Bharti Mukherjee's Jasmine: An Innovative Diasporic Representation

Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine: an Innovative Diasporic Representation

Diasporic literature reflects challenges, aspirations and anxieties of a person who migrates to a new land. The first generation of all immigrants always suffers from a broad sense of nostalgia, and the first generation immigrants tend to cling strenuously together in order to preserve their cultural, religious and linguistic identity. Preserving their identity is one of their chief concerns. (Anand viii)

The understanding of migration and existing in a Diaspora have aroused active engagement in Postcolonial literature, criticism and theory. Writers like Buchi Emecheta, Amitav Ghosh, Bharati Mukherjee have become famous in Western literary Criticism whereas theorist like Homi K Bhabha, Paul Gilory, Stuart Hall introduced new critical thinking and developed relationship between literature, history and politics. In the modern times the world is globalizing, people have to move from one place to the other to earn their livelihood or other multiple reasons thereby creating interdependence upon each other. Whether these migrations have been out of choice or forced, the idea of Diaspora in particular has been prolific as far as the movement of people throughout the world, in real-life is concerned. The Diasporic studies see migration in terms of adaptation and creation—adaptation to changes, dislocations and transformations, and the creation of new forms of knowledge and different ways of examining the world. The Indian Diaspora in the West has experienced a physical displacement but there is little cause for them to feel exiled. The external circumstances of displacement become less important while the psychological and spiritual condition of the mind, gain promi...

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