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How do Meena's parents and their friends spend their time when they visit each other's houses?

Anita and Me - Themes

Explore key themes in Anita and Me, including family, friendship, racism, and belonging, and see how Meena’s experiences reveal conflict, loyalty, and the search for identity.

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Fascinating Fact:

Family provides resilience, because warmth, story, and song at home counter the street’s harsher lessons.

In GCSE English Literature, you study how themes give a novel emotional depth. In Anita and Me, family, friendship, racism, class, and belonging all shape Meena’s journey from childhood to a more complex understanding of herself.

Key Terms

Theme: A central idea in a text, such as family, identity, or prejudice, explored through characters, setting, and plot.
Belonging: The feeling of being accepted and “at home” in a place or group, often challenged in the novel.
Prejudice: Judging people unfairly based on race, class, or background, without real knowledge or understanding.

Frequently Asked Questions (Click to see answers)

What are the main themes in Anita and Me for GCSE?

The main themes include family, friendship, racism, class, and belonging. The novel also explores growing up, cultural identity, and how Meena balances her Punjabi heritage with life in Tollington.

How is family presented in Anita and Me?

Family is shown as warm, noisy, and supportive. Meena’s parents use stories, jokes, and song to pass on culture and values, giving her strength when she faces cruelty or confusion outside the home.

How does Anita and Me explore racism and belonging?

The novel shows everyday racist language and actions alongside moments of kindness. Meena learns that belonging is complicated, as she feels attached to Tollington but also aware she is seen as different.

Try These Related Quizzes

1 .

"I'm not really a liar, I just learned very early on that those of us deprived of history sometimes need to turn to mythology to feel complete, to belong." This final sentence of the Epigraph touches on which of the novel's themes?

History, belonging, storytelling

Belonging, change, racism

Racism, change, family

Growing up, change, racism

Meena, as narrator, recognises that her early desire to embroider the truth, to invent fantastical stories, resulted from a loss of identity as someone "deprived of history"

2 .

Which one of the following is NOT an instance when Meena unexpectedly finds herself confronting racism?

When Mr Turvey tells her to look after Nanima

When she learns the name of Tracey's new dog

When Sam objects to sending charity money abroad at the Spring Fête

When a child in her class gives a joke answer to a teacher's question

Meena confronts racism from her fellow pupils at school, from Anita and her family, from Sam and even from elderly drivers in Birmingham. These confrontations are crucial to her development as she grows up

3 .

"Hiya Robert...how'm you feeling?" How does Meena speak when she is finally able to talk face to face with Robert?

She is overly formal

She is overly informal

She speaks in Standard English

She speaks in Black Country dialect

Meena adopts a solid regional accent when she wishes to show that her identity is unquestionably West Midlands. Robert responds: "Ey up, yow'm a real Midland wench, our Meena! I thought you'd sound a bit more exotic than this!"

4 .

How do Meena's parents and their friends spend their time when they visit each other's houses?

Cooking and eating

Performing music

Telling stories about the past

All of the above

The Aunties cook Indian foods together and everyone enjoys Meena's papa's musical performances. Together the group of friends preserve and pass on their memories of home

5 .

"I knew I was a freak of some kind, too mouthy, clumsy and scabby to be a real Indian girl, too Indian to be a real Tollington wench, but living in the grey area between all categories felt increasingly like home. And Anita never looked at me the way my adopted female cousins did; there was never fear or censure or recoil in those green, cool eyes, only the recognition of a kindred spirit, another mad bad girl trapped inside a superficially obedient body." Which of the following is correct?

Meena feels that she has nothing in common with Anita

Meena feels more at home with not fully belonging anywhere

Meena identifies completely with her adopted cousins

Meena receives identical messages from her parents, her friends, her neighbours and her Aunties and Uncles about who she is

Belonging to the culture of her parents and their Indian friends, like belonging to the village, sometimes feels to Meena like an act, a part she can play through her speech and behaviour. Feeling at home by not fully belonging to any group is a paradox

6 .

Which of the following describes part of Meena's home?

"Books, thousands of them lining the walls from top to bottom, an armoury of paperbacks, hard covers, some leather-bound with cracked spines, others cheap and cheerful off an airport stand"

"The curtains both upstairs and downstairs were drawn and a half-eaten bowl of very old dog food sat on the steps"

"A teenage den of old laddered tights, make-up, posters of pop stars, locked diaries"

"A place to sleep, bereft of fripperies"

Meena is embarrassed that her bedroom is not a "proper girly hang-out" like Anita's. Meena's kitchen and sitting room are, however, comforting and comfortable. Meena envies Anita's grown-up glamour, while not recognising the security offered by her own home

7 .

The majority of the novel takes place during which time period?

Meena's seventh year

The summer before Meena's ninth birthday

Meena's last two years of primary school

Meena's first year at Comp

Many of the key events take place during the summer. Meena's riding accident means that she spends much of her final year of primary school in the hospital

8 .

Which of the following best describes Anita's attitude towards friendship?

She is friends with people as long as she can gain something from the friendship

She is a loyal friend, willing to sacrifice herself for the good of another

She is brash and sometimes selfish, but will put her friends first when necessary

She likes to gather around her people she really admires

Anita wants always to be the admired one in her circle of friends. She therefore competes with the girls closest to her and requires Meena to follow her around without question. She mocks other people and wants what they have

9 .

Which of the following is NOT an example of change experienced by the village of Tollington?

The primary industry employing the inhabitants of the village changes

In the past it was mostly the Ballbearings women who were employed, but gradually it seems that only the men of the village have jobs

The village school is demolished

The nearby Bartlett estate steadily encroaches on the village

In the past all of the village men were employed in the mine. When the village lost the mine, these industrial jobs were replaced by jobs for women. In the mornings the Ballbearings women take the bus to work while their husbands remain home

10 .

What are Nanima's final words to Meena as she leaves the hospital to return to India?

"Thehro aider!"

"Junglee!"

"Meena...jewel...precious...light...bless you..."

"Bloody women drivers!"

This line could be read in two ways. Either Nanima is making an effort to speak these parting words to her granddaughter in Meena's own language, or Meena has learned sufficient Punjabi to understand these words of blessing without translation. Not sharing a mutual language is a sorrowful barrier between Meena and Nanima

Author: Sheri Smith (PhD English Literature, English Teacher & Quiz Writer)