Anita and Me Essay Questions

What type of narrator is Meena, and how does her narration shape the story?

In many ways, Meena is an unreliable narrator: she’s prone to comedic exaggeration, and naive in her childhood innocence. Sometimes, the reader is aware of Meena’s naiveté, leading to dramatic irony: for example, when Meena is convinced a child-eating witch lives in the Big House or when Meena believes the whole town is watching after she has stolen from Mr. Ormerod. At other moments, the reader, just like Meena, is left in the dark: for example, the reader can only understand Mr. and Mrs. Kumar through Meena’s fragmentary knowledge of their lives—and Meena does not even know her father’s line of work. Likewise, because Meena does not know the realities of Anita’s relationship with Deidre, instead only catching brief glimpses of the mother and daughter’s public relationship, the reader is left searching for the truth from a scattering of clues.

What role does history play in Anita and Me?

A semi-autobiographical novel, in part inspired by author Meera Syal’s upbringing in Essington, in the West Midlands of England, Anita and Me features references to several real historical happenings of Britain in the 1960s—for example, the era’s rising anti-immigrant politics and racial tensions, exemplified in the skinhead subculture (of which Sam Lowbridge and his gang are a part). Many characters in Anita and Me live under the weight of history: for example, Anita’s father, Roberto Rutter, and Meena’s neighbor, Mr. Worral, are both veterans of World War II, living with long-term injuries–– for Roberto, psychological trauma, for Mr. Worral, physical trauma. Meena’s parents, as well as her Aunties and Uncles, fled India after Partition, a period of political violence as India became two independent nations, India and Pakistan. Anita and Me shows the impact of generational trauma, of history leaving lasting impacts, exemplified in the character of Anita: a child likely abused at home becoming an abuser herself.

From the fortune-teller’s omniscience to Nanima’s canny abilities, what role do magic and dreams play in Meena’s narrative?

Although most of Anita and Me falls within the genre of realism, the novel features several prominent scenes of inexplicable magic and the supernatural: namely, the fortune-teller’s accurate prediction—that Mrs. Kumar will fall sick, and Nanima will come from overseas—as well as Meena’s lucid dream, a conversation with Nanima wherein Meena understands Nanima’s fluent Punjabi, despite not speaking the language. These magical scenes can be understood in multiple ways. Firstly, they elevate Meena’s narrative to the realm of the mythic, and so universalize Meena’s story (importantly, at the novel’s start, Meena 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” [p. 10]). Secondly, these scenes of magic may be a representation of Meena’s childlike worldview, and a way for Meena to explain the parts of her life she does not yet fully understand—for example, her subconscious.

How does Meena’s point-of-view change over the course of the novel?

At the start of the novel, driven by boredom and an attraction to drama, Meena craves danger. She expresses envy towards Roberto Rutter, because of his wartime experiences, and, likewise, is jealous of her mother’s childhood in India, which featured a street-side stabbing. But by the novel’s end, after experiencing her own losses—the homebound departure of Nanima, and the young death of Robert—Meena recognizes the error of her past self-pity and begins to see her day-to-day life with a newfound appreciation, grateful for the opportunities afforded to her through her parents’ hard work and her own education.

What is the role of morality in Anita and Me?

Characters in Anita and Me often exhibit ambiguous moralities. For example, Meena describes Anita as both a "bully" and "victim" (p. 241); Mr. Ormerod hosts charity drives for occupants of the "Third World," yet demonstrates ignorance of non-Western cultures; and Meena, herself, often hurts others, such as Pinky and Baby, even while deepening her empathy for them. Recognizing that bigotry commonly roots itself in stereotypes—in one-dimensional views of other people—author Meera Syal seeks to capture the ambiguity of daily life, and demonstrate the complexities of her characters. In so doing, Anita and Me lacks perfectly moral characters, just as it lacks perfectly immoral characters.