Truong i
Brandon Truong
Mrs. E Richardson
University English II
18 November 2013
The Changing Family Dynamic in Brick Lane
Thesis: Thrusting the reader into Nazneen’s eyes, Ali explores the changing roles of traditional
family life through Nazneen’s life, Dr. Azad’s family life, and Mrs. Islam’s lifestyle.
I. Nazneen’s life
A. Nazneen and Chanu
B. Children
C. Affair with Karim
II. Dr. Azad’s family life
A. Mrs. Azad
B. Daughter
III. Mrs. Islam’s lifestyle
A. Independence
B. Immorality
IV. Razia
V. Hasina
Truong 1
Brandon Truong
Mrs. E. Richardson
University English II
18 November 2013
The Changing Family Dynamic in Brick Lane
Monica Ali’s Brick Lane is a novel that touches on post-colonial issues such as culture
shock and the difficulties of immigrants adjusting to their new surroundings. Left to fate when
she was born, Nazneen is a traditional Muslim from a village in Bangladesh who is married off
to Chanu, a middle-aged, educated man, and forced to move to London. Nazneen believes that
this is part of fate and would be futile to resist, unlike her sister, Hasina, who ran away for a
“love marriage,” fighting against her fate. Hasina appears periodically throughout the novel to
serve as a foil to Nazneen through the perception of letters and flashbacks. When Nazneen first
arrives in London, she is expected to stay home, clean the house, cook dinner for the rest of her
life, be obedient to her husband, and prepare herself to be a mother as is expected of Muslim
women. Nazneen is overwhelmed with Western culture and meets Westernized Bangladesh
women: Razia, Mrs. Islam, and Azad’s wife and daughter. Nazneen absorbs the westernization
from her friends and transitions from the traditional Muslim wife. Thrusting the reader into
Nazneen’s eyes, Ali explores the changing roles of traditional family life and society, with a
slight emphasis on feminism, through Nazneen’s life, Dr. Azad’s family life, Mrs. Islam’s
lifestyle, Razia, and Hasina.
Ali portrays Nazneen as a typical Muslim domestic-servant type wife in the patriarchal
dominated culture who slowly transitions through the novel. Critic Alistair Cormack notes, “The
novel is particularly of interest as an examination of the double bind that female migrants face,
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treated as alien by their host nation and as commodities by the men in their own communities”
(3). Cultural traditions dictate that Nazneen must wear saris, pray at least five times a day and eat
Bangladeshi food, take care of the children, and make sure the household is presentable to
guests. Nazneen is forced into an arranged marriage at age fifteen and is moved to London. Here
she begins her new prison-like life with Chanu, a man she has never met, making no social
contact other than him. Chanu is determined to live the American dream and make a fortune,
escaping his impoverished Islamic roots. Nazneen adapts to her new role, cleaning, cooking, and
even cutting the corns of her husband’s feet. She overhears her husband say, “Not tall. Not Short.
Around five foot two. Hips are a bit narrow but wide enough, I think, to carry children” (Ali 11).
Nazneen understands, then, that she is a mere tool and carrier of children for her husband.
Another negative feature of her husband is that Chanu is condescending towards the other
Bangladeshi tenants in their apartment complex because he thinks that they are uneducated and
unsuccessful.
In the novel, women who work represent a sort of freedom and act of defiance towards
the men. Nazneen begins to work, although her pay goes to Chanu, and this signals the
beginnings of her freedom and defiance towards her husband. Cormack states, “He consistently
expresses a desire to return, not prepared to admit the discrepancy between his fantasies, built on
an institutionalized version of Bangladeshi identity” (4). As the novel progresses, Nazneen is
absorbing and being influenced by Western culture, moving away from her traditional roots, but
Chanu finds it difficult to succeed in Western society, so he reverts inward instead. These
diverging elements lead to a reversal of roles. Chanu makes his most defining statement when
confronted with Azad’s domestic life by saying, “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
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identity and heritage. I’m talking about the feelings of alienation engendered by a society where
racism is prevalent” (92). Critic John Marx points out, “Brick Lane could not be clearer on this
point: Nazneen lacks the knowledge to make the kind of choices that economic calculability both
engenders and requires. And she comes to understand, furthermore, that calculability is exactly
what she craves” (13). Nazneen becomes increasingly defiant to Chanu, fighting with him,
giving orders, refusing to do housework and even leaving the house whenever convenient. She
opens herself up to the world, but Chanu becomes embittered and turns inward. He humbles
himself and begins to switch roles with Nazneen, becoming submissive and desperate, looking
for a way to escape their current life to the point that he plans to move back to Dhaka. In the end,
Nazneen makes her decisions and stays with her children to live her life, breaking the traditional
mold and becoming an independent woman. In the end, readers see that Nazneen obtains a true
freedom; Cormack asserts, “Nazneen becomes the owner, in a small way, of the means of
production—she starts a clothing company with Razia—and a competitive individual in a market
economy” (8). Through the development of Nazneen’s children, readers see a break in tradition
with a change and more defiance from Nazneen.
Ali has Nazneen’s children, Bibi and Shahana, develop in both traditional and
westernized environments to further illustrate the changing dynamic of family roles. Bibi and
Shahana are second-generation children who do not know of their home country. They are
influenced by British culture and it is obvious. Chanu expresses his desire to return home again
when he attempts to force his children, who have already embraced to Western culture, to accept
their Bangladeshi identity. Bibi and, especially, Shahana, does not want to absorb or accept their
home country. Nazneen says, “Shahana did not want to listen to Bengali classical music. Her
written Bengali was shocking. She wanted to wear jeans. She hated her kameez and spoiled her
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entire wardrobe by pouring paint on them. If she could choose between baked beans and dal it
was no contest. Shahana did not care. Shahana did not want to go back home” (144). Chanu has
his children groomed so that they too will be ready for arranged marriages: they cut his corns,
trim their father’s nails and nose hairs, turn the pages of his books, read countless Qur’an prayers
and a myriad of other soon-to-be wife duties. Chanu and the children appear in several points in
the story where Chanu insults his children with a torrent of insults, beating his children with
anything at hand, even a banana peel. Ali says, “An instrument less flogging was a lapse of
fatherly duty” (144). Bibi and Shahana are just as restricted as Nazneen, not allowed to speak
English or go out. Nazneen is their hero when she encourages them to speak English whenever
Chanu is not around. Towards the end of the novel, as a result of the plans to moving to Dhaka,
Shahana runs away, planning to come back when she is twenty-five, when the danger of
arranged marriages is over. Ali presents Bibi and Shahana as second-generation immigrants who
have assimilated and resist their home identity.
Ali uses Nazneen’s affair with Karim to represent the explicit desperation for women to
escape the traditional Bengali wife expectations that they are stuck with. In tight blue jeans, tight
trainers, shirt rolled up to his elbows, and a gold chain necklace, Karim walks into her life. A
critic states, “His appearance at her door with a bale of jeans launches romance ‘English style’,
as Nazneen’s friend Razia puts it: ‘Everything goes against Family, duty, everything,’ which is
precisely what makes it so appealing” (Marx 11). Nazneen sees Karim as a wild, rebellious, and
modernized man with a sense of belonging in the world—an escape from her current life. She
attends some of his pro-Islamic meetings to get introduced to the politics of Banglatown. Before
she knows it, she has fallen in love with Karim and not long after her affair is underway. When
Karim suggests that she run away, divorce and elope with him, Nazneen really puts it to thought
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and looks to the future she realizes that she placed Karim onto a pedestal; he was crude and was
no better than an arranged marriage. Nazneen thinks, “How did Karim see her? The real thing,
he’d said. She was his real thing. A Bengali wife. A Bengali mother. An idea of home. An idea
of himself that he found in her” (382). She says, “I wasn’t me, and you weren’t you. From the
very beginning to the very end, we didn’t see things. What we did—we made each other up”
(382). Nazneen only looked towards Karim with possibilities, ignoring the disappointments that
were there and would follow. Kaiser Haq acknowledges, “Nazneen’s affair with Karim,
although ultimately unsatisfactory, aids her quest for self-realization and introduces her to
Banglatown politics” (4). “Ali’s Brick Lane suggests, in addition, that immigration can catalyze
successful self-transformation,” recognizes Dawson (6). Her marriage is not the only way she
finds self-realization and freedom, Ali has Nazneen encounter other women who let her develop
as an independent and absorb feminist ideals.
Nazneen encounters other Muslim women, though, who are westernized. Through these
women she finds opportunities to escape her commodity status. Critic Ashley Dawson notes,
“Nazneen’s exposure to resistant female role models reaches a comic acme when Chanu takes
her on an unannounced visit to his friend Dr. Azad’s home” (4). Dr. Azad’s situation is reversed
in comparison to Nazneen’s because in her marriage the woman is unhappy, whereas Dr. Azad is
the one who is discontent. Chanu reveres Dr. Azad because he is financially successful and
educated; however, all is not they seem to be. When Chanu and Nazneen appear for a surprise
home visit, they are surprised to discover that his family life is not what they expected. Dawson
reveals, “Azad’s wife is a beer swilling, foul-mouthed, highly opinionated, and aggressively
autonomous woman” (4). She is westernized and takes the feminist traits to a boiling point. Mrs.
Azad goes so far as to cut off Chanu’s speech about culture clash by labeling it as crap. Dr. Azad
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is seen as weak and submissive in comparison to his wife. His wife begins to command him to
bring drinks and a beer for her, while Chanu and Nazneen stand awestruck at the woman who is
supposed to be Dr. Azad’s wife. Mrs. Azad extends her freedom and Westernization through her
daughter as well. Mrs. Azad says, “My daughter is free to come and go; do I wish I had enjoyed
myself like her when I was young? Yes!” (78). It is no surprise that after so many exposures to
feminist and overly defiant women that “Nazneen begins to slip loose from the grip of fate and
her corollary submission to male authority” (Dawson 4). During their dinner, Azad’s daughter
comes in resembling her mother, wearing an extremely short skirt with a streak of color in her
hair, and retrieves money to go to the pub. Mrs. Azad points out, “Fact: we live in a Western
society. Fact: our children will act more and more like Westerners. Fact: that’s no bad thing”
(89). She continues to rant about how Bangladeshi women are imprisoned in their homes,
restricted to saris, and stuck in the kitchen with the knowledge of a few English words only. She
also asserts what the book itself addresses by saying that society is racist and it should change
instead of the women. Nazneen realizes that Dr. Azad visits them to observe a situation worse
than his. Ali shows that immigrant women are not the only ones that can be unsatisfied in this
new setting. She also shows the progress of Nazneen’s situation and it can be seen later that
Chanu is comparable to Dr. Azad. He becomes just as submissive towards his wife and children
and appears weak as he leaves for Dhaka. Azad’s family is the most explicit exposure of the
progress of westernized families.
Ali introduces others characters that provide an examples who have become westernized
and are successful, like Mrs. Azad. Mrs. Islam is introduced early in the novel and she appears to
be a gentle and kind elderly, independent Bangladeshi woman who has succeeded in Britain.
She, however, is widowed and pursues an immoral life by practicing usury. She provides advice
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for Nazneen and even escorts her to Dr. Azad’s office when she is feeling sick because of her
pregnancy. Mrs. Islam offers to teach her daughters, Bibi and Shahana, the ways of a Bengali
wife, but Nazneen never sends them because of the ill will she bears towards Mrs. Islam. Chanu
borrows from Mrs. Islam so that they can buy a computer without Nazneen knowing and she
figures out for herself and is nearly beaten for not paying their dues. As she ages, Mrs. Islam
becomes a sort of villainous figure demanding never-ending interest payments throughout the
story for the money she has lent Chanu. Mrs. Islam reveals that when she was married, her
husband was an oaf who did not know anything. That relationship was managed by Mrs. Islam
alone. She says, “He was Dulal, the son of Alal. Do you understand me? He was like a spoilt
child. Without me, he was nothing” (253). She goes so far as to call her sons idiots who only
have half-brains each, but they make up the lack of brain in muscle. She uses her sons as threats
against people she has loaned money to like Chanu and others. Mrs. Islam serves as one of the
plot-lines in the story. Razia retorts, “Hands are bad! The only thing that’s bad is her heart”
(259). Mrs. Islam, the villain that she is, never plans to rescind the loan, but to leech off of them
and take their money or else they will be punished by her half-brained sons. Although Mrs. Islam
is independent of men, she must depend on her sons to get her money and money is power to
Mrs. Islam even as she is dying of old age. Ali shows readers a westernized woman who is
feared and powerful, she doesn’t need a man, except for her two sons, humorously labeled Son
Number One and Son Number Two. Chanu fears Mrs. Islam and attempts to escape her to
Dhaka, he has to borrow from Dr. Azad to buy the plane tickets. Mrs. Islam continues to harass
the family throughout the novel. She even uses the knowledge of Nazneen’s affair to her
disadvantage to try to get money from her. Mrs. Islam and Nazneen have sort of a final
encounter near the end. Mrs. Islam claims to be a woman dedicated to her religion, yet she
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cannot swear on her sacred text that she is right. ”Swear on the Qur’an. And I’ll give you the two
hundred,” Nazneen retorts (373). Nazneen’s courage prevails in the face of Mrs. Islam and she
defies the villain and drives her away with her words. Ali has provided a powerful example of
how a successful and changed woman lives and strives in the new world.
Razia is an anti-conformist feminist and Nazneen’s only true friend in Banglatown. She
serves as a comparison as well as a crutch for Nazneen. She was in the same situation as
Nazneen; however, she has been in England a little bit longer than her. Razia is deemed much
more radical in her defiance against her brute of a husband. Cormack points out, “Through
Razia, Nazneen meets other young Bangladeshi women immigrants and beings to learn about
forms of domestic non-cooperation such as the withdrawal of labour and of sex(41)” (4). She
cuts her hair short, wears Western clothing, and comes and goes out of the house as she pleases.
Razia is plagued by many misfortunes: her husband dies mid-novel, her son, Tariq, is a drug
addict and steals all the furniture to buy more drugs, and they are severely impoverished, yet she
remains resilient and positive for the most part. By the end of the novel, Razia’s life is not bad,
her son is cured of his addiction, her daughters are going to top universities and she is going into
business with Nazneen. Razia ends the novel by saying, “This is England. You can do whatever
you like” (415). Many critics such as Haq have identified that “it reveals a significant fact about
expatriate Bangladeshis: the men dream of returning but not the women, who, even as secondclass citizens, enjoy rights denied them in the mother country” (5). Ali, a first-generation
immigrant herself, knows firsthand all too well how much better it is for women in countries
other than their own. Despite impoverished conditions in a new and foreign land; they are rich
with their rights that they were denied back home. Ali proceeds to emphasize the changing roles
of family life through Nazneen’s sister, Hasina.
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Ali subtly uses Hasina, Nazneen’s sister, to serve as Nazneen’s foil. Although she only
appears to readers through flashbacks and letters strewn throughout the novel, she plays a large
part in as developing, searching alongside Nazneen. She strives to find independence under
female-oppressed conditions. Hasina is made out to be the more rebellious, beautiful sister,
which is ironic because Hasina’s name means beautiful. Hasina remains in Bangladeshi, where
she runs away and elopes into a love marriage. Cormack notices, “One could almost say that she
has made the mistake Nazneen avoided when she refused Karim—abandoned it, been a garment
worker in a sweatshop, fallen into near prostitution, and finally been taken in as a servant by a
wealthy family” (9). The sisters are separated when Nazneen is married off to Chanu and Hasina
runs away from the family for a love marriage. Ali has two characters follow to different paths
and readers follow both, Nazneen more closely than Hasina. Hasina realizes that her lover is a
wife beater so she runs off again to a new city where she encounters a seemingly genuine elder,
Mr. Chowdhurry. She finds work, a freedom, and stays with the elder. However, Hasina
encounters sexual exploitation and racism from the men in the area who despise and protest
women trying to become independent. Each man that Hasina encounters who seem to be a
person who wants to help Hasina has turned out to be an exploiter of women who have gained
freedom by trying to dominate them and make them domestic slaves and strip away their
freedom. Marx reports, “The novel represents work as having an extraordinary effect on
Hasina’s sense of her place in the world. ‘Working is like [a] cure.’” (12). It is not clear whether
or not Hasina’s journey represents an improvement in women’s quest for freedom in Dhaka. She
ends up working for a wealthy family that lasts for a long time, but, in the end, Hasina runs away
again with their best cook. Ali leaves it open-ended and her cycle of abuse will probably
continue all her life. Marx notes, “She remains committed, or so it would seem, to the very
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domestic romance that Nazneen abandons to become an entrepreneur. Inasmuch as Nazneen
moves past that genre, we may be inclined to conclude that Hasina’s insistence on love
represents the absence of progress” (12). This appears in the text as well because in all her
letters, Hasina is conveyed through letters of broken English, while Nazneen has obtained
enough knowledge to speak and think in English well enough. Ali portrays the shortcomings of
this changing dynamic of roles and rising feminism through Hasina.
In Brick Lane, Ali illustrates the changing dynamic that is family roles through a set
period of thirty or so years. She puts the reader into the mind of Nazneen and thrusts her into a
life where she searches for herself. Nazneen is, at first, submissive and does her traditional
Bengali wife duties, but, as the story progresses, Nazneen encounters feministic role models that
begin her search for self-realization. She starts small and begins to defy her husband, first
refusing to do housework, and then she begins to leave the house whenever she pleases. Her first
true attainment of freedom is when she receives a sewing machine and becomes employed.
Women are never supposed to be employed but to work to do their wifely duties Chanu has
become submissive and always trying to please Nazneen. In the end Nazneen becomes
independent and even forms her own business. Ali shows us through other characters that
Nazneen meets, mostly feministic role models, the results of and alongside comparisons to
Nazneen’s journey of self-realization. Ali forces the roles of a submissive wife and controlling,
brute husband to be reversed. Dr. Azad and his family serve to show a reversed pattern in
comparison to Nazneen. Mrs. Azad is the controlling, powerful figure in the relationship and
their daughter is westernized as well. The villainous Mrs. Islam is shown to be independent of
men, except for her sons, and a powerful figure that has absorbed the Western culture and thrives
by leeching off other people. Razia, Nazneen’s true friend, is on the same journey as Nazneen,
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but has settled down and grown accustomed to Western society. She begins to rebel before
Nazneen and introduces her to other feminist role models. Ali uses Nazneen’s sister, Hasina, to
contrast the shortcomings of women who try to attain freedom and break from the traditional
mold. In the end, Nazneen succeeds and finds herself and attains freedom, with the support of
role models, that the search for self-realization is possible and illustrates the changing dynamic
of roles in the family setting and society.
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Works Cited
Ali, Monica. Brick Lane: A Novel. New York: Scribner’s, 2003. Print.
Cormack, Alistair. “Migration and the Politics of Narrative Form: Realism and the Postcolonial
Subject in Brick Lane.” Contemporary Literature 47.4 (Winter 2006): 695-721. Rpt. In
Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffery W. Hunter. Vol. 304. Detroit: Gale, 2011.
Literature Resource Center. Web. 13 Sept. 2013.
Dawson, Ashley. “The People You Don’t See: Representing Informal Labour in Fortress
Europe.” Ariel 40.1 (Jan. 2009): 125-141. Rpt. In Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed.
Jeffery W. Hunter. Vol. 304. Detroit: Gale, 2011. Literature Resource Center. Web. 16
Sept. 2013
Haq, Kaiser. “Monica Ali.” South Asian Writers in English. Ed. Fakrul Alam. Detroit: Gale,
2006. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 323. Literature Resource Center. Web. 13
Sept. 2013.
Marx, John. “The Feminization of Globalization.” Cultural Critique 63 (Spring 2006): 1-32. Rpt.
In Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffery W. Hunter. Vol. 304. Detroit: Gale,
2011. Literature Resource Center. Web. 13 September 2013.