Brick Lane
Immigration is the action of coming to live permanently in a foreign country, and this process is very difficult and challenging due to a lot of different reasons. One of the most essential and important elements on how to immigrate in a foreign country is to know its language. This is a decisive advantage, because good communication with your fellow citizens results in better job opportunities, social life and integration. This can be seen in the book and the movie “Brick Lane”, where we are introduced to the Bangladeshi mother and wife Nazneen.
The main character of “Brick Lane” is Nazneen, who moves to London as an 18-year-old, when she gets married to the highly educated Chanu. Nazneen lives as a traditional Bangladeshi woman, whose primarily function is to be a housewife. In the beginning of “Brick Lane” Nazneen accepts and adjusts to almost everything and this can be seen in the conversation with Chanu about their bed, where she says the following: “I don’t mind. I can sleep on the floor” She does not tell her honest opinion and perhaps it is due to Chanu’s high educational background and dominance in the relationship that makes her feel inferior. Nazneen is also religious and she believes that everything happens for a reason. Her fate is decided by Allah and therefore she does not complain but accepts.
The traces of Chanu and Nazneen’s arranged marriage are obvious because there is no emotional attachment between Nazneen and Chanu. Chanu does not marry Nazneen for love but because a wife is better than no wife, and he also calls Nazneen a “good worker”. It is clear that their roles in the marriage are very definite, but this changes trough out the story parallel to Nazneen’s personal development. In the beginning of the story Nazneen is a shy stay-at-home wife, whose integration in the English society is almost non-existing. Her qualifications in the English language are minimal and we see how that is a problem for her, when she gets lost and cannot find home. It does not only make her feel insecure and confused but most importantly it paralyses her activeness in the English society. Concurrently with her improvements in English her activeness in the society increases and we see that in the film where she as an example is capable of shopping by herself.
A ground-breaking change for Nazneen is getting a job because women do not work in the Bangladeshi culture. The Bangladeshi culture’s point of view on women limits Nazneen’s personal development and this can be seen in the movie when she quotes her mother who said the following: “If Allah wanted us to ask questions, he would have made us men”. The quote also underlines that Nazneen was raised to believe that there is a difference between women and men’s abilities and that men are superior. She was raised to follow the cultural directions but as she develops in London things change and the English culture begins to affect her.
Living in London makes Nazneen miss her home, life and family in Bangladesh and this is the reason why she becomes a sewing machinist. She wants to earn money for a journey to Bangladesh to visit her beloved sister Hasina. Hasina is mentioned a lot in the movie and the book and perhaps it is because she is a symbol of home. Nazneen’s longing for visiting Hasina symbolizes her longing for coming home and Hasina is also Nazneen’s only connection to Bangladesh. Even though Nazneen misses home, she integrates more and more in the English society. For example she has an affair with Karim which shows her courageous and rebellious side because she secedes from her culture. During the affair Chanu decides to move to Bangladesh because of the 9/11-attack on the World Trade Center and Nazneen breaks up with Karim. She has talked about going home and visiting Hasina for so many years but suddenly she does not want to move when she gets the opportunity. At first she does not tell Chanu her honest opinion about moving to Bangladesh but finally for the first time in their marriage Nazneen breaks out of her shell and she shares her thoughts with him. The reason why she wants to stay in England is that she feels integrated in the society and England has become a part of her. In her letter to Hasina she writes that she is torn between two worlds and these worlds are Bangladesh and England. Her conclusion sounds as follows: “Searching for a place that has already been found”. Nazneen has found home and it is England that has made her an independent woman.
Other independent women in “Brick Lane” are Nazneen’s daughters Shahana and Bibi who are born and raised in Brick Lane. Even though they are surrounded by other Bangladeshis in Brick Lane, they have a completely different perspective than their mother’s perspective when she first came to London. They behave as normal English young people especially Shahana who argues a lot with her father and listens to pop music. She stands up for herself and for Nazneen because she encourages her mother to confront Chanu with her honest opinion about moving to Bangladesh. This shows that Shahana does not share the same Bangladeshi understanding of men and women’s roles in life as her mother but she has a West European point of view.
It is obvious that the English culture has affected Shahana and Bibi and this can be seen in the following quotation from the movie: “Have you ever loved him?” Shahana is asking her mother if she loves Chanu and clearly it is important for Shahana to love the person you marry but love was not important for Nazneen when she got married.
The fact that Shahana and Bibi are born in an English society makes them a part of it. It is not difficult for them to integrate as it was for their mother when she moved to England. They have had the English mentality their whole lives and they cannot imagine themselves in a country like Bangladesh where there is a completely different culture. The same thing went through Nazneen’s mind when she moved from a peasant society in Bangladesh to a technological society in England because moving to foreign new culture and society can be frightening. Shahana also comments as follows: “You go to the toilet in a bucket”. This underlines that there exist big differences between the English lifestyle and the Bangladeshi lifestyle.
To return to the beginning of this essay, it certainly shows that immigration is a difficult process. It takes time to immigrate especially if you have a very different background like Nazneen. When you adapt to a foreign society and learn to speak its language your development will increase and Nazneen is a good example of that.

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