Fragmented Selves: Exploring Identity and Alienation in Postcolonial English Literature

Abstract

This article discusses the use of identity as a fractured and fluid notion in postcolonial. English literature. It shows the comparative roles of migration, colonial influence and cultural. tradition. It focuses on Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. The experiences of estrangement of characters in the manoeuvring through different cultural systems are discussed in the. study. Achebe puts a spotlight on how the Igbo society and individuality failed under colonialism. control. Existing as a diaspora in a modern Western context may be psychologically stressing, since Lahiri depicts. Two are the concept of hybridity offered by Homi Bhabha and the criticism of the subaltern offered by Gayatri Spivak. examples of postcolonial theories utilised in this analysis to analyse how naming, silence and intergenerational conflict show split identities. The theme approach of qualitative research shows that there is a substance of pain, inner pain, the silent pain that both authors convey. during changes and attack societal imposition through storytelling. Finally, the study argues that. the postcolonial literature offers a distinctive context of memory, identity re-construction, and. alienation. Achebe and Lahiri prove how through their extraordinary emotional and symbolic depth. the postcolonial mind is obsessed with the sense of historical and cultural discontinuity as well as being omnipresent.