The Henna Artist

Lakshmi starts her personal narrative by saying, “Independence changed everything. Independence changed nothing” (18). This comment encapsulates the struggle of India to define itself after the British returned control to the natives in the late 1940s. The novel itself takes place in 1955 while the country is still struggling with the concept of democracy rather than hereditary rule.

The tension between traditional values and Western influence plays out in a variety of ways in the story. Lakshmi herself is a walking contradiction. She makes her living through one of the most traditional forms of Indian folk art—henna painting. While this skill allows her to create an independent life for herself, she is consumed by guilt over her abandonment of her parents. Her entire family is shamed by her misdeeds and made to suffer by the narrow-minded villagers of Ajar, to whom filial piety is the ultimate virtue.

Lakshmi’s sister also embodies the contradiction between past and present, East and West. She was born in a rural area but quickly adapts to life in the big city with its new Western tastes in food, clothing, and entertainment. She reads European novels and watches American films. These movies tend to emphasize spunky heroines, who epitomize the value of romantic love.