LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 13:3 March 2013
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine
A Paradigm of Psychic Disintegration and Regeneration

Mythili, M., M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D. Research Scholar

Abstract

The term Diaspora refers to the dispersion of religious or ethnic groups from their established homeland either forced or voluntary. Initially this word was used for the dispersal of Jews when they were forced into exile to Babylonia. However, today it has come to mean any sizeable community of a particular nation or region living outside its own country and sharing some common bonds that give them an ethnic identity and consequent bonding.

The contribution of Indian Diaspora to the world literature cannot be denied. The diasporic writers belong to different category; they have Indian origins, but live in the west, mainly England, Canada and the U.S.A. A large number of these diasporic writers have given expression to their creative urge and have brought credit to the Indian English Fiction as a distinctive force. The phenomenon of migration of Indian people to U.S.A. and other countries, their status there, and their nostalgic feelings for the mother country as well as their alienation to the new one is the major subject dealt by the Diasporic writers.

The Indian-born American writer Bharati Mukherjee is one of the prominent novelists of Indian Diaspora. She has created a fair place for herself in the literary circle abroad, by her contribution to Indian English writing. Her commendable works place her in the class of great diasporic writers like Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Jhumpa Lahiri, Bernard Malmud, Issac Babel, and Yashmine Gunratne. The traumas and the agonies that people of Indian Diaspora face, in fulfilling their dreams, constitute the prime concern of Mukherjee’s literary oeuvre. She mainly focuses on her diasporic women characters, their struggle for identity, their bitter experiences, and their final emergence as self- assertive individuals, free from the bondages imposed on them. Hence, this paper is intended to explore the series of transformations that the protagonist of Bharati Mukherjee’s novel Jasmine undergoes, as an illegal immigrant to America and her regeneration after many transformations with disintegration.

Key Words: Immigration, alienation, Transformation, disintegration, regeneration, and assimilation

Modern Indian Diaspora

The Modern Indian Diaspora began during the colonial period when the British Empire had spread its tentacles around the globe and the red stain of imperialism had leaked into diverse land masses. The Diaspora could be classified as colonial and post-colonial. In the colonial category there was first the labourer and then the entrepreneur Diaspora. In the post colonial the trajectory of migrants takes in education as well as employment opportunities. Most of the Diasporas have been well represented in creative writing. Diasporic writing, born out of the dialectic between displacement and relocation raises theoretical formulations which provide fresh perspective to creative works.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Mythili, M., M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D. Research Scholar
Department of English
Manonmaniam Sundaranar University
Tirunelveli - 627012
Tamilnadu
India
murugesanmythili@gmail.com
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