National and Global Identity in The Inheritance of Loss Essay

National and Global Identity in The Inheritance of Loss - Essay ExampleThe key argument to be propounded within the sort of the seek is that from the impressions of The Inheritance of Loss one has to conclude that the development of global identity in non-Western societies is generally limit to wealthier, more affluent and cosmopolitan mobes of those societies, while the vast majority of population remains wedded to subject field identities, making a cultural bridge between these two social layers rather significant one. The disposition and causes of existence of such cultural drift argon fundamentally conditioned by the discrepancies generated in the course of twin processes of globalisation and decolonization. Even though the decolonization and the growth in importance of the Third valet nations such as India have led to progressive shifts in the balance of forces within the global arena, it is dumb evident that the modern globalized world is still based on cultural patter ns and assumptions that are directly genetical from the times of undisputed Western hegemony. The global identity, as expressed in the dominant models of consumption, education, etc., remains inherently Western, disdain all attempts at making it more diverse and inclusive. Even though the very archetype of culture has always been historically conditioned1, it is still evident that the vast majority of modern cultural identities are less prone to uprooting and homogenization than it is often assumed in various transnationalist concepts of world politics and culture. The globalization and the formation of the numerous layers of transnational migrants, voluntary and forced, permanent and temporary, shifted the balance from the maintenance of traditional identities, of national and local anaesthetic dimensions, to the construction and deconstruction of the global, homogeneous identity. However, as may be evidenced from The Inheritance of Loss, the situation may be more nuanced and difficult than can be judged from common-sense representations of these processes. The growing trends for cultural integration and economic migration, despite being important for the general process of globalization, do little to mask the remaining chasms between the representatives of upper berth strata of non-Western societies and their compatriots remaining generally tied to cultural habits and traditions that still reign supreme over the people vivification in modern time. The Inheritance of Loss testifies to this very situation. The major characters of the novel are in their have got way expressions of the aforementioned dichotomy. The two groups of the characters, each representing a respective social class, embody the controversies generated by globalization and de-localization. The Judge Patel and his granddaughter Sai represent the two generations of upper-class cosmopolitanism and geographical and educational mobility. While they may differ among themselves in subtletie s of cultural perceptions, both of these characters are distinguished by intense interest and self-identification with the non-Indian cultural environment an Anglicized, respectable, upper-middle class world that is both connected with the Indian tradition, albeit of British Raj variety, and deeply estranged from it. Sais recollections of her upbringing in the Catholic Church and the secular and non-traditional lifestyle of her parents are indicative of that. While the secularism was not inherent in Indian