’s life. This is what the narrator is trying to make the reader understand. Another problem is that there is a clear contrast between Nazneen’s and Chanu’s personalities.
Nazneen arrives in London wearing a sari. She keeps dressing in it. It is her symbol for her modesty prison. She does not decline clipping Chanu’s corns from his feet, and hair from his nose.
Nazneen’s lack of English language is an obstacle in the way of her integration into the British community. The narrator shows us how. She spends much time reading the Qur’an, the Muslim holy book. Despite this fact, she cannot go to a mosque to pray because it is restricted to men. Her home is a symbol of her prison. She considers the Qur’an as containing righteous knowledge. There is no place for variety in Nazneen’s life. It is monotonous and constrictive, but she tries to escape later in the story. Speaking English for the first time with a stranger pleasures her. It is an important incident that encourages her in her life. Razia, her friend, also encourages her to learn English. Nazneen asks her husband if she can follow Razia’s example. The narrator lets us comprehend what is going on in her mind. It was understood for her that her freedom would start by beginning to defy Chanu. This leads her to development and being open to the world while Chanu shrinks. She finds her freedom in self-decision and starts to practice her favourite English sport, ice-skating.
Thirty-year-old is different from the sixteen-year-old Nazneen who arrived to Britain in the 1980’s. The narrator shows her differences step by step. When her first son Raqib gets sick, she does not let him face his fate without giving help. She takes him to the hospital. This incident makes Chanu look at his wife from another point of view. She is now a real human being. She mixes with some Bengali women who play positive roles in her life, like Mrs. Azad, a doctor’s wife who is educated, dresses in western style clothes, speaks English, and works. Nazneen’s close friend Razia helps her with her self-awakening. The narrator intends to assure the necessity of solidarity among women. With the help of all these women, Nazneen grows into a strong woman, one who can defy fate. Her evolution is not simple, however; it happens through conflict. Now, she strongly criticizes her other’s failure to behave in a suitable way, when she faced a similar situation. Nazneen thinks about the burden her man has put on her shoulders by taking a loan from Mrs. Islam, and not being able to pay it back in full. Here, the narrator shows us that also men can take wrong decisions and affect badly on the family’s life. Nazneen tries to help her husband by giving him the money she gets from her sewing work. The drama reaches climax when protagonist Nazneen cannot bear her situation any longer.
Nazneen has an affair with Karim, who does not meet her expectations,
”but gradually she comes to realize that her lover’s dreams of Islamic renaissance may turn out to be as flimsy as Chanu’s dreams of integration. And so she begins to grow beyond her first love.”[3]
The changes in Nazneen’s life should be considered normal. The reader finds that Nazneen does not want her husband to turn her down; while at the same time she is looking for a better future for her family.
Nazneen’s character develops from being a passive victim to a proactive decision maker. She astounds the reader at the end of the story by proving that she can adapt in the new community while Chanu fails to do so. The narrator’s intention is clear: she alludes to the fact that many women are mentally much stronger than men.
3.Chanu
Chanu is an educated man with a degree from Dhaka University in English Literature. He can be considered a product of colonial social politics. The narrator shows him as sarcastic. He is proud of his qualifications and considers his wife lucky for marrying him- a stroke of luck. Chanu does not want his wife to go to college because she has to take care of the children and the house. He loves his wife Nazneen, and helps her when she suffers from a nervous breakdown. He watches TV for extended periods of time and keeps it on in the evenings. Chanu arrives to Britain with big ambitions to develop and become Western. He understands the difference in cultures and tries to adapt. One can ask the question: why are Chanu’s dreams not achieved? Is it because he wants to be rich and important rather than be well integrated in the new society? One can understand his situation after he calls Bangladesh “the Paradise of Nations.” The narrator does not show Chanu how to deal with his wife or with the society around, but only mentions his supposedly wrong doings.
Although Chanu has some positive traits, he has many negative ones as well. He is a determined man. He does not tell his wife about what happens outside the house. In the beginning, he is not interested to interfere when his daughters socialize with the Bengali community. He wants to appear as a Western man. After his culture shock, he lives most of his life in Britain searching for his lost roots, contradicting his own beliefs. He even becomes afraid of sending his children to a British school. Cultural identity should not lead him to isolation from the community of his new country. He can complement it with his new identity. He compels his daughters to speak Bengali at home. Sometimes, he considers British language and culture as something negative. Chanu condemns the men of his community for being ignorant and not reading books. He only addresses men, as if women should not enter the field of knowledge. He is still not westernized. He still refers to the Bengalis as “we”. Chanu is interested in who the superiors and subordinates are. The narrator reveals what is going inside Chanu’s mind when he explains to his friend:
“I’m talking about the clash between Western values and our own. I’m talking about the struggle to assimilate and the need to preserve one’s identity and heritage. I’m talking about children who do not know what their identity is. I’m talking about the feelings of alienation engendered by a society where racism is prevalent. I’m talking about the terrific struggle to preserve one’s sanity while striving to achieve the best for one’s family. I’m talking...”[4]
Consequently, Chanu loses many opportunities to use his knowledge. He tries to adapt to the new culture, although not enough, because he considers his native country’s culture as the richest, metaphorically speaking. Chanu only thinks of visiting the sites of London after 30 years of having lived there. The narrator portrays Nazneen in a good light. She proves to be stronger than Chanu by dealing positively with culture shock away from their house, and the clash of generations within it.
Chanu respects Mrs. Islam, an old Bengali woman, and considers her a typical Muslim woman. The narrator tells us that events show that this woman does not have an ideal morale. But why the narrator chose this name for her? Does the narrator mean that Mrs. Islam represents Muslims in general? It is difficult to find the answer in the novel.
Chanu does not encourage his wife to make contact with the British.
““He had warned her about making friends with ”them”, as though they were a possibility. All the time they are polite. They smile. They say ”please” this and ”thank you” that. Make no mistake about it. They shake your hand with the right, and with the left they stab you in the back.””[5]
This does not sound like a fair criticism. The meaning is that the narrator only wants to show how difficult it was for Chanu to integrate into the British community despite his education.
Although Chanu respects Mrs. Islam, he is also afraid of her because she is powerful and believes in the power of money. He feels obliged to take a high interest loan from her without Nazneen’s knowledge. Later on, Chanu has to borrow from Dr. Azad when he needs to buy plane tickets.
Chanu lives a contradictory life. While accusing Westerners to be condescending towards people from the third world, he is condescending towards his own community. He considers them as uneducated. Moreover, he distinguishes among colours of people and denies that Indians are in the same category as Africans. On the other hand, he criticizes white people and considers them racists. The narrator affects the reader by creating a questioning in his/her mind about whether Chanu himself is a racist and not white people, or whether he has the right to generalize when he experiences some people’s wrong doings. Regarding the matter of his promotion, he claims that it will take him longer than a white man.
Chanu tries to raise his daughters in the traditional way so that they will accept arranged marriages. He threatens Shabana when he gets angry with her. Chanu longs for his home country, thinking that he can get an excellent job there. He keeps remembering the past, the colonial times, and how colonists had dealt badly with his country. This represents an obstacle in his way to integrate into the new society. Although Chanu is not a Muslim fundamentalist and does not pray or even read the Holy Qur’an, the narrator criticizes him harshly. Her intention in this novel is not to attack Islam, but to criticize Bengali traditions.

4- Hasina
Hasina is Nazneens younger sister who lives in Bangladesh.
“Hasina looked like a princess. Her face was flawless, symmetrical, mythical.”[6]
Hasina sends letters to her sister, and tells her everything that happens to her. In her letters, the narrator shows the contrasts and the similarities of the characters of the two sisters. The narrator criticizes how some Bengalis understand the concept of faith, and shows us how Hasina breaks this rule by eloping with her first love, and putting herself and her family to shame and dishonour. Later, Hasina becomes a prostitute, gets married again, but returns to prostitution, the oldest profession in history. Events show that Hasina tries to escape from the men who only try to exploit her. The narrator shows how it is difficult for a woman who lives in a traditional Muslim world to pave her way successfully in life. On the other hand her sister Nazneen succeeds to break the evil circle because she lives in Britain.

5- Language
The language has some positive and negative features. Its style in the beginning is simple, particularly in chapter one. It is sometimes naïve although it describes some important events like the incident when Nazneen as a baby refuses to suckle milk from her mother. Is it a symbol for Nazneen’s refusing to take from her motherland’s culture as it appears at the end of the story?
The language only starts to develop when Nazneen starts to discover the outside world. The novel really has depth. It depicts complex events simply and easily. The first question is why did Ali choose to write the epistolary in incorrect language? One wonders if it is written in Pidgin English. The topic of the text is serious, but one can find a sense of humour now and then. An example of this is shown in Chanu’s visit to Dr. Azad which is almost comical. Sometimes, the language or rather some scenes are disgusting, particularly the scene with the man behind the counter after putting his carrot down. “He removed a little something from his nostril… The man wiped his finger on his apron.”[7] The writing style is practical and descriptive, although the text contains many Bengali words that need to be explained to eliminate any potential confusion.
There are many symbols in the text. “Mrs. Islam has surprisingly sharp elbows.”[8] “Are you trying to rob my grave?”[9] “The Bengal Tigers.”[10] “Go on the train of repentance.”[11]The window and television in Nazneen’s flat can be considered symbols of windows to the outside world. Many good similes are also found, such as in: “It was like walking through a field of snakes.”[12] “His clothes hung from his bones as if flesh was an unnecessary expense, as if his passion consumed him.”[13] “.., as if she were an unknown dog and might bite his fingers.”[14]
This is literary realism. It depicts a foreign society’s defects in an assertive way so it looks like postcolonial ethical discourse. The narrator does not report events but she includes allusions so we can understand the events and the background.

6- Themes
Many themes are portrayed in the novel: Fate, religious radicalism, Bengali stereotypes, feminism, multiculturalism, modernism, bilateral racism, cultural isolation, and ethnic problems. The novel includes many components of Western discourse, including feminism.
7- Setting
Brick Lane takes place in Brick Lane, a Bengali enclave in Eastern London. There is an emphasis on Hamlet Tower where many events happen. The mosque there refers to Islam which is the religion of the Bengali community. Ali’s debut novel concentrates on the life of women there and on the multicultural environment, where some Muslim immigrant communities live according to their social stereotypes inherited from outside the country.
8- Discussion
This is a third-person narrated novel. The narrator travels into the minds of the characters, letting us know how they think and what they plan to do. The reader is confronted with two globalized cultures: English and Islamic. Ali takes the readers to the world of multiculturalism by writing about Third World people, who are in this case represented by the Bengali community. Women’s issues are well represented by the narrator. White people are not represented in the novel, so they are outside of the discussion. The narrator does not mention anything about British convert to Islam, or about the prejudices against Muslims. In the novel, the cultural clash between Brits and foreigners causes the establishment of many extremist groups on both sides. The narrator shows us how some people, especially youths, become radicalized. It seems that the narrator wants to say that violence could only lead to instability. The narrator is reliable as the incidents in the novel have parallels in many Muslims and Bengalis experiences.

In this novel, one has to choose the best culture to follow if one does not want to face a cultural clash. The best culture for some is the English one. The message is that many societies have stereotypes in terms of gender, cultural, and racial activities that do not fit into a democratic society. These should be challenged, and different attitudes should be promoted. In this way, the narrator presents British culture to the reader. She directs harsh criticism against some characters that are not necessarily religious. She presents political Islam and shows the reader how it can lead to violence, not only between Muslims and others, but also amongst themselves. The narrator presents some Muslim characters as positive ones. She sets an example on the difficulty of clinging to the Muslims stereotypes while integrating in the British society by presenting a character like Dr. Azad. But stereotypes are subject to change in some people’s minds. Taking from other culture does not mean to them that they are leaving their own religion. It is obvious that some characters are not important to the plot, such as Mrs. Islam and Dr. Azad and his wife, while other characters develop and take important decisions at the end, such as Chanu and Nazneen.


Brick Lane gives the reader an insight into the Bengali community, but not necessarily into the Muslim community as a whole. Immigration problems are clearly presented in the novel. But there is another kind of travel that is cleverly presented, which is the mental travel of the characters between two different cultures. Ali presents religious radicalism in contrast with modernism, which she supports by writing this novel. Both of these worlds are real but they are different. The narrator is subjective. She has her own attitude while depicting them. The narrator depicts Chanu’s house in a disgusting way:
“The sofa and chairs were the colour of dried cow dung, which was a practical colour.” [15]
The narrator allows some Bengali characters to criticize others in the same community and in the same family instead of letting one hear it from British characters. ““You’ll stink the bus out” Shabana had said. “I am not sitting with you.””[16] Ali depicts the British character, the bus conductor, as very clever, “At a half-glance he knew everything about Nazneen, and then he shook his head and walked away.”[17] She also criticizes Chanu’s opinion on city girls in his homeland: “...She is an unspoilt girl from the village.”[18]
Chanu, who represents Bengali men who are not very religious but still cling to Bengali traditions, receives more criticism by the narrator. She says that he looks for his own new baby as a new chance for him to progress, while Nazneen is more interested in her passion towards the baby. The narrator in the novel defends women’s rights in a Muslim world by presenting women as inferiors in their relationship with their superior men.
The Muslims’ social heritage is under attack. The narrator keeps criticizing Bengali social stereotypes throughout the whole novel. Amma tells Nazneen,
” If God wanted us to ask questions, he would have made us men,”[19]
Moreover, the narrator criticizes the inequality between men and women: “Nazneen walked a step behind her husband down Brick Lane.”
There is more information about the protagonist than the antagonists. Why did the narrator choose to concentrate on Nazneen? Is it her intention to make us believe more in Nazneen than Chanu?

It is difficult to differentiate between fact and fiction in this novel.
Ali’s talent becomes more obvious as time goes on. The narrator lets us know what is happening inside Nazneen’s mind when her husband thinks of taking the family back to live in Bangladesh to avoid moral corruption.
“When she thought about Couripur now, she thought about inconvenience. To live without a flushing toilet, to abandon her two sinks (kitchen and bathroom), to make a fire for the oven instead of turning a knob - would these be trades worth making? She tried to imagine Chanu, marching off to the latrine with a heavy book in his hand. He liked to read, sometimes for half an hour or more, while sitting on the toilet. The flies would see him off the latrine.”[20]
The narrator shows that there is only a little sense of freedom in the family, given by the father, which is not enough for the woman and children to develop and pave their own way in life within the new society. This raises a question about whether freedom can be begged or should be wringed.
The narrator’s opinion is clear. She wants to show the reader that Nazneen thinks in a much better way than her husband does. She lets the reader sympathize with Nazneen and her love of English, and of freedom which is clearly revealed in the final scene. Although Brick Lane is fiction, one gets a sense of reality as far as it refers to the Bengali community’s real world. Some facts should have been impeded in it, so it is difficult to find out what is fact and what is fiction.
The novel dives deeply into realism. Some critics claim that the reader can almost smell Bengali food (cardamom, curry) while reading the book. The adulterous affair that emerges in the middle of the story gives us more information about the development of Nazneen. Ali’s Brick Lane brings to mind Nazneen’s affair with antagonist Karim, which refers to the common sexual matters that all humanity share. One notices that during the first sexual encounter between them, Nazneen hides her face. Afterwards she changes and becomes more courageous and self-determined, and finally she does what she likes in the following sexual encounters.
The end of the novel shows the beginning of the integration of the protagonist Nazneen into the British community. She becomes a self-reliant woman who starts to use English as a medium of communication. She feels happy for getting rid of her patriarchal husband. The result of this process is not shown, so it remains open to different possibilities. The question one has in mind is, would she live a similar life to the author’s? Or has one got some of Ali’s secrets in this splendid novel? All the complex events refer to a sense of reality in it.
Brick Lane could appear as offensive to the Bengali community, but it is not offensive to Islam as a religion, although it criticizes and questions some Islamic concepts, like fate. When the baby of the family becomes quite sick, it took British doctors a long time to cure him and not let him die. But the family did not recognize this. Instead, they considered it as only an action of God. “It was God alone who saved the baby,” (P 130, ls.21-22). But fate is still a controversial subject in the Islamic world. Muslims still discuss whether or not our life is predestined.
The narrator’s attitude becomes clearer when one finds out that all the characters that are trying to integrate into British society are praised and shown in a better light; like Dr. Azad’s family and Razia.
Compared with Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, Brick Lane cannot be considered an attack on Islam or even controversial with regards to Islam. Ali does not write to destroy, but to build. She criticizes, perhaps too harshly, but with the intention of changing some things in the Muslim Bengali social stereotypes. However, the Satanic Verses paved the way to Brick Lane to become more acceptable in Muslims communities. Ali, in contrast to Rushdie, writes from her own experiences and from what happens in the real world.
“According to Ladislav, Nagy considers Brick Lane to be an interesting look in the life of a closed ethnic community and also a record of self-awakening and emancipation of the heroine.”[21]
The narrator’s attitude is not in favour of Islam or Muslim immigrants, but some concepts this novel are completely new for them. Words like women’s freedom and self-realization are not discussed in their homelands. The narrator declines from taking an attitude that supports immigrant men in overcoming their hard conditions, trying to integrate in a different and foreign community. She does not show them the way to unfold themselves. What she tries to do is only to destabilize the Muslim community stereotypes and to direct harsh criticism towards her original Bengali community. Ali shows the same ignorance of some of the foreigners, when Chanu could not tackle a British invented machine:
“However Chanu coaxed and cajoled it, the machine never gave up its mystery. He could never get it to work.”[22]
But that does not mean that Ali has bad intentions towards her community. In fact, the opposite might be true. She can claim that her intention is to show their defects so that they can begin to improve.
9- Conclusion
Finally, one draws the conclusion that the narrator is reliable. She is a feminist. First, she succeeded in shedding light on the status of women in the Muslim world in general, represented by Bengali community, and especially immigrants; and secondly in defending their rights to live equal to men. The narrator harshly criticizes Bengali community’s stereotypes and their way of living using sometimes abuse language. She also criticizes some Muslim stereotypes and Muslims’ understanding of some religious concepts. The narrator does not attack on Islam as a religion. The novel has a strong sense of reality.
























References
- Ali, Monica, Brick lane, 2003.
- Levisohn, Daniel Contemporarylit.about.com/ok/fiction/fr/bricklane.htm.
- Navaratilova, Palva, Postcolonial issues in Monica Ali’s Brick Lane Bachelor Thesis. MASARYK UNIVERSITY BRNO
- Nilsson, Margaret Wallace, www.academia.edu/359672o/A_Postcolonial_study_of_Fact_and_Fiction_in_Monica _Alis_Brick _Lane. University of Kristianstad.
- Truong, Brandon, Mrs. E Richardson, University English II
- Walter, Natasha www.theguardian.com/books/2003/jun/14/featuresreviews.guardianreview20

[1] Ali, p. 492, last lines.

[2] Navatirova, p.20, ls.1-4

[3] Walter ls. 57-60

[4] Monica Ali, p.113, ls. 20-28.

[5] Monica Ali, p. 72, ls. 14-19

[6] Ali, p. 104, ls. 1-2

[7] Ali, p. 467, ls. 17-20

[8] Ali, p. 195, ls. 23-24

[9] Ali, p. 199, l. 12

[10] Ali, p. 239, l. 27

[11] Ali, p. 237, l. 6

[12] Ali, p. 205, ls. 11-12

[13] Ali, p. 241, ls. 35-36

[14] Ali, p. 246, ls. 29-30

[15] Ali, p.20, ls. 24-26

[16] Ali, p.290, ls. 5-6

[17] Ali, p. 291, ls. 15-17

[18] ALI, P. 22, L. 33.

[19] Ali, p.80, ls. 13-15

[20] Monica Ali, p.77-78, ls.35-38, 1-5.

[21] Navaratilova, p. 8, ls. 14-16

[22] Ali, P. 318, ls. 12-14.