Narratives of displacement in space and time: a study of Brick Lane, The girl in the tangerine scarf, The lowland and Americanah

Abstract

As contemporary writers, Monica Ali, Mohja Kahf, Jhumpa Lahiri and Chimamanda Adichie focus, in their respectively novels Brick Lane (2003), The Girl in The Tangerine Scarf (2006), The Lowland (2013) and Americanah (2013), on the representation of the lives of diasporic subjects as well as on the reconfiguration of the female characters gender roles. The diaspora space approximates the different diasporic movements portrayed in the novels studied here since, in the process of relocation, the subjects are usually portrayed as dislocated and alienated. As far as gender roles are concerned, the specificity of each diasporic movement can prove to have different results. This dissertation investigates the influence of the categories of space and time on thereconfiguration of gender roles with an emphasis on the identity constituents that mediate the transformations observed in the characters. In particular, this work emphasizes the importance of certain identity constituents in this process. Focusing on how trauma, race and religioninterfere in the process of gender reconfiguration, this work analyzes how the specificity of these identity constituents are relevant for a discussion on gender and diasporic movements in contemporary literature.