Postcolonial Britain: Cultural Hybridity and Identity

The Waiter’s Wife and The Day They Burned The Books both explore similar themes; cultural hybridity and identity. Cultural hybridity and identity issues were first recognized in post-colonial times and have continued to have a large impact on the culture globally. “Cultural hybridity constitutes the effort to maintain a sense of balance among practices, values, and customs of two or more different cultures” (Albert & Paez). “Hybridity has become a master trope across many spheres of cultural research, theory, and criticism, and one of the most widely used and criticized concepts in postcolonial theory” (Kraidy).

The short story by Zadie Smith entitled The Waiter’s Wife, follows a married couple, Samad and Alsana. They are recent immigrants from Bangladesh who try to adjust to life in London in the mid-1970s. Samad faces daily humiliations as a waiter in a restaurant, a job for which he is overqualified and ill suited. Alsana blames Samad for their financial struggles, lashing out at him and melodramatically throwing objects around the room as they quarrel. The story ends with Alsana admitting her confusion about modern life and reflecting on the fate of her unborn children who will grow up to have roots in two different cultures.

This piece of literature really gets to the heart of cultural hybridity as it is represented by a couple trying to merge their old life in Bangladesh with their new life in London. An article written by Ross Brummet discusses this very topic of culture clash in the story stating: “What does all of this say about national identity? I find it hard to say, but I think you get more about the national identity of England than you do about Bangladesh. Here is a society in which women can read about female liberation but that the economic basis of society is based on oppressive wage labor. We have a national identity that is socially progressive but economically abusive” (Brummet).

The Day They Burned The Books by Jean Rhys is another piece of literature centered around the idea of cultural identity and hybridity. It follows a young girl and her friendship with a boy, Eddie, whose Caribbean mother is mistreated by his English father. When the father dies, the mother destroys and gets rid of his collection of British books. Her son is upset by this and attempts to thwart her. Both children in this book grew up in the Caribbean and are unsure of their true cultural identity.

Both The Day They Burned The Books and The Waiter’s Wife deal with self-hatred and identity crisis’s due to cultural hybridity. “In cultural hybridization, one constructs a new identity that reflects a dual sense of being, which resides both within and beyond the margins of nationality, race, ethnicity, class, and linguistic diversity. Many immigrants, for instance, face this process as they attempt to accommodate new environments and experiences, while holding on to their indigenous sociocultural principles or beliefs. An important resource is language, which may be used to construct an identity, to adapt to new cultural environments, and to make sense of new experiences or some combination of these features” (Albert & Paez).

Today, trans-culturalism, cultural hybridity, and globalization have greatly impacted and shaped our global society. According to Wikipedia, the United States has a larger immigrant population than any other country in the world. As of 2015, 47 million immigrants make up the U.S. population. Those numbers will continue to grow as the country continues to develop and make improvements. With immigrant populations being so large and the enormous amount of new cultures flooding in, our country will become more and more diverse, growing even more in cultural crossovers.

Adi, Hakim. “To What Extent Is Britain Post-Colonial?” e-International Relations, 3 Oct. 2012, www.e-ir.info/2012/10/03/to-what-extent-is-britain-post-colonial/.

Albert, Lillie R, and Mariela Paez. “Cultural Hybridity.” Sage, https://sk.sagepub.com/reference/diversityineducation/n166.xml#:~:text=Cultural%20hybridity%20constitutes%20the%20effort,two%20or%20more%20different%20cultures.

Brummet, Ross. “Culture Clash in A Waiter's Wife.” 12 Oct. 2015, https://rossbrummet222.wixsite.com/495esm/single-post/2015/10/12/Culture-Clash-in-A-Waiters-Wife.

Kraidy, Marwan M. Hybridity in Cultural Globalization, https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1334&context=asc_papers.