TRANSNATIONALISM AND HYPHENATED IDENTITIES: A Study of Benyamin’s Mullappoo Niramulla Pakalukal and Nishabda Sancharangal
Authors : Anand.RAbstract
This research paper tries to explore and analyse the social, cultural and psychological impacts of migration through the study of Benyamin‘s novels- Mullappoo Niramulla Pakalukal and Nishabda Sancharangal. Migration brings about a change in the social, cultural and psychological circumstances, which often makes people feel alienated in their lives. They experience a sense of disillusionment and loss of past identity, which gradually leads them to psychological trauma. Diasporic life is characterised by features like nostalgic dislocation from the homeland, repeated
memories, estrangement, the notion of imaginary homeland, alienation and identity crisis in a multicultural society and so on. These novels deal with characters who are said to be hailing from various nations and who come in contact with each other to form a multicultural world, representing the modern globalized society. Diasporic identity is hyphenated; hybrid and collective for diasporic people are in an in-between state. Almost every immigrant experiences multiple losses, primarily, the loss of loved ones and motherland and secondarily, the loss of self-respect and identity. For the actualization of life in a strange world, one is compelled to uproot and reroot oneself. This paper aims to analyse the identity crisis of the major characters of the novels on the basis of their transformation in social, cultural and
psychological states.
Keywords: migration, hyphenated identity, existential crisis, alienation, loss
