Contrast In Dilruba Ara's 'Detached Belonging'

Thematic and metaphoric contrasts in Dilruba Ara´s ”Detached Belonging”.

Dilruba Ara´s novel, ”Detached belonging”, explore the complex relationship between personal experiences and cultural integrity, particularly in regard to the protagonist view of family and location differences. Thematic and metaphor contrasts are used by the author to describe the main events and the character´s emotional state in this story. The writer manages to convey the emotional state of the protagonist through narrative functions that often shows contrast.

Even though there are many ways to tell a story, it is a well-known fact that by using images, symbols, and metaphors, so-called narrative functions, the author increases the ability to reach out to the reader and enhance the reader´s experience and empathy of a story.

The written word is not always enough to convey a specific thought or emotion. One technique to increase the way to convey a specific feeling or understanding of a subject is to use contrasts. Contrast used wisely can increase the obvious fact that two things (feelings, relationship, events etc) are different, and thus to highlight each others individuality. Ara uses

The author uses images and she also uses them in a contrastive way. Images can be seen as a representation of the external form of a person or thing which allows the author to speak more directly to the readers internal thought processes. For example, the sentence describing the dead child ” It´s just a chunk of meat.” compared to the sentence which describes her first-born child ”That child had cheeks like apricots, and his hair was a riot of black curls.” These images show two totally different states, events, and/or emotions. Furthermore, Ara uses comparative images when she describe …. ”The empty chairs remained her once more of her isolation”. They doubtfully bring comparative thoughts to