Specialist study.

Anita and Me is a semi-autobiographical novel written by British-Asian author Meera Syal. It follows the early life of the protagonist of the novel, Meena. Meena is a nine-year-old girl torn between the ethnic culture of her Punjabi parents and that of the white British sixties. The relationship between Meena and Anita changes and reflects the changes in Meena as she denies her heritage and then finally accepts who she really is. This essay will show how Syal effectively conveys the theme of friendship and through the use of characterisation and narrative structure.

The novel is told from the point of view of Meena, and is in her own words.
As a result, the events told by Meena are unreliable but as we see everything through Meena eyes we understand her better and we have a better knowledge of her feelings. The fact she is the narrator makes us take her side and prejudge characters from what we are told from Meena’s point of view.

The first time we meet Anita she is at the local shop and stops to talks to Meena. Anita tells Meena - who is looking at a navy poster - that the officer on the poster is in fact her father. This is a blatant lie, but Meena’s naivety leads her to believe anything Anita says. Meena can’t believe that Anita, the girl that she has admired for such a long time has actually talked to her: It had been the first time Anita had ever talked to me and I wondered what I had done to deserve It. This shows the extent of Meena’s idolisation of Anita, as she feels that she has to have done something wonderful to deserve Anita talking to her.

As Anita and Meena’s relationship progresses, Meena is just a tag-a-long to Anita’s group, the wenches brigade: ‘I was happy to follow her a respectable few paces behind knowing I was privileged to be in her company’, showing that she isn’t really a part of the group as she is behind the others. This further adds to the fact that Meena idolises her. Meena tries to conform to Anita’s views: ‘I wanted fish fingers and chips like Anita’, instead of Indian food, this shows that Meena rejects her own culture in favour of Anita’s as she giving up Indian food in favour of English food.

In time Anita and Meena become firm friends and Anita even has dinner at Meena’s house, this is a big step in their friendship, as Meena has never ‘eaten Indian food in the presence of a white person before’, This shows that Meena trusts Anita enough to share her culture with her . This shows the relationship between Anita and Meena growing stronger; Meena is including Anita in the Asian parts of her life. However she begins to realize what Anita is really like when the Wenches brigade turns against another girl: ‘I had seen how in an instant, those you called friends could suddenly become tormenters, sniffing out a weakness or a difference, turning their own fear of ostracism into a weapon with which they could beat the victim away’. Meena realises that she will also be ostracised because of her ethnicity. This shows us that Meena realizes the social power Anita has.

The final realization of Anita’s true personality occurs when a family friend is paki-bashed by Anita’s boyfriend. Meena overhears Anita laughing about a racist incident, which her boyfriend instigated. Meena finally begins to alienate herself from Anita, and she ends their friendship soon after: ‘I don’t give a toss what your sister does, Tracy. You can tell her that from me’. This shows us that Meena has matured and has finally learned to stand up for her self, and feel more comfortable in her identity.

This essay looked at the themes of friendship and identity, his has been shown using characterisation and narrative structure.

{{{ Gursevak singh's essay. }}}