In Hanif Kureishi’s The
Buddha of Suburbia, Eleanor, Karim’s upper-middle class lover, performs
beneath her class position, giving her two functioning identities in two
different social worlds. Initially, Eleanor’s middle class identity disguises
itself from Karim in the forms of manner and dress, “She dressed roughly,
wearing a lot of scarves, lived in Notting Hill and-sometimes-talked with a
Catford accent” (173). For Eleanor to maintain a hybrid identity, a combination
of her new and old lifestyles, her success relies in her ability to dress the
part of the ‘Bohemian’ woman. Having grown up in a world of privileges,
Eleanor’s aspirations for downward social mobility are consciously chosen which
makes her performances unforced. Eleanor merges both identities, playing the
role of the dutiful daughter and the party goer who understands that being on
time is not party etiquette, with the free-spirited, deep thinking Bohemian.
Eleanor wants to identify with people like the starving artist, but still
enjoys the privileges of her background, like the nights she eats shark. A social
piranha like Eva does not understand Eleanor’s choice to deny her natural class
position, “…perplexed by Eleanor’s concealment of her social origins and the
way she took her ‘connections’ for granted” (173). In contrast, a character
like Eva aspires towards upward class mobility, performing outside her class
into roles that make her identity unnatural. She must rid herself completely of
her suburban complex to pass as a ‘true’ Londoner. Eva creates an identity as a
designer, dismissing her suburban background in her efforts to create a new
image. “Cultured” members of society who enter her apartment in London recognize
the transparency of her performance, like the photographer from the magazine,
“The photographer rearranged the furniture and photographed objects only in the
places where they had not been positioned” (262). The photographer being around
many “posh” Londoners sees through Eva’s attempts to climb the social ladder,
her efforts are forced. Taking on a new identity requires one to accept and
transform the old and the combination of the different personas allows the
newly created identity to appear natural and pass as acceptable.
Do clothes construct a person's identity and do they contribute to others perceptions of that person? Karim battles with identity through much of the novel, as do many of the characters in search of their own identities. Clothing, in Western cultures, symbolize conformity and individuality. For a character like Karim, he lives in a suburban society made up of mostly white individuals and it is in this society that he wants to be recognized. In the book, Kureishi describes an outing with Karim's father, and the choice of clothes Karim chooses for himself to try and impress a local boy from school, whom he idolizes. He tries to be someone he is not around many kids from school, trapped between the need to fit in with his peers, but also aware of his Indian background, a skin that he cannot shed. Later, Karim is asked to play the part of Mogul from the jungle book and he must deal with the stereotypes associated with his skin tone, but he knows nothing of his Indian heritage, he has never been to India, but because of his dark skin people assume that his identity must correlate with his ancestors from India. He literally cannot be comfortable in his own skin, it is something that he cannot identify with because he does not belong to the Indian background and he cannot associate with his suburban upbringing. So in this instance, clothing allows him to move between identities and identify with the image that suits him. Clothing and the pressures to fit in, influence children and adults and often times distorts the image of the self.
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/Headlines/Clothing-colonization-and-spiritual-identity
This article discusses clothing as a form of colonization and the impacts it has when shaping identity on people.
