A Study Of Diasporic Sensibility And Acculturation In The Select Novels of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Abstract

Diaspora means people migrating from one country to another for a variety of motives. Therefore, those Indians, who are settled into another country, come under the umbrella of Indian Diaspora . Among these diasporic Indians, those who contribute to literature, writing about India and its Indianness are called as Indian Diasporic writers. Themes like insider-outsider, uprooting and re-rooting, longing for the motherland, recalling memories of the past, identity-crisis, homelessness and homesickness etc. are all a part of such literature of the Indian diaspora. newlineSouth Asian diasporic women writers are the modern voices in America s multi-ethnic literature. One amongst these noticeable voices is Chitralekha Banerjee Divakaruni. newlineThe present study of research attempts to critically review the oriental and the occidental ethos contradicting each other in the selective fictional works of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. She has penned down the existence of the immigrants. She has enriched the diasporic literature with a realistic portrayal of her female protagonists. She discusses the multiple strategies of survival in a multicultural society. She attempts to bring out the underlying tension between the desires of first generation immigrants, who embrace Indian culture and to those of their children, who are more inclined towards western philosophies. Chitra thus connects the traditional old generation to the modern, individualistic younger generation. She transposes the diasporic borderline experiences, cultural knots and various pressures of the host land. She accentuates the want of cultural amalgamation and various tactics of survival in an alien land. In the present study, five of her select novels are taken into consideration for reviewing diasporic sensibility and acculturation. newlineII. Purpose of the Study: newlineThe purpose of this study is to discover the ways in which Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni has woven her plots by depicting strong women characters and through them, to understand the plights of being an immigrant .