Identity Crisis and Resilience of Immigrants in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Queen of Dreams

Abstract

This paper explores the identity crisis of immigrants and focuses on one of the most profound themes of cultural displacement. Immigration to foreign nations and dislocation from the homeland has produced numerous studies on diasporic experiences in the recent post-colonial literature. The main objective of these writings is to explore immigrants’ internal conflicts, confusion, pain, and tension. This body of work has emerged as an inner voice of diasporic authors such as Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, Bharathi Mukherjee, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and many other renowned writers in the field. These writers expose their personal experiences and channel their identity crisis, alienation, mental trauma, dislocation, and a sense of belongingness and ties to their homeland, particularly India, into their work. Immigrants from other nations often perceive the United States of America as a land of promise. This notion makes them march toward this nation in pursuit of a better life. America provides numerous opportunities for aspiring immigrants who are in search of better lifestyles, job opportunities and economic liberty. However, migration often results in a loss of natural identity in the minds of the individuals and creates multiple concerns in their new life in the alien land. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Queen of Dreams (2004) addresses the identity crisis of first and second-generation immigrant communities. In her works, Divakaruni more sensitively handles feminine concerns of nativity, racial discrimination, generational and cultural conflicts and assaults. Her reflection on immigrants’ experiences exposes that trauma is a mental suffering rather than a physical one.