Night and day

Abstract

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Night and Day relays the coming-of-age narrative of a minority female character fluctuating between the melting pot American culture of her mother, which she is entrenched in, and the Indian culture of her father's youth and adolescence. As such, she struggles with issues of identity, stereotypical societal expectations and racism. Her story is a journey to create a self where two oppositional cultures with vastly different expectations, traditions and standards for women can coexist. Through a series of experiences that cross location, culture and time, the narrator matures and discovers that she is able to successfully create a unique identity that adopts both of her parents' cultures and traditions while simultaneously casting aside expected or socially-evoked values in order to do so.