LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 13:9 September 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.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Themes of Alienation and Displacement: A Study of Anita Desai’s Voices in the City and Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss

Meenakshi Goyal, M.A., M.Phil., NET and Hemlata, M.A., B. Ed., M. Phil.

On Defining Alienation

Alienation is not an easy term to define. Literally, it means estrangement and separation. It has various meanings. According to the Britannica Perspective, “An alienated man is . . . stranger to himself; he has lost his essence; he is in search of his being” (129). Edwards Paul defines alienation as “an art or the result of the art through which something or somebody becomes (or has become) alien (or strange) to something or somebody else” (76). According to Encyclopedia Britannica, “a term used with various meanings in philosophy, theology, psychology and social sciences, usually with emphasis on personal powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, cultural estrangement, social isolation, or self-estrangement” (243). Part of the difficulty of providing an adequate analysis of this concept is that the term occurs in such a wide variety of disciplines, including philosophy, sociology, psychology, existentialist philosophy, feminism and so on. Thus, it can be said that the notion of alienation is widespread and hardly there is any discipline which has left untouched by this.

Displacement

On the other hand, displacement, unfortunately, rarely has a definitive terminus, for it seems to perpetuate itself. The displaced often suffers from an almost-pathological wanderlust. Successive migrations prevent the formation of tenacious roots and disregard the laws of gravity. Continually roaming and shifting, migrants simply float, incapable of being attached to something so palpable as land. This freedom, however, becomes a burden, almost like Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984).

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

Meenakshi Goyal, M.A., M.Phil., NET
Department of English & Foreign Languages
M. D. U.
Rohtak 124001
Haryana
India
meenakshichinu@gmail.com

Hemlata, M.A., B. Ed., M. Phil.
Department of English & Foreign Languages
M. D. U. Please expand
Rohtak 124001
Haryana
India
hemlata144@gmail.com
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