A Research Proposal Of The Ph.D.

Thesis

ON

Submitted by

CHETNA NEGI

Registration No. 41900021

In partial fulfillment for the award of the degree for

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
IN

English Literature

Under the Supervision of

Dr. Nipun Chaudhary

Assistant Professor

Department of English

Lovely Professional University

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY

PUNJAB SEPTEMBER, 2019

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 INTRODUCTION
Post Colonialism signifies a period that comes chronologically after colonialism, when most
countries achieved freedom from European Colonization. It was an era of great political
change since many nations got much awaited independence from the slavish rule, but
culturally, there appeared many dilemmas and crisis. The people from these newly liberated
countries were still in a state of confusion about their cultural roots and identity.

Furthermore, the population movement and migration from former colonies to the countries
of their former masters created a new mixed, hybrid society that was unable to relate to any
one culture which resulted in frequent cultural clashes among immigrants on one hand and
between the natives and immigrants on the other.

Since literature is the reflection of the society of it’s time Post Colonial literature emerged to
address the problems of decolonization; the process of non western countries becoming born
during and after many colonies gained or were still struggling for freedom. And so it relates to
the colonizer- colonized experience. Due to the circumstances of Post Colonial era and the
problematic conditions that faced newly freed nations and countries in their search and
formation of self –identity the crisis floated on the surface.

In short, Post Colonial literature is the literature by writers from formerly colonized countries.
It is the literature of the people trying to reclaim their freedom and their new identities after
struggling for independence. It often addresses the problems of formerly subjugated people
particularly in relation to their identity and culture.

Postcolonial theory is a method of interpreting, reading and critiquing the cultural practices
of colonialism.Many writers have contributed to the Postcolonial theory.Edward Said is one
such name who came to lime light with his book ‘Orientalism’.According to Said orientalism is
a style of thinking,a form of representation that created opinions,ideas and imagesof the non-
european culture in racialized ways . Frantiz Fanon has been an important figure in
postcolonial theory his the wretched of the earth (1963) and black skins, white mask 1967
rank with sum of the ground breaking text in twentieth century. According to Fanon the black
man loses his sense of self and identity because he can only see himself through the eyes of
the white man. For the native the only way of dealing with this identity crisis is by trying to be

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as ‘white’ as possible. The native imbibes western values the language and practices of the
white and rejects his own traditions as inferior he puts on, Fanon’s phrase, ‘white ma is ask’
over black skin ‘.

Fanon also drew unfavourable parallels between the colonial masters and the elite of the
postcolonial nations. He argued that the power struggles between the colonial master and the
native subject ends with political independence. However, ironically, this soon re-emerges in
a different form: the battle for power between the elites and the rest in the postcolonial state.
Native elites occupy the spaces of power once occupied by the white masters, and the
corruption, oppression and exploitation of the working classes continue this time at the hands
of fellow natives. This, in effect, is neo-colonialism. The middle classes and intellectual classes
that were educated in the colonial system now acquire power and duplicate the unjust and
exploitative colonial system even after political independence.

Recent themes in postcolonial literature

Some of the recent themes recurring in postcolonial literature are:-

1. Diaspora: - It refers to people who have been displaced from their homelands, and who
posess and share a collective memory and the nostalgic reminiscences of home. They are not
rooted in one location, and live in the memories of their ‘imagined’ homelands in the new
adopted country they struggle between their cultural identity and that of the new nation
Elleke Boehmer described the immigrant and diasporic people/authors thus: excolonial ‘by
birth, “third world” in cultural interest, cosmopolitan in almost every other way’ postcolonial
theory studies immigrant and diasporic identities as celebrations of migrancy. Indian diasporic
experience, for example has been captured by authors like Jhumpa Lahiri, Anita Desai Bharti
Mukherjee.

2. Mimicry: - Mimicry in postcolonial literature is most commonly seem when members of a

colonized society imitate the language dress or cultural practices of their colonizers. In the
context of immigration, mimicry is seen as an opportunity to have the same access to power
by copying the person in power. This concept of mimicry was given by Homi K.Bhabha in his
book ‘of mimicry and man’. The mimicry is used as a desperate measure by the immigrants in
order to be more acceptable in an alien society. Mimicry is often seen as something bad or
shameful however it is not all bad. Bhabha in his essay ‘of mimicry and man’ described mimicry
as sometimes unintentionally subversive. It means that copying of dominant culture
sometimes also exposes its hollowness.

3. Hybridity:- A concept elaborated by Homi Bhabha, Hybridity is the rejection of a single or

unified identity, and a preference for multiple cultural locations and identities. Hybridity in

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postcolonial theory is opposed to cultural binary opposition like us/them. By contrast to
mimicry, which is a relatively fixed and limited idea, hybridity can be quite slippery and broad.
In simple words, hybridity means any mixing of eastern and western cultural. In postcolonial
literature, it refers to colonial subjects from third world countries who have striked a balance
between eastern and western cultural attributed. However in Homi Bhabha’s initial usage of
the term in his essay ‘Signs taken for wonders’ he thought of hybridity as a subversive tool
used by the colonized people to fight their oppression`

Hybridty is the central theme in postcolonial diasporic literature to show the struggle between
two identities-the split consciousness of being both, yet neither completely. Hybridity in
postcolonial studies has also been influenced by the work of political theorists like
Will.Kymlicka who posites a multicultural citizenship in a globalised world.

4. Gender: - Postcolonial gender discourse discusses ‘double colonization’ of women by both

imperialism and patriarchy gender and the role of the women in the postcolonial studies have
been the focus in the writings of Anita Desai, Suniti Nam Joshi, Ama Ata Aidoo etc. post
colonial gender studies examine how class, cast economy, political empowerment and literacy
have contributed to the condition of women in the third world countries.

According to Kirsten Holst Petersen and Anna Rutherford 1996 women in colonialism
experience double colonization. This means that women’s lives are trapped by both patriarchy
and colonialism. So they have to carry a double burden. Since the imperialism has ended in
most of the countries, contemporary postcolonial studies focus on gender and race.

Another recent concept related to gender is ‘gender performavity’ coined by Judith Butler in
so biological sex and gender have no relation to each other.A man and woman just perform
their roles as Simon De Beauviour’s famous statement says “one is not born a woman , but
rather becomes one”.

5. Identity Crisis: - The Question of identity is the most controversial issue in postcolonial
literature. But to understand this concept, it is equally imperative to understand first of all,
what is identity? According to Cambridge dictionary identity refers to the qualities of a person
that make them different from others. Every person has his/her distinct identity. But what
happens when a person suffers from identity crisis. Erik Erikson who coined the term ‘identity
crisis’ described it as a period of intense exploration of different roles and aspects of the self.
According to Collins dictionary identity crisis is a period of uncertainty and confusion in which
a person’s sense of identity becomes insecure, typically due to a change in their expected aims
or role in society. In the modern world with increase of immigrant population and countries
becoming culturally diverse, the issue of identity has become all the more important.

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6. Subaltern: - Another term used in postcolonial studies, was introduced by Antonie
Gramscito refer to the working class, and used and popularized by Gayatri Spivak in the post
colonial context, in the famous essay, can the subaltern speak? In this essay, Spivak raises
issues about the voice of the subaltern in standing against the colonizer. Here she raises an
important question whether subaltern can speak for himself/herself or is spoken for? In other
words can subaltern raise their voice against their oppression. Spivak reject idea that one can
access a ‘pure’ subaltern consciousness because, the subaltern cannot speak and is hence
spoken for. The subaltern woman, in particular, has no position to make a clear statement
about her oppression. She remains on the mercy of patriarchal and colonial discourse for
expression.

Post colonialism and cultural studies

The present age is an age of globalization. Which in some way or the other is influencing the
local cultures, around the world. To explore the relationship between postcolonial and
cultural studies we have to look at the role of globalization through the postcolonial lens. Since
postcolonial studies is concerned the oppression (in the past or present) of the non-white
races by European ones, cultural studies in a globalized culture which can be termed as
‘cultural hegemony’ a key rubric for Antonio Gransci.

In simple language it means western culture trends penetrating the everyday culture of third
world countries. But this culture has little to do with traditions or territories. It is determined
more by economic factors. In Indian context, for example our obsession with the western
brands in order to look cultured. Similarly global companies like MacDonald’s, KFC etc. have
ensured their presence in local markets. So contemporary globalization has become a new
mode of cultural exchange, appropriation and marketing.

However one should also not forget that a culture cannot be reduced to its material goods or
products. But at the same time these are not merely material products, they often carry
cultural values. Thus postcolonial cultural studies mainly focus on the images or cultural value
associated with the material object, especially by third world countries, which facilitates their
cultural dominance by the west. And the strange thing is that this whole process takes place
at an unconscious level.

Many writers have attempted to capture Postcolonial issues through their writings.Anita Desai
is a celebrated postcolonial writer from our very own country.She was born on June 24, 1937
to a German mother and Bengali father in the famous hill station Mussoorie, then Uttar
Pradesh (now Uttrakhand), India.She was one of the four children of her parents. During her
early growing years, India was still a part of British colony.Desai’s father D.N Mazumdar was a
Bengali engineer and her mother Toni Nime was a German, who after meeting Mazumdar in

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Germany, emigrated to India. Desai had once accepted that it was exposure to her mother’s
German roots that enabled her to experience India as both an insider and an outsider.

Desai is an excellent writer and has served in various capacities in the past as a fellow of the
royal society of literature, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Girton college,
Cambridge and Clare Hall, Cambridge and as a Professor of writing at Massachusetts Institute
of technology, Cambridge.

Anita Desai is a very prolific writer. Unlike other writers of her time, who were more interested
in social issues, the focus of Desai’s work was on individual through an intense study of mind
and soul. Desai peeps into the inner life and mental conflicts of her characters .She are known
for her sensitive portrayal of the inner feelings of her characters especially her female
characters. Many of her novels explore the alienation of her characters in the midst of the
society in which they live.

Anita Desai deals with postcolonial themes like identity crisis, Diaspora and gender issues in
some of her important novels like Bye Bye Blackbird, Fasting Feasting, Baumgartners Bombay
and journey to Ithaca.

Bye Bye Blackbird is a master piece penned down by Anita Desai. The story presents the life
of Indian immigrants in London who find it quite challenging to adjust in an alien country.
Blackbird in the title of the novel is referred to the immigrant to whom people of London want
to say goodbye. The characters in the novel suffer identity crisis as they display mixed feeling
of love and hate towards this newly adopted country.

The story has been divided into three parts- Arrival, Discovery and Recognition and finally
Departure. This book earned her prestigious Sahitya Academy Award Bye Bye Blackbird
explores the lives of the outsiders seeking to forged a new identity in an alien society. The
blackbirds in the story are the immigrants. Like the immigrant birds they also fly to a new land
in hope of a better prospect/future. Dev arrives in England for higher studies. He stays with
Adit Sen and his English wife,Sarah. Dev gives up the idea of studying and starts looking for a
job. Unable to find any, he thinks of returning to India. But it is well settled Adit Sen who
decides to leave London. Meanwhile, Dev manages to find a job and stays back. In this novel
the common problems of England ‘Racism’ has shown widely. The treatment meted out to
Indians disturbs Dev.

Fasting Feasting, Anita Desai’s famous novel, shows the contrast between two completely
opposite cultures. Fasting on one hand represents Indian cultural values and feasting stands
for American materialism on the other. The story revolves around a upper-middle class of
conservative family living near Bombay in the late 1970’s. There are two daughters in the
family, Uma and her younger sister Aruna their parents, called only Mama Papa or Mama Papa
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are the symbol of oppressiveforce in the family. They try to control their lives, by teaching
them domestic skill that every girl should learn. The father of the girls is a typical patriarchal
head who dominates every small aspect of his family life.

After Arun is born, Mama and Papa told Uma to leave school at the age of fifteen to look after
her baby brother. This came as a shock to uma, who loves attending her convent school. And
at the age of sixteen, Mama decides to marry her, but the things became more complicated
when the boy fell in love with Uma’s younger sister Aruna. After many failed attempts to marry
Uma Mama Papa give up searching groom for her. All the while, Uma becomes very isolated
as Mama Papa would not let her go anywhere. Now the whole attention shifts to Arun, who
has now a grown up boy. He wins a scholarship to study in America. He leaves for America and
reluctantly stays for some time with an American Patton’s family. In this novel Anita Desai
throws light upon gender performavity in a family setup where father is the oppressive force
who tries to control the lives of his daughters. It also explores the ties and gaps between Indian
and American culture.

Baumgartner’s Bombay in writing her tenth Novel, Anita Desai she was under influence of
many events like Nazi occupation of Europe in particular Germany the aftermaths of the
second world war, and Indian independence, and partition followed by large scale bloodshed.
This was the first novel which she wrote outside India. The central character in this novel is
Baumgartner, a Jew who fled to India from Germany after holocaust, suffer from severe
identity crisis. He can neither relate to German culture because in Germany his dark skin had
marked him the Jew, hence an outsider, nor in India he found his identity, although fair in
Indian soil, he was marked a firangi or a foreigner. So both lands refused to accept him. In
India he lands up in Calcutta during pre-partition era.

The novel revolves around a German Jew named Hugo Baumgartner who feels the holocaust
to Bombay, and finally to Calcutta. So the novel captures a diverse geographical and cultural
landscape. Life in Mumbai was full of struggle for him where he spent most of his time
wandering the sheets and searching Irani restaurants’ to get some leftover food to feed the
many cats in his home in ruins behind the Taj hotel. Hugo’s best friend was Chimanlal, an
Indian businessman, his only well-wisher and his patron. In Calcutta, he planned to work in
the timber industry, but his attempt to start a new life was made unsuccessful by Indian
authorities. Due to his pale skin colour, he was sent to prison along with other Nazi’s and was
declared a criminal, not a refugee. So his skin colour became his identity, and due to this he
becomes a victim anywhere he goes.

Throughout the novel, Hugo retains this status of an outsider, even when jailed. And when
communal riots broke out in Calcutta during a course of civil war between Hindu and Muslims,
Hugo escapes once again to Bombay. Where he began his hermit like life with his cats. And

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finally towards the end of the novel Huge is murdered, and it made no difference to anybody
except Lotte. who was the only person to mourn his death. The whole novel is permeated with
the themes of suffering, seclusion, alienation. The title Baumgartner’s Bombay is quiet ironic,
as it seem to imply that Bombay was a place where Hugo belonged to. However, Bombay had
never accepted him. His life was full of struggle there and he was always considered an
outsider.

Journey to Ithaca 1995 a stirring and profound novel of spiritual quests and emotional exile.
Young and in love, Sophie and Matteo share a dissatisfaction with heir bourgeois/material
upbringing and a yearning for spirituality that bring them, like so many others to the spiritual
Guru of the world to India. But when they came face to face with the realities of life on an
ashram their mutual differences came to the surface. Sophie’s witness’s poverty and hardship
of Indian people which was a horrific experience for her. Mattes on the other hand in quest
for truth taken him away from Sophie and drew him closer to the mother, a charismatic guru.
In order to get him back, Sophia decides to discover the truth about mother’s mysterious past
by travelling to more countries. For these three characters in the novel, their journey becomes
more meaningful than the destination.

This novel also explores the west’s fascination with Indian spiritually through the story of this
European couple. But during this journey they undergo identity crisis, and individual’s quest
for fulfillment. Taking its title from CP Canafy’s well known poem, the novel’s theme also
mirrors the poems message as it describes Odysseus’s return to Ithaca after the long war with
Troy.

TONI MORRISON
In American literature, one influential writer who deals with the issues of identity, culture,
gender etc through her writings is Toni Morrison. She is noted for her close observation of
experiences of black people. Morrison a renowned novelist, essayist, editor, teacher and
Professor at Princeton was born on Feb 18, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio, US. Her original name was
Chloe Anthony Wofford. She received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993, being the first
African- American to get this prestigious prize. Morrison authored 11 novels. Brought up in an
African- American tradition she inherited a profound love and praise for black culture.

Toni Morrison’s works revolve around African-Americans who are engulfed with a strange
sense of inferiority complex in the midst of American society. The black women are the worst
sufferers because they have to carry the double burden of gender and race and they face
subjugation even by their own community. Among her famous works are; her first novel, the
bluest eyes, Beloved and Song of Solomon.

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Bluest Eyes Morrison’s first novel the bluest eyes which came out in 1970 is a poignant story
of a black girl, who is obsessed by the white standards of beauty and longs to have blue eyes,
in a desperate wish to be acceptable by white society but ironically becomes a victim of the
same society. The setting of the novel is Lorain, Ohio, US, 1941. The story unfolds the tragic
life of a young, quiet passive African American girl Pecola. Because of her black skin colour,
she was regarded ‘ugly’ and was looked down with despise even by her brown skinned
classmates and neighbors whose conditions was no better than her. Unable to cope with such
a humiliation gradually she develops an inferiority complex losing her self esteem. She was
made to believe that being black was bad and she begins to equate beauty with white skin,
blonde hair and blue eyes, all American standards of beauty.

In Lorain, Ohio Pecola lives with the family of a nine year old girl Claudia Macteer, after her
house was burned down by her alcoholic and abusive father. Infact Pecola had a very unstable
childhood, as she had grown up always watching her parents fight with each other, both
verbally physically. So in a way she is devoid of parental love and care. Her only hope in life is
to have blue eyes that can at least earn her a life of respect and admiration. In the process she
loses her identity and in a confused state of mind she can neither relate to black culture nor
to white culture. As a result she faces identity crisis.

The process victimization of Pecola reaches climax when in a tragic incident, her own drunken
father rapes her, an event which completes her exploitation. But this is not enough, she gets
pregnant after her father rapes her for a second time. Towards the end of the novel, Pecola
gives birth to a child, who dies prematurely. So the story ends on a tragic note. So who is the
real culprit behind the exploitation of Pecola-whether it is the obsession with false beauty
standards, imitation or mimicry on the part of the black people or patriarchal dominance of
gender- these are some questions being raised in this novel.

Tar baby another novel written by Toni Morrison on black identity. It shows the quest for self
identity of Jadine Childs, the central character who has accepted and embraced without
protest and question the construct of the white society. At the age of twelve, she lost her
parents and with that her bond with African American cultural heritage was broken. Ondine
and Sydney, the aunt and uncle who looked after the orphaned child, widened the gap by
sending her to exclusive private school. As she grows up in this kind of white atmosphere,
adult Jadine becomes a part of it. Set in the late 1970’s Tar baby explores the sexual, racial
and social tensions associated with the individual’s journey to self autonomy and self
realization.

The novel starts when son (William Green) escape from a merchant ship to passing yacht and
reaches the nearest dry land in the Caribbean islands where Street family lives. He hides in the
sheet’s home for days until Margaret sheet finds him in her closet. This was turning point in

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the novel which shakes the street world. Valerian Street, a wealthy, retired businessman lives
on Caribbean island, where he has created his own world. He controls his wife Margaret, his
elderly black servants, Sydney and Ondine, and even Jadine. After son was caught by Margaret
in her closet, Valerian instead of calling police, invites son to stay in his guest room. Sydney
and Ondine are not happy with this decision. They have spent their entire lives serving Valerian
family and have never gotten chance to go even near to guest house. So it was quite unfair on
the part of Valerian to offer the room to someone who broke into the house. Meanwhile,
Sydney and Ondine’s niece, a25 year old model named Jade, falls in love with son. Later they
decide to leave to live in New York. Son wants to marry Jade, and move to the town in Florida,
where he grew up among black community. But Jade is not prepared for this kind of life as she
has big dreams to earn money and see the world. Son feels that Jade has internalized the
white culture to a great degree and so eventually their relationship is broken.

Beloved is inspired by true story of a slave woman, Margaret Garner, who in 1856 escaped
from a Kentucky plantation with her husband, Robert, and their children. They took refuge in
Ohio, but their owner and law officers discover them. But what is shocking, Margaret killed
her young daughter to save her from life of slavery. In the novel, the name of the character of
mother is Sethe. She is an extremely devoted mother, who flees with her children from an
abusive owner known as “school teacher”, they are caught, and in a very difficult move she
tries to kill her children but only her two year daughter dies, and the owner fully convinced
that Sethe is mad, decides not to take her back. She later has “Beloved” inscribed on her
daughter’s tombstone. Although she wanted to inscribe “Dearly Beloved” on the tomb but she
is left with no energy to “pay” for these two words because each word cost her ten minutes
of sex with the engraver.

The novel Beloved was published in 1987 and won Pulitzer Prize in 1988. The story revolves
around a slave woman, Sethe a victim of slavery who in a vain effort to escape slavery, puts
an end to her daughter’s life. Beloved is Toni Morrison’s most acclaimed story. The fact that it
is based on a true story makes it all the more horrifying and shocking. There is a strange kind
of identity crisis faced by Sethe, resulting from the horrors of slavery.

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 Review of Literature
Review of literature provides useful directions and helpful suggestions for proper
investigation. It provides familiarity to the researcher with what is already known and what is
still unknown. I have reviewed the following research papers, seminars and research thesis for
my research:-

1. Sufferings of the uprooted individuals: A study of Anita Desia’s novels Bye Bye
Blackbird and Baumgartner’s Bombay.

Language in India, volume 15, 12 December 2015.

Mrs. V.Krishnaveni.

Findings: The researcher in this paper has shown the dilemmas of uprooted individuals
through the portrayal of the central characters Dev in Bye Bye Blackbird and Hugo
Baumgartner in Baumgartner Bombay. In the novel cultural and geographical displacement
make the major characters Dev and Hugo, and the minor characters Adit and Lotte alienated
and lonely in spite of their repeated attempts towards adjustments they suffer from problems
like identity crisis, a sense of alienation largely a result of cultural and racial prejudices.

2. Crisis of identity: A study of Anita Desai and Divakaruni’s novels.

Pune research – an international general in English.
Volume II, issue V, September-October 2016.
Dr. Kalpna Vijay.

Findings: The above paper studies the Indian immigrants to the other countries who
have multi cultural identities, which are not fixed. The researcher has taken up Anita
Desai’s novel Bye Bye Blackbird and Divakarun’si novel the mistress of spices for her
study. Through a deep study of the central characters in these novels the complexity
of the problem of identity crisis that the Indian immigrants face in an alien country has
been exhibited.
3. Anita Desai’s Diasporic experience in Baumgartner Bombay.
Langlit-An international peer reviewed open access journal.
Volume II, Issue II, November 2015.
Dr. Abha Pandey and Dr. Bhavna Shrivastava.

Findings: The researcher has attempted to examine the Diasporic factors that have led
to the displacement in life of a Jew named Hugo Baumgartner, a simple old man who

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 finally finds place to live at Bombay in India but remains a foreigner even after living
thirty years there due to his skin colour and experiences identity crisis, loneliness,
nostalgia and uprootedness Desai has focused on the cultural agony of this character.
4. Anita Desai’s Bye Bye Blackbird: A diasporic hot soup of cultural conjunction.
International journal of Advanced Educational Research,
Volume III, Issue I, January 2018.
Dr. Madhu Jindal.

Findings: The novel Bye Bye Blackbird by Anita Desai is a good novel based on
interaction between eastern and western culture and the resultant cultural clash and
identity crisis emerging out of it. We find the matching and mismatching of two
cultures through the character of the novel. Anita Desai has presented the condition
and dilemmas of the immigrants in England who are filled with mixed feeling of love
and hate for each other’s.
5. Reflection of cultural identity in Anita Desai’s Bye Bye Blackbird.
Journal of Higher Education and Research society: A referred international journal.
Volume V, Issue II, October 2017.
Sanjay Haribhau Zagade.

Findings: Anita Desai allows her characters to grow independently. She reflects a
serious intellectual evaluation of the character rather than an object of more
amusement. She deserves a man in action and not passive man in order to reveal the
conscious mind in formation of cultural identity in order to unleash their inner realities
of her characters.
6. Globalization and multiculturalism: Defining the new universalism in selected Text
of Samuel Selvon, V.S Naipaul and Anita Desai.
Athens Institute for education and research ATINER’s conference paper series.
LIT 2014-1537.
Sarah Anyang Agbor.

Findings: Anita Desai’s novel Fasting Feasting (1991) embodies the dualism of
self/other in its treatment of male/female relationship in India. Melanie, the rebellious
daughter of the Pattons is the anti thesis of Uma, who is a suppressed and submissive
Indian girl. The cultural difference between upbring of the two girls is evident from the
fact that Melanie has privileges that Uma is denied. Desai juxtaposes her characters to
show contrast between the Indian and American cultures. Each character in the Indian
context can be compared and contrasted with another in the American context for

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 example Papa’s authoritative nature can be contrasted with Mr. Patton’s liberal
attitude.
Similarly other writers like V.S. Naipul, Selvon have revealed Diaspora paradigms as
evident in the lives of their characters. The process through which immigrant
characters negotiate their identity and strike a compromise with the demands of living
in the new adopted land as well as struggle to retain the identity of the home land
creates a new hybrid identity or a new universalism.
7. Diaspora revelationin Anita Desai’s journey to Ithaca.
Lapis Lazuli- An international literature journal (LLILJ)
Volume IV, No II, 2014.
Komal Rakwal, Neetu Sharma.

Findings: The present paper throws light on the experiences of immigrants as shown
in Anita Desai novel journey to Ithaca. Anita Desai has wonderfully shown the search
of Sophi and Matteo’s spiritual truth in India who are both western’s and revels the
uncertainty of their Diaspora experience. The driving force for their immigration to
India is religion. Displacement here is seen as some kind of blessing because it gave
them an opportunity to grow to materiality as a person. So this journey is spiritual
journey to one’s own inner self. This journey makes them wiser to the true affair of
things.
8. Quest for travel in Anita Desai’s journey to Ithaca and the Zigzag way.
Language in India, Volume III, 9 September 2013.
Anita.M.

Findings: This paper studies how Anita Desai aims at self fulfillment through the cause
of travel to a different country in the novel journey to Ithaca and how travel is used to
give life to past of one’s roots in the novel the zigzag way. Travel gives a chance to
break all boundaries you that keep you in a kind of prison the alienation restlessness
and loneliness of the modern life are exposed through the portrayal of character like
Sophie and Matteo.
9. Diaspora experience between the creation and the creator: A closer look at the
Diaspora connected character in Anita Desai’s “Fasting Feasting”.
Quest international multi disciplinary research journal.
Volume I, Issue II, December 2012.
Arun Craspar.

Findings: In the present paper the researcher examines the Diasporic experiences
presented by Anita Desai through a deep study of Indian custom, beliefs, religion and

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 socio-cultural attitude of various characters. She beautifully portrays the character
Arum to expose his alienation in decisiveness and his inclination to his new mark of
identification in the new country. However he receives western education he could
not sever his roots from India and Indianess. As an immigrant, he wants to be identified
as an Indian in every sense. His food habits have changed but he is still Indian from
within.
10. Identity crisis, Isolation and Gender bias in Anita Desai’s Fasting Feasting.
The criterion- An international journal in English
Volume VIII, Issue-III, June 2017.
Radhakrishnan.R.

Findings: This paper focuses on “Plurality and differences” in Anita Desai novel fasting
feasting. The novel deals with some issues like gender and social roles. Uma is just like
a slave, who is brought up, educated and conditioned only with marriage as the end.
Arun younger brother of Uma, is another important character in this novel who is sent
to USA for higher education. He finds it difficult to adjust with his classmates explores
identity crisis, alienation, gender bias as experienced by various characters during the
course of the novel.
11. Title: Locating home and identity-diasporic consciousness in select fiction of Anita
Desai and Kiran Desai.
Researcher: Kiran Jaswal- Guide- Rekha Sharma, 2014, H.P University.

Findings: The current thesis examines the ways in which Anita Desai and Kiran Desai’s
concept of home and identity is shaped and maintained in relation to diasporic
consciousness of various characters in the cultural milieu of an alien land adopted
country. The book throws light on the journey of identity and home. These writers
show how the process of migration produces a psychological vacuum which they
convey through language. Both speak about the notion of alienation and identity loss,
which is experienced by the diaspora communities in their adopted country. This study
discusses the diasporic sensitivity and the characters’ search for an identity in the
select four novels of Anita Desai viz. Bye Bye Blackbird, Baumgatner’s Bombay, Fasting
Feating, Journey to Ithoca and Kiran Desai’s famous novel The inheritance of loss.
Bye Bye Blackbird explores diasporic colour in relation to cross-cultural conflicts. It
throws light on cultural alienation faced by Indian immigrants in England. The story
revolves around two immigrants in London Adit and Dev and their struggle at
negotiating identity in an alien land that are totally in contrast to their Indian values.
They try to bridge the gap but ends up in a strange sense of identity crisis.

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 Baumgartner’s Bombay with a German protagonist is set in a number of places starting
from Berlin and Venice and ending in Calcutta and Bombay. It is a deep study of
wandering German Jew Hugo Baumgartner’s search for a place of his own in the
cosmopolitan world of Bombay. Baumgartner Bombay expresses fragmentation when
issues of identity, home and culture have upper hand over human values. It shows the
struggles and anguish of Hugo who experiences a sense of alienation even after fifty
years living in India.
Fasting Feasting exposes the similarities and differences between Indian and American
culture. One of the main characters Arun migrates to America but finds that the world
of America differs from his world in India in number of ways.
Journey to Ithaca presents a conflict between self or other, centre or margins, native
culture and the host culture. The novel being with Matteo’s spiritual search, turn into
Sophie’s personal quest. These two western characters go through a process of
assimilation where the different cultural communities interact with each other and
form a new hybrid culture.
Kiran Desai’s the inheritance of loss presents inheritance as products of colonization
and immigration, projecting that imperialism and immigration are not different but
internalized warning of identities. This novel shows her defense on the problem of
assimilation. Inheritance of loss shifts between first and third world showing the pain
of exile.
Thus the purpose of this thesis is to project the various ways that the two writers of
the diaspora look back at. Looking back for them is both a traumatic as well as
satisfying experience.
12. Identity crisis in Toni Morrison novel ‘The bluest eye’
research journal of English language and literature (RJELAL).
Volume VII, Issue I 2019 (January – March).
B. Iswarya and M. Kavitha.

Findings: The paper shows how Toni Morrison has delved deep into the tragic effects
of false identity of black people living in America. In the novel Bluest eye Morrison
shows how a black girl Pecola has a fake concept of beauty which equates it with blue
eyes and fair skin colour. But it is quiet tragic that her longing for blue eyes eventually
causes her destruction. Pecola tries to conform to the hegemonic western standard of
beauty, but badly fails in her attempts. Thus novel tries to deconstruct the hegemonic
ideology and racial identity to give place to dignified identity for African American of
twentieth century.
13. The experience of culture clash in Toni Morrison’s Tar Baby.
International Journal of Humanities and social science invention.

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 Volume II, Issues VII, July 2013.
Dr. M. Ravichand.

Findings: This paper explores the layers of America’s racial social system, which is
facilitates by a capitalistic social set up. Toni Morrison novel Tar Baby explores the
conflict between one’s past and present and how abusive power can destroy the
individual life as well as society. This novel unfolds the complex condition of society
such as misuse of power, the relation between black and white, rich and poor, men
and women, civilization and nature.
14. Cultural haunting in Tom Morrison’s Beloved.
English language, literature and culture.
Volume I, Issue III, September 2016.
Mohammad Shaaban Ahmed Deyab.
Findings: This process compares slavery to a ghost which haunts the minds of African
American. So in the novel Beloved, the ghost of the child appears again and again
which is actually symbolic of ghost of slavery. Morrison has used the technique of
magic realism in the novel. By showing the impact of slavery on black characters such
as Sethe, Paul D, and the community, this novel revives the past history of slavery.
15. Social and cultural alienation in Tom Morrison’s Tar Baby.
Sun Yat-Sen Journal of Humanities.
2010, Lina Hsu.

Findings: In this paper the researcher has tried to get an insight into the Mouison’s
intention to express the ambiguity revolving around African- American people’s
attempts at gaining self-knowledge. By portraying the love story of son and Jadine,
Morrison has widened the concept of alienation by including not only social, but also
racial, cultural and gender issues.
16. The Diaspora Mimics: A postcolonial reading of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.
IJELLH- International Journal of English Language Literature in Humanities.
Volume VI, No III (2018).
Anjan K Behera.

Findings: This paper discusses how characters in Bluest eye particularly Pecola face an
identity crisis because of their mimicry. They experience alienation from society. The
Bluest eye thus depicts the folly of mimicry. The various iaspora characters are under
the influence of cultural hegemony with the result that they end up hating themselves.
This mimicry of white culture eventually leads to the downfall of these diaspora
characters.

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17. Toni Morrison’s Beloved and The Bluest Eye: A cultural materialistic approach.
International letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences
Volume 30, 2014.
Mina Aghakhani Shahrezaee, Zahra Jannessari Ladani
The current paper aims to investigate two novels of Toni Morrison namely Beloved and
The Bluest Eye . Beloved contains many cultural materialistic concerns like race,
gender, slavery etc. This novel came up in 1970, at a time when new movement of
‘Black is Beautiful’ gained momentum .The Bluest Eye ,second novel of Toni Morrison
under study discusses not only issues related to race ,but also social, ethical and
psychological issues about race, the female body etc. The elements of race, social class,
slavery and sex are very important in Toni Morrison novels, and so in the light of this
she makes readers aware of the difficulties that African Americans cope with in their
lives.
18. The theme of identity and search for self in the novel of Toni Morrison.
Anupam Singh, Vinod Kumar Singh (2014).
Findings: In the present thesis the researcher examiner how the novels of Toni
Morrison deal with the theme of identity and search for self. The first novel of Morrison
under deep scrutiny is the Bluest eye. It explores the quest for self of a black girl Pecola
Breed love, who is fascinated with the dominant cultural myth of female beauty as an
opportunity for self-declaration. Morrison shows the horror of black people falling
prey to the fake white values that cause great damage to them.
The third chapter studies another novel Sula. The title character Sula is the most radical
of all Morrison’s heroines, who refuses to accept both the black patriarchal definition
of a woman, for defining self. Morrison stresses Sula’s need to define herself within
her own culture that is curbed by her own communities inability to acknowledge Sula’s
individually that culminates in her death.
The next novel of Morrison is Tar Baby which depicts the love affair between Jadine
and Williamson (son) Green. Tar Baby here is Jadine, brought up amidst white culture,
and is gradually alienated from her relatives, her black history, and her culture. The
focus of the novel is Jadine’s conflict with her African American culture, history and
identity, and the resultant identity crisis.
The next novel under study is Beloved. It seems that almost every character is longing
for his or her identity. Beloved may be read as a novel to seek the solution of the black
people who suffer from the class exploitation and racial oppression.
The last novel under study is Jazz. Morrison has used the model of Jazz to examine the
experiences of the black people during the 1920’s a period known as the Jazz age. The

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 novel portrays the story of Joe Trace and his wife, Violet both of whom live their life
with the traumas of their past experience and hence suffer from identity crisis.

19. Morrison’s Beloved a Subaltern study.

International journal of English and literature(IJEL), Vol 2, issue 3,Sept 2012

Nabarun Ghosh

: The paper examines how Toni Morrison in her novel Beloved portrays the Subaltern by
skillfully projecting their emotional state.Through this novel Morrison is trying to justify the
act of killing of a child by her mother Sethe, in an attempt to save her from a life of slavery.
However she is unable to forget this act, which burdens her mind for almost eighteen
years.Morrison has succeeded in giving voice to the traumas of Sethe as a Subaltern in this
novel.

20 . Toni Morrison’s Beloved- Identity essay.

Christina Davis in her famous essay”Beloved : a question of identity” explores the issue of
identity from three perspectives viz historical, texttual and an authorial perspective.She
discusses how text itself expresses issues of identity.Davis explores the theme of identity
particularly in relation to slavery in the novel Beloved by Toni Morrison.

RESEARCH GAP
No extensive research has been conducted on Anita Desai and Toni Morrison from the
Diaspora and cultural perspective. The research proposal will explore the post colonial
themes like identity crisis, immigration or Diaspora consciousness, experienced by
various characters in select novels of the two authors. Furthermore no comparative
study has been carried out on the works of two authors using cultural concepts of
mimicry, hybridity, and cultural hegemony etc.

OBJECTIVES:-

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PROPOSED METHODOLOGY
The present research proposal will be analyzed from the post-colonial themes of
Diaspora, identity crisis, racism, gender. The cultural theory will act as a minor theory
to examine the works of the two authors from cultural perspective. Moreover, various
theorists related to above theories will be taken into account for an intense scrutiny
of these works. Furthermore, the material will be collected from various journals such
as JSTOR, SJR, RESEARCH GATE, WEB OF SCIENCE, and various other e-sources. Besides
this, thee researcher will visit various national universities such as Himachal Pradesh
University, Central University Dharamshala and Punjab University.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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