We all cross frontiers; in that sense, we are all migrant peoples.’ In her novels, Bharati Mukherjee has dealt with such moving metaphors of culture- their displacement, dislocation, mutation and translation. Postcolonial transnational counter-textuality began by affirming the contestation between estrangement and search for identity. The counter-textual mood of anti-colonial or nationalist writing finds its resources in the transcultural restlessness of writers such as Salman Rushdie, Ben Okri, Michael Ondaatje and Bharati Mukherjee. However, Mukherjee’s position is different from
POSTCOLONIAL IDENTITY CRISES IN V.S. NAIPUL'S THE MIMIC MEN BY IDENYI, GRACE ABSTRACT The mimetic function of Literature often reveals the society from which it evolved. The experience of an individual in the society from which a literary piece originates usually represents the experiences of other people in that society. In the fragmented and chaotic post-colonial world, the characters feel estranged from the world around them and experience a crisis of identity which leaves them hollow and unable to reinvent themselves. The present paper adopts the Postcolonial approach.
Later, when Gogol accompanies Amit for a drink, he avoids his question “Gogol why aren 't you a member of the Indian association here?” by devising the excuse “I just don’t have the time.” Gogol therefore purposely avoids investing himself into becoming a belonging member of an Indian community. This idea is further evidenced later in the novel when Gogol repeatedly buries himself in Maxine 's family life as a technique to dismiss his own. He describes existing in "her world" as a
Because it depends on post-structural theory, and the theory of exile offers a valuable model for postcolonial criticism. His theory of exile enlivens in all of his works from his earliest literary criticism to his later theoretical texts. By exile, Said mentions to the experience of peoples who have displaced from their homes for political conditions and to the experience of knowledgeable homelessness that a critic has to be free of the restrictions of cultural and ideological. Though, he claims that exile is a painful experience that does not lead to perfection but to a greater awareness of the possibility of human
Rushdie argues in his works that a migrant is somebody who has suffered greatly, and who loses a lot through their "translation." Homi Bhabha claims that there is a space “in between the designations of identity and that this interstitial passage between fixed identifications opens up possibility of cultural hybridity that entertains difference without an assumed or imposed hierarchy. Australian academic Vijay Mishra in his recent book, “Literature of the Indian Diaspora - Theorizing the Diasporic Imaginary is a path finding work on this new emerging discipline. It is not only a major study of the literature and other cultural texts of the Indian diaspora, but also an important contribution to diasporic theory in general. Mishra examines both the 'old' Indian diaspora of early capitalism following the abolition of slavery, and the 'new' diaspora linked to movements of late capitalism.
The Shadow Lines is an attempt by Amitav Ghosh to show the Blurring of lines or borders between East and West, castes and religious beliefs through an unconventional post-colonial novel which shows the colonised travelling and moving to and from the coloniser’s territory. But the instigation to present such a world sans boundaries, ironically enough, comes through a personal experience of communal riots. The quest for identity and
Diasporic literature proposes an individual’s relationship to the former home and the present one, to a culture left behind and to a culture now assimilated. They are living in the third space (Bhabha n.p.) Lot of questions comes to one’s mind when it comes to Diaspora. How do migrated people assimilate? How do they tackle with alienation?
It is impossible to keep any relationship in India because any basis in any relationship is based on equality and justice, and they lack them in India. "But the horses didn 't want it – they swerved apart; the earth didn 't want it …they didn 't want it, they said in their hundred voices, "No, not yet," and the sky said, "No, not there." (CH.37.P.292) In the end, A Passage to India is a novel that represents the British colonialism in India. It also represents the different situation that we can see how the Indians are different from the British there. In my opinion, the relationship between the Indians and British will not vanish or destroyed if they are in a different place and in a
Desai’s third novel Bye Bye Blackbird was published in 1971 and deals with the marginal spaces that an immigrant is forced to occupy with regard to his culture, ideology and way of life when he tries to settle in a new country. The differences lead to a segregation which is not only physical but emotional. The divide in the psyches of Indians as well as Britishers is explored in this paper in the persons of Dev, Adit and Sarah. This paper explores the marginal spaces that these protagonists inhabit. Keywords: Culture, ideology, marginal, protagonists, psyches, segregation, spaces.
Reading Migration literature helps to understand the problems of the migrants after exile from their motherland. Migrants come across several issues like cultural Alienation, hybridity, Exile, displacement, identity crisis, unbelongingness, loss of Homeland due to migration from their motherland to an alien land. The question of identity crises raises several conflicts among the natives and migrants. The issues like cultural alienation, hybridity and exile can be seen through sociological point of view to understand the difference between natives and immigrants. The nation and identity are very important in the study of diasporic literature.