Brick Lane - The facets of multiculturalism

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Brick Lane is both a novel and its 2007 film adaptation that centers on the life of Bangladeshi Nazneen in contemporary Great Britain…

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[...] Thanks to the model figure of Razia, a free-spirited, empowered woman who smokes, wears leather jackets and leads the sewing business, she learns to eke out, be industrious and face single parenthood ("Your mother is in charge, I think you should be fine", [1'30'30]). She also stands up to Mrs. Islam, a hypocritical Muslim moneylender who charges interests (which is a sin in her religion). Resolving the problem of an everlasting debt frees Nazneen from financial shackles. As we can see, depending on the breeding ground and individual experiences, people make different choices, even though they share the same ethno-cultural or religious identity. [...]

[...] As for Nazneen, her personal journey is a matter of influential encounters and toughens on several aspects. First, she maintains a written relation with her sister Hasina, who is carefree and enjoys life, far from moral constraints and the position of a subdued wife. The sisters freely talk about love matters and the feeling of freedom it gives them; Hasina has left her husband, whereas Nazneen has an affair. However, Nazneen rids herself of her submission: she settles her relation-ship with Karim, as "the world is changing, and me with it" [1'09'20] and each of them is not what the other expected am no longer the girl of the village") [1'17'20]. [...]

[...] Brick Lane The Facets of Multiculturalism Brick Lane is both a novel and its 2007 film adaptation that centers on the life of Bangladeshi Nazneen in contemporary Great Britain. As a mother of two who was married at a young age to a older man she did not choose herself, she struggles against daily hardships like family and income, as well as the cultural clash between immigrants and native citizens, which grows into social unrest ensuing the September 11th attacks [53'40]. [...]

[...] Then, we will focus on the way some manage to get over it and find fulfilment. So far an obedient housewife, although she has already started to evolve when she was offered a small sewing job and cheated on her husband, things take a radical turn in her life and around when Nazneen and her lover Karim, a second-generation young man, come across media coverage of the September 11th Attacks. From this day forward, the native English population starts reconsidering its relations with the immigrants from former colonies. [...]

[...] Although Nazneen remains with her daughters but still wears her traditional clothes while her husband repatriates, they experienced a form of fusion rather than separateness, for it seems they integrated Britishness and its values regarding women's rights and economic liberalism. As David Cameron pointed, multiculturalism has generally failed, and extremism did not limit to the aftermath of 9/11. We could cite multiple cases of attacks (London '05 and Manchester and the deep-rooted segregation, like in Birmingham, on which governments turned a blind eye. But simply noticing does not suffice, it is urgent to take action. [...]