Plurality Redefined: The Emergence of The New Woman in Mukherjee, Divakaruni and Lahiri

Abstract

Diasporic studies is not only limited to the physical movements of a group of people from one place to another; rather, they are more effectively viewed as the analysis of the relation among individuals and communities within a specific spatial-geographical formation. A feminist approach to diasporic studies attempts to configure issues of gender, race, class, and nation, among other identitarian markers, with a view to mapping the identity construction of women based on inequity and differences. Many subsets of ideas are linked to diasporic feminist studies among which postcolonial feminism, postmodern feminism, and transnational feminism deal with questions of plurality, difference, and empowerment. Some South Asian female writers in the United States of America delineate how the questions of gender, race, and nationality converge to solidify the individuality of fictional South Asian female diasporic characters in the USA. Bharati Mukherjee, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, and Jhumpa Lahiri are some of those writers who write about the complex positioning of women from a particular historic-cultural background in diasporic space with regard to their involvement with native communities, and how this involvement is shaped by significant inside and outside cultural, political, and racial aspects. Theorists like Julia Kristeva, Judith Butler, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Avtar Brah, Linda Nicholson, Jane Flax, Inderpal Grewal, and many others have interpreted the complex subject positions of women in relation to new global realities arising from migrations and transnationalism. These epistemological interpretations complement the fictional writings with a discursive framework. Thus, both diasporic writings and films depict how the identity formation of women in the diaspora is refashioned by a conflict between tradition and modernity. The destabilized identity of women, originating from their cultural sensibilities, and as a result of exposure to disconcerting lived experiences, has become a consistent theme of diasporic fictions by women writers. In this dissertation, I study the identity formation of fictional South Asian women characters through the lens of postcolonial, postmodern, and diasporic feminism. Postcolonial feminism focuses on the particular issues involving women from disempowered, marginal positions whereas postmodern feminism emphasizes the plurality and differences among women. Diasporic feminism synthesizes the former issues furthering them with discussions on intersectionality and transnationalism. Whereas intersectionality shows the impossibility of reducing one’s identity to a single definition, transnationalism deciphers how diasporic condition enables one to simultaneously belong to multiple geographical and psychological spaces. Border crossing and interstitial existence occupy the transnational study of fictional migrant women. In the dissertation, I read the characters as resilient and buoyant in spite of having to face puzzling choices and poignant negotiations. These characters are sometimes devastated and broken because of being exposed to conflicting situations that make them choose between the known and the unknown, between tradition and modernity. However, they somehow devise a strategy to overcome their situations and emerge as new women who are capable of taking responsibilities for the choices they make.