Dislocation and the Quest for Identity in Selected Postcolonial Caribbean Novels in English.
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Date
2019-05
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
This study is an investigation into the life of dislocated immigrants depicted in selected literary works of Caribbean writers. The study examines effects of dislocation, and how it pertains to the quest for identity. Drawing on postcolonial notions and approaches related to dislocation, the study explicates the various predicaments immigrants experience in their attempt to make a place belong. Thus, the study focuses on examining how the dislocated individuals (and people) inthe literary texts are challenged by various forms of dislocation and its multifaceted discontents such as unhomeliness, racial discrimination, loss of identity,quest for identity, marginalization, etc.It is not an uncommon fact that people get dislocated from their original socio-culturalenvironments (‘home’) due to factors beyond their control and/or due to reasons that theyconsider are important. Prior to their dislocation, people share several cultural elements as well as values that shape and determine their identity. Unfortunately, often results in a feeling of not belonging to the host country and loss of identity. It is in light of this argument that this study aims to explicate the interplay of dislocation and the quest for identity in selected Caribbean novels in English. Taking this major objective, this studyspecifically examines how dislocation with all its various forms is presented in the selectednovels. It also analyzes the cultural and racial alienations as well as marginality that emanatefrom dislocation. Furthermore, the study explores how the issues of subordination, with all the impacts on one’s identity, are revealed through dislocation in the novels. Finally, itpresents thematic parallels and incongruities, with to dislocation and the quest foridentity, in the novels.The study qualitatively analyzes Samuel Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners (1956), V.S.Naipaul’s In A Free State (1971), Joan Riley’s The Unbelonging (1985), and CarylPhillips’s The Final Passage (1985). The novels are, first, separately analyzed in the fourth
chapter to see detailed issues related to dislocation and the quest for identity as depicted inthe unique social, cultural, and economic context of the story in each novel. Then, in the fifth chapter, it has been attempted to compare and contrast the various the matic commonalities and differences among the literary works.In its conclusion, the study maintains that the literary works reveal the strong relationshipbetween the search for home and the quest for identity. In other words, the constant searchfor home through nostalgia oftentimes creates connection to the past. Moreover, the examination of the literary texts points out that dislocation often leaves the immigrants in the space of in-between. In this regard, the recurring feelings of loneliness, exclusion, and otherness depicted in the stories reveal the immigrants’ position of unbelonging to the socio cultur almilieu of the host country. Hence, the study shows the importance of examining different contexts from the immigrant’s position.