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One Hundred Shades Of White Analysis

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Diasporic writings has emerged into a distinct literary genre today. The word ‘diaspora’, derived from the Greek word diaspeiro, means scattering of people from their land of origin. One of the central features of diasporic writing is a mapping out a journey. This is a journey from the centre of the immigrant’s home culture to the periphery of the alien culture and again from the periphery of the alien culture to a different centre representing multi-culture, that is, a consciousness of at least two cultures or more. The paper proposes to study Preethi Nair’s One Hundred Shades of White as representative of such a journey spanning three generations of women through the metaphor of cooking. Food is one of the most popular tools in the hands of diasporic women writers to express their longing, rejection and finally acceptance of their home culture. Against the backdrop of contemporary British Asian literature Nair’s One hundred Shades of White stands out for her deep insight into the lives of the immigrants and her empathy with the characters. The novel is an unforgettable rendering of a mother and daughter’s search for identity and ‘wholeness’ in an alien land and coming to terms with the ‘duality’ of their existence. Diasporic writing has emerged into a distinct literary genre today. The word ‘diaspora’, derived from the Greek word …show more content…

Marginality leads to the psychological conflicts of a divided self. The story of the diaspora is the different stages in the resolution of this conflict in the lives of individuals, families, and generations. With the loss of sense of security of a known historical past and a shared geographical space, the need “to belong” becomes constitutive of the Indian diaspora.’ (p.

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