immigrant - desire to belong Flashcards
through love
trf
“Nostalgia was their crack cocaine.” and “She was disappearing into a powerful nostalgia.” = Hamid is eliciting the danger of nostalgia but more specifically, a nostalgia for a time that probably never even existed.
The comparison of nostalgia to crack cocaine helps to demonstrate the addictive and destructive power of these memories. Nostalgia affects all in the same way and it is a force that does not differentiate depending on the individual. Erica is a metonymy for America and therefore in showing that Erica is regressing into her past with Chris, (christianity?) Hamid is suggesting that likewise, America regresses post 9/11 into nostalgia.
-Changez notices the hold nostalgia has over his family and over America, which causes him to be reluctant to call either his home. The ambiguous ending of TRF, due to it being a first person dramatic monologue, means that Changez’s loyalties are never confirmed. Does he become a true fundamentalist or does his past fondness for America restrict him?
-Post 9/11 society caused America to have a greater focus on home life, higher church attendance, and increased expressions of patriotism such as the flying of American flags.
-Adam Kirsche = “The migrants’ experience of America serves as a route for American consciousness.”
brick lane
-“That night she dreams again of Gouripur.” = The structural device of recurring dreams and memories of Gouripur which interrupt the chronology of the narrative show the irresistible pull of home for Nazneen
-“That night she dreams again of Gouripur.” = The structural device of recurring dreams and memories of Gouripur which interrupt the chronology of the narrative show the irresistible pull of home for Nazneen.
-John Mcleod = “Home is a problematic concept, both in the past and in the present.”
-Nazneen’s home was never truly home as seen through the way her father sold her off for marriage and the loss of the home she found within her mother. The absence of a nurturing figure contrasts the usual warmth of home.
trf changez
“What sort of a man abandons his people in such circumstances? And what was I abandoning them for?” =
= Rhetorical questions convey how Changez’s collusion in American society, when America is goading India to start war in his country, attacks his sense of integrity and masculinity. The military buildup was initiated by India responding to a terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament on 13 December 2001, which India claimed that the attacks were carried out by two Pakistan-based terror groups. The US supported India as part of their “global war on terror.” The hostility of America serves as a route to his political consciousness as he comes to realise his allegiance should lie with his family and homeland.
brick lane
“If they went to Dhaka she could be with Hasina. Every nerve-ending strained towards it.”
The use of the third person limited emphasises the pull of home and family for immigrants, a pull which outweighs the benefits of life in a country which facilitates a better standard of life. Loyalty to your family and homeland can be linked to Changez’s feelings of guilt over ‘betraying’ his homeland. The metaphor of “every nerve ending straining” emphasises this pull but also the all encompassing homesickness Nazneen experiences.
-Explores the effect on the country which has been left behind. The letters from Dhaka in Brick Lane. The relationship with the old country is always one of ambivalence and ambiguity, the site of cultural disorientation.
trf
“Wore a starched white kurta over jeans.”
The past interacting with the present through the way Changez allows the culture of his homeland to interact with the culture of his host country. Hamid conveys the ease with which Changez can assume a hybrid identity pre 9/11. Changez takes advantage of the city as it is a cosmopolitan one.
-Pre 9/11 society= America was considered a supreme power in pre 9/11 society. Muslims were well integrated into the fabric of American society and were statistically one of the least targeted groups in the US.
Mohsin Hamid = “To be a human being and to be a hybrid being are the same thing.”
brick lane
“A red and gold sari hung out of a top floor flat in Rosemead block”
“A red and gold sari hung out of a top floor flat in Rosemead block” = How a past culture can interact with a present one through items of clothing. The beginning of the description is reminiscent of her home in Bangladesh however the colours are contrasted with the stark cityscape of her new home, creating a sense of defamiliarisation. While this can suggest a hybrid identity in the way the sari is set against the backdrop of a council estate it can also be foreshadowing the cultural conflict Nazneen may feel later in the novel.
-Homi K. Bhabha = “Hybrid identities…remain perpetually in motion.”
jende- behold the dreamers
‘no remnants of the fried ripe plantain he’d eaten for breakfast’
ridding himself of any of his origin and background so he can belong
small island
andrea levy
hortense classes herslf as having a skin tone of ‘warm honey’
vs ‘bitter chocolate hue’ of her mother’s
colorism and apperance
afro saxon woman
white superiority, eurocentric features
