CULTURAL CONFLICT AND WEST AS THE EXOTIC “OTHER”: A STUDY IN MULK RAJ ANAND’S ACROSS THE BLACK WATERS

Abstract

Exoticism has been an exciting field of study for national literature scholars. The prefixExo, in a general sense, includes all that lies outside the totality of an individual’squotidian events, everything that is not included in the usual "Mental Tonality." For the West, the antediluvian exotic Eastern world or the Orient has always been characterized by pleasure-seeking, temporal and material interest. At the same time, home is considered as the manifestation of rationality. The picture of the West in the mind ofthe East isalso similar. Mulk Raj Anand’s Bildungsroman, Across the Black Waters, is an extended work of fiction that gives an intriguingly different view of the Great War in twentieth-century Anglophone Indian Literature. The novel, in essence, is only episodically concerned with the scenery of the battlefield, which are at most times restricted to the bounds of the narrative line.Lalu’s pioneering venture across the ocean from his traditional caste-governed village is a way to perceivethe conflicts of culture and various origins of exploitation. By reversing the conventional use of the word exotic, this paper aims to study the undepicted experiences of Lalu, which leads him to an Eastern journey of political self-education and self-discovery in the exotic West.