Shadows of immigration : the crisis of indian female identity in selected works of Bharati Mukherjee

Abstract EN

The growing phenomena of immigration during the last two centuries has affected the demography of the host countries as well as dramatically shocked the immigrants themselves for discovering new horizons through which they would have never flown before.

The paper examines the dynamic evolvement of the female identities of an Indian immigrant, Bharati Mukharjee, through a series of her literary works including: The Tiger's Daughter, Days and Nights in Calcutta, Wife, Darkness, "Nostalgia," "A Wife's Story," "The Tenant," "The Management of Grief," Jasmine, and "Two Ways to Belong in America." The analysis in this paper is anchored on the postcolonial theory with regard to issues such as gender, power, race, centre/margin and assimilation.

It aims to explore the identity formation of the characters through psychoanalysis to reveal how the Western ideology and philosophy, mainly reflected through Jasmine and other female characters, have gradually altered them to what can be described as "different" from both their original roots and their new cloaks.

The transformation can be compared to fine Chinese ceramics made in England.

They have lost the uniqueness of their homeland.

Though the stories are presented as examples of successful transformation, the findings of the study suggest that the inferiority complex of the Indian identity is dominantly reinforced through the emotional and intellectual denial of a whole civilization and its legacy, looking down upon their own heritage beside the celebration of the new colonizing approach.

The controversial area to be investigated in other articles is whether the descendants of immigrants struggle to find who they a