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  • Essay / Analysis of the short story “Squatter” by Rohinton Mistry

    The short story “Squatter” by Rohinton Mistry is set in the Firozsha Baag in India. The story centers on an old man, Nariman, known by the children of A Block's neighborhood as a slightly unpredictable, albeit entertaining, storyteller. He tells the children the story of Sarosh, a Parsi who immigrated from his neighborhood in Toronto, determined to become Canadian in just ten years. However, once ten years approaches, he finds himself unable to claim to have completely transitioned due to his persistent routine of squatting on the toilet. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Squatting is important in this text as both physical position and allegorical meaning are used by Mistry to convey the feeling of being trapped by an ideal. . The crouching symbol affirms the negative view of multiculturalism in the text and presents Canadian emigrants as feeling unwelcome if they cannot fully adhere to the customs of their new country. Mistry uses Sarosh as a vehicle to present a distrust of crossculturalism in the text. The title of Mistry's short story is ambiguous in the sense that Sarosh is physically squatting when using the toilet, and also feels like he is metaphorically squatting in Canada. This physical symbol manifests itself symbolically in several ways. First, because Sarosh thinks he is not welcome because he is not a Canadian by birth, he considers himself an intruder because of his peculiar habits. There is never any overt reaction or expression of feeling from said Canadians that suggests he is not welcome, Sarosh is simply manufacturing this impression based on his beliefs and opinions about himself . For example, “poor and unhappy Sarosh could also detect something foul in the air: the presence of xenophobia and hostility.” Sarosh literally feels like a stranger in a country he has every legal right to be in. Mistry took the harmless, physical action of squatting and gave it new meaning for him. The more he finds himself unable to relieve himself like a “real Canadian,” the more his feeling of alienation increases. As his sense of alienation increases, he feels more and more like a real squatter, in every sense of the word. Eventually, Sarosh is fired from his job due to the increasing amount of time he spends in the bathroom, locking himself in his house, ceasing to be a contributing member of society, essentially becoming what he feared he would be. already be. , Sarosh's story ends and the story returns to Block A, where an angry neighbor interrupts Nariman's story to express his displeasure at the children's gathering. It is no coincidence that he shouts “this is not a squatter colony” (Mistry, 168). The author uses subtle and specific means like these to convey the overall negative feelings towards multiracialism. The analogy with squats is an integral part of demonstrating that Mistry wants to convey a feeling of lack of receptivity towards immigrants under the veil of pluralism. The text testifies to this: “…ensure that ethnic cultures can flourish, so that Canadian society is made up of a mosaic of cultures — that is their favorite word, mosaic — instead of a uniform mixture, like the American melting pot. you ask, mosaic and melting pot are both absurd, and ethnic is a polite way of saying damn foreigner. At times like these, the negative attitude towards diversity turns into.