THE TRAUMA OF DISPLACEMENT: A STUDY OF MEERA SYAL’S ANITA AND ME
Abstract
Meera Syal is a second-generation immigrant residing in the United Kingdom. In her novels, she highlights the challenges faced by the people after the partition of India and Pakistan. Mass migration took place with the formation of two independent dominions, the ‘Republic of India’ and the ‘Islamic Republic of Pakistan.’ Due to the religious conflict many left their homeland and went overseas and settled in far off nations and never chose to return again. In the host land, they face issues of discrimination and unfair treatment due to racial distinctiveness. Through her writings, Syal articulates the personal experience of the refugees and the exploitative tendencies of the Whites. In Anita and Me (1996), Syal highlights the problems and issues of intolerance, narrow-minded and chauvinistic behaviour towards the minority group due to their racial and ethnic disparities. This paper is an attempt to examine the psychological challenges faced by the partition survivors in their newly adopted land.
Keyword : Identity crisis, partitioning of minds, psychological damage, racism, trauma and displacement
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References
• Assmann, Corinna. Doing Family in Second-Generation British Migration Literature. De Gruyter, 2018. • Mahto, Mohan Lal. “Cultural Conflicts and Hyphenated Existence in Meera Syal’s Anita • and Me.” Ars Artium: An International Peer Reviewed-cum-Refereed Research Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, vol. 4, Jan. 2016, pp. 43-49, ISSN: 2319-7889. • Syal, Meera. Anita and Me. Haper Collins, 1996.