Why America?

This text entitled « Why America? » is an excerpt from the vendor of sweet by RK Narayan (1906- 2001) who was one of India’s greatest English language novelists. He is famous for having brought English language writing from India to the rest of the world. The text deals with the immigration of young Indians, and more precisely with the feelings and the opinions of the ones who stay.
Indeed, the author shows us the reaction of a father who just heard of his son’s decision to move very far from his country. In fact, in the text Jagan is having a conversation with his cousin about Mali’s project, immigrating to America for his studies.
What is the reaction described by Narayan? What can explain this reaction? Which opinion about immigration does this text give to the reader?
To answer these questions, we are going to highlight this reaction, before explaining why Jagan’s vision of immigration is wrong. Eventually, we will analyze the characteristics of immigration shown in the text.

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First of all, we need to describe Jagan’s reaction, as it appears to be both a father’s reaction and a patriot’s reaction.

We suppose that Jagan had a fatherly reaction because he is completely astonished and petrified by his son’s decision. For him, it is unthinkable that his son might leave him alone and this is evident in the sentence “he had a momentary panic at the thought of his son removing him self geographically so far” (lines10-11). Jagan feels overwhelmed by this piece of news because he loves his son dearly. That is proved by his anxiety about Mali’s future in America. One can perceive it when he talks about the corruption of “his body with wine, women and meat” (line 42-43).

However, he also reacts as a patriot: Jagan is an elderly and conservative man for whom India’s history and cultural past are of vital importance. He is proud of India’s glorious past and of the superiority of its culture, so he is at loss to understand his son’s