Postcolonial Hybridity And Existential Anxiety In Bharati Mukherjee's Desirable Daughters: An Analysis Of Diasporic Consciousness
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Abstract
This postcolonial hybridity and existential anxiety are explored in Bharati Mukherjee's Desirable Daughters with the perspective of the diasporic consciousness. It discusses the process of creating hybrid identities and psychological conflicts among migrants due to migration, cultural displacement and the encounter of India's tradition with its modernity. In this study a qualitative and interpretative method is used to capture or examine the experiences of alienation, displacement, negotiation of identity, development of the self, and cultural belonging of Tara, a postcolonial literary theory is used for the analysis. The findings reveal that diasporic identity is not fixed but fluid and continuously being built, unbuilt and rebuilt in various ways in the context of memory, migration, and in the context of transcultural encounters. The research also reveals the continuing process of the conflict between cultural values and the present social situation generating existential anxiety that forces people to engage in multiple negotiations of identity, and to seek to belong and be autonomous. It argues that Desirable Daughters is a rich depiction of postcolonial hybridity and diasporic consciousness and is a good example of complex processes of identity formation in multicultural and transnational contexts.
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