From Aloofness of Expatriation to the Exuberance of Immigration: Bharati Mukherjee’s depiction of the migratory female subjects in her popular fiction

Abstract

Abstract

The female protagonists of Bharati Mukherjee’s earlier novels are characterized by their rootlessness and their incapacity to belong; while even their attempts to find roots are marked by violence and collision. Mukherjee as an expatriate writer says that she is ?writing about the here and now of America.? Her protagonists are either Indians living abroad or Indians who have come back home after a period of staying abroad. The novelist’s experience first in Canada and then in the U.S. have coloured the perceptions of her characters. The migratory female subject gets involved in an act of sustained self-removal from her native culture, balanced by a conscious resistance to total inclusion in the new host society. She is caught between cultures and this feeling of in-betweenness or being juxtaposed poses before her a challenge to maintain a balance between her affiliations. The trauma of displacement and dislocations result in a new narrative of identity and new discourse of