Anita and Me: Themes (Edexcel GCSE English Literature)

Themes

Exam responses that are led by themes, or the ideas that a writer is exploring in their text, are more likely to reach the highest levels of the mark scheme. Exploring the text thematically, specifically in relation to the question being asked, will help to increase your fluency and assurance in writing about Syal’s novel.

Below are some themes that could be explored in Anita and Me. This list is not exhaustive and you are encouraged to identify other ideas within the novel. Below you will find sections on:

• Family relationships 

• Friendship

• Cultural identity 

• Violence and abuse

Family relationships

At the heart of Anita and Me is Meena’s close family. Their omnipresence is, at first, a source of frustration for the story’s young protagonist. However, Syal’s intimate narration shows Meena’s evolving attitude to her family. Furthermore, Syal’s Bildungsroman illustrates the significance of family support as both Meena and her friend, Anita, grow up in very different families. 

Knowledge and evidence:

• Meena’s family are Indian immigrants living in an English town

• The family is presented as close and supportive:

  • The father is introduced as actively engaged in disciplining Meena and teaching her values such as honesty and personal accountability: 

    • He takes her to the local shop to confess that she stole money

    • He makes sure she admits she told a lie 

  • Meena’s mother, Daljit Kumar, spends a lot of time with her and teaches her much about her Indian heritage:

    • She comments on the differences between English families and Indian families

    • She tries to encourage Meena towards Indian cooking

    • However, she is tolerant and understanding of Meena’s challenges:

      • She makes her fish fingers one night and celebrates Christmas

• Meena feels displaced in her family, that she does not fit in

• The family’s close supervision and high expectations lead to Meena’s personal conflict:

  • She finds escape with English girls who have more freedom

• Syal depicts the close bonds despite distance between Meena’s parents and their extended Indian family:

  • Namina, the grandmother, comes to England from India to help the family with the new baby, Sunil

  • Meena’s father speaks fondly of family in India and wishes for them to be together

• As well as this, the Kumars are part of a community of South Asians who are seen as extended family:

  • Many of the friends, who Meena refers to as “aunts” and “uncles”, take part in raising Meena and offer her support and encouragement

  • Meena’s mother expresses her concerns with friends and relies on them for support:

    • However, this humiliates Meena and isolates her further

    • For example, when Meena sneaks out of the house and returns to the fair after overhearing her mother speak with “Auntie Shaila”

• However, Syal contrasts Meena’s family with the very different family life of her friend, Anita:

  • Anita’s mother Deirdre is often absent:

    • Syal implies she is a sex-worker

  • The mother is neglectful of her youngest, Tracey, whom Meena suspects has been sexually assaulted by the father, Roberto

  • Deirdre is presented as a poor role model for her daughters, having relationships with various men and abandoning the girls for a man she has just met

• Syal draws attention to the way Anita’s home life makes her extremely vulnerable:

  • She takes her anger out on others, violently attacking a man and her younger sister

  • She tries to find a sense of control by overpowering those smaller and younger than her

  • While she hides her emotions behind a façade of toughness, Meena sees her crying at times when her mother has been neglectful:

    • For example, when she gets her the wrong-sized uniform

• Syal shows differences in parenting styles when Anita stays at Meena’s house:

  • Anita behaves with poor manners and seems unfamiliar with social etiquette

  • Meena’s parents are shocked by her language

  • Namina makes it clear she disapproves of Anita

  • Nevertheless, they take Anita in when she is abandoned, whereas Meena was not invited into Anita’s house

• Syal shows the way Meena’s family support helps her achieve success:

  • Upon reflection on her family and embracing her Indian heritage, she applies herself to her studies and learns to stand up for herself and her future

  • She learns to be grateful of her family’s love and sacrifices

• The novel’s ending shows the influence of family in a young life:

  • Anita is left without friends or family support at the end of the novel

  • This leaves her opportunities bleak

  • The ending implies a cyclical future for her:

    • Perhaps she goes on finding people to manipulate and control and getting into more and more trouble

What is Syal’s intention?

• Syal shows the influence of family in children’s lives

• By contrasting family environments she conveys the differences in family values

• The depiction of each girl’s development shows the impact of a supportive family as each girl takes a different path

• Through Anita and Tracey, Syal draws attention to the damage brought upon children in their formative years as a result of neglectful and abusive families 

• Syal emphasises the powerful impact of family support through the extended family

Friendship

Syal’s novel is titled Anita and Me, which implies the significance of the theme of friendship in the novel. Syal presents various relationships in Meena’s life that alter her definition of friendship. Syal’s depictions of various types of friends and Meena’s responses to them highlight how influential they are in young people’s lives. 

Knowledge and evidence:

• Meena’s confusion regarding her identity leads her to form a friendship with an older girl

• Their friendship is unlikely and Meena’s acknowledgment of this foreshadows later conflicts

• Meena makes it clear she wants to impress the worldly, more confident Anita

• Immediately readers are told that Anita quickly charges Meena with various tasks to prove she is brave and rebellious

• Like Sherrie and Fat Sally, Meena finds herself obeying Anita’s demands

• However, she gets into trouble because of her actions, such as when she steals and lies on Anita’s instructions

• Meena recognises Anita’s cruelty yet stays friends with her despite disagreeing with her values:

  • Anita humiliates her younger sister, Tracey, by forcing her to squat and wee in front of the other children, which makes her cry and run away

• Nevertheless, Meena believes they share common traits as “mad bad” girls who are “trapped”

• Anita is responsible for much of Meena’s education about the wider world:

  • She teaches her rude pop songs and tells her about sex

  • Syal shows the danger of this as Meena receives poor information:

    • Anita’s attitude and information about sexual relationships stems from an abusive father and promiscuous mother

• On the other hand, Syal also shows the value of good friendship:

  • Meena is a good friend to Anita

• Syal shows the importance of self-reflection:

  • Meena reflects on Anita’s behaviour (she does this with Sam Lowbridge too)

  • She is able to see their motives and agenda to control and manipulate 

  • This enables her to act as a good role model to both Sam and Anita

  • She challenges them on their racism and bullying

• By the end, Meena considers the difference between her feelings for Robert, a boy she meets in hospital, and her shallow relationship with Anita:

  • She learns that real friendship is based on care and respect

  • She realises that her friendship with Anita is more “pity” than “love”

• Syal ends the novel with both Meena and Sally moving away, leaving Anita without good friends or role models:

  • This leaves her future dubious, thus highlighting the significance of friendship, especially in the absence of family support

What is Syal’s intention?

• Syal presents the important influence of friendship, especially during a young person’s development 

• The novel draws attention to the dangers of peer pressure

• Syal shows scenes between friends which, although comedic in nature, allude to the harm caused by misinformation

• Syal raises questions about the true nature of friendship by depicting Meena’s growing awareness regarding her relationships

Cultural Identity

The novel deals with Meena’s confusion about her personal identity as a result of her dual culture as a second-generation Indian immigrant in England. Syal’s story shows the challenges faced by individuals caught between adhering to traditional roles and fulfilling cultural expectations, while being drawn towards finding one’s own independence and identity.

Knowledge and evidence:

• Meena feels like she is caught between two cultures:

  • She doesn't feel like she belongs in the English village

  • Her parents are different to the other parents and they expect her to be a traditional Indian girl: quiet and polite

  • However, the other girls are worldly and, she believes, liberated 

• Meena voices her strong reactions to her cultural expectations:

  • She believes she is not suited to being Indian, saying that she prefers to be loud and do physical activities

• Anita’s completely different cultural background offers Meena the perfect opportunity to become as English as possible:

  • She copies Anita’s language and learns English pop songs

  • She refuses to be friends with the Indian children, Baby and Pinky

• Meena’s denial of her heritage causes her parents and extended family concern

• Still, Meena’s mother is aware of the challenges of integration and takes on Christian traditions, such as Christmas:

  • This allows Meena to grow up experiencing two different cultures and helps shape her identity

• Syal illustrates the challenges Meena faces accepting her cultural heritage:

  • Meena makes it clear she has no personal experience of India and relies on stories about it

  • She says “I just learned very early on that those of us deprived of history sometimes need to turn to mythology to feel complete, to belong” 

  • Her confusion about her identity is shown when she lies about her grandmother

  • She also tells her friends she is a Punjabi princess who owns an elephant

• However, Namina, Meena’s wild-spirited grandmother, shows Meena a different type of Indian woman and this encourages her towards her Indian heritage

• Through her family, Meena is offered a different and more personal perspective of colonisation:

  • Stories told to her about the British occupation by parents and townspeople help her understand her history better

  • The character of “Mr Topsy” calls British rule “ugly” and “criminal” 

  • Nanima explains that British soldiers once stole her family’s chickens and sent a relative to prison for refusing to fight in their army

  • Her father describes a dangerous experience at the time of Partition

  • Meena discovers that the causes for immigration were often a result of India’s  economic and political problems after colonisation:

    • Her mother is able to offer Meena a reason for their move from India

    • She mentions the corruption that prevents individuals receiving a good education as the reason for their migration

• Robert, a boy she meets in hospital, encourages Meena towards her culture by describing it positively:

  • Where before Meena was proud of her English accent, Robert says he thought her accent would be more “exotic” than a “Midlands” accent

• Meena’s strength of character and return to a solid foundation happens at the same time as her acknowledgment of her cultural heritage:

  • She says that India “seemed full to bursting with excitement, drama and passion, history in the making”

  • She decides she wants to “visit lndia and claim some of this magic as mine”

• By the end of the novel, Meena finds out, through reflecting on her parents’ words about their past and their close cultural bonds, that part of her will “be forever not England”:

  • By the end of the novel, Meena concludes “The place in which I belonged was wherever I stood”

  • Meena learns that her identity is not marked by a particular place and that “each resting place” was “home” 

What is Syal’s intention?

• Syal encourages the idea that personal identity can be a fluid concept

• She suggests personal identity is not exemplified by accent or appearance or even birthplace

• The novel deals with personal and family conflicts as a result of cultural expectations and differences

• The novel shows how discriminatory attitudes are ingrained in the community, but are based mostly on an individual’s own sense of victimisation as well as an ignorance of historical knowledge

Violence and abuse

Syal explores the consequences of powerlessness in a society by illustrating the effects of oppression and poverty on the various characters in the novel. For some characters, violent and aggressive behaviour towards others affords them some sense of control over their chaotic and unpredictable lives. For others, experience of violence leads to fear and they become the victims of abuse. For other characters, experience of aggression leads to greater tolerance and empathy.

Knowledge and evidence:

• Syal’s depiction of a fictional English town in the Midlands in the 1970s offers an alternate perspective on violence and abuse

• The antagonists in the story are presented as victims themselves:

  • Meena reflects that the bullies around her feel a sense of powerlessness in their working-class lives

  • The story describes a town facing industrial change, which impacts many of the characters’ businesses and affects their ability to provide for their families

• Characters such as Sam Lowbridge, the teenage son of a disadvantaged single mother, abuse others as a way to express frustration:

  • Sam has a criminal record despite being only 16 years old

  • He spends his time tormenting the townspeople with his gang

  • He shouts racist comments at the townspeople and beats up an Indian bank manager in the street

  • However, he is shown as misguided:

    • He is kind to Meena and says he likes her 

    • Meena must explain to him that he has offended her too: “I am the others, Sam. You did mean me” 

• Syal highlights the causes of his racism and aggression:

  • Sam is given positive messages by a youth leader from the Methodist church

  • He tells Sam to find out “who the real enemies are, the rich, the privileged, not the other people trying to make a living like you” 

• Syal’s novel presents dichotomies between the victim and the abuser, the bullied and the bullies:

  • For example, Roberto Rutter, Anita’s father, is traumatised having fought in World War II

  • He appears to take out his anger on his youngest, Tracey, who has bruises on her thighs

• Anita’s aggression, Meena realises, is a result of the normalisation of violence and abuse around her:

  • Deirdre, Tracey and Anita’s mother, seems to accept Tracey’s abuse and nothing is done about Roberto’s behaviour

  • Anita, in turn, abuses her sister too

  • Anita forms a gang like Sam’s gang and copies his behaviour

• Anita adopts the status of bully to mask her vulnerability at home:

  • She torments the other girls

  • She pushes Meena away after Meena tries to hug her

  • She attacks her youngest sister who in turn throws stones and attacks Sam and Anita

  • She attempts to throw stones at a dying dog

  • However, she cries to Meena about her mother and feelings of abandonment 

• Syal shows the contagious effect of bullying: 

  • Meena, too, finds herself acting as a bully, falsely accusing her cousins Pinky and Baby of theft

  • She robs from the local shopkeeper

What is Syal’s intention?

• Syal shows that a sense of powerlessness can lead to aggression and violence

• Syal draws attention to the way victims can become abusers if left unchecked

• Syal raises questions about the impact of war and aggressive foreign policy on individuals, referring to trauma that becomes a cycle of abuse

• The novel highlights the importance of knowledge and understanding, especially about different cultures and history, in order to combat abuse and resulting violence