Analyzing Psychoanalytical Perspective of Immigration and Marginalization: Hyphenated Diasporic Identities in Monica Ali’s Brick Lane

Abstract

This research explores the psychoanalytical aspects of the lives of South Asian immigrant characters in the novel Brick Lane (2003). The novel highlights the theme of migration, describing the shock of arrival, the process of settlement, and the subsequent problems involved in the transition from one country to another, as well as from a rural environment to an urban. This research explores cultural issues related to migrant diaspora living in London. The novel constructs a detailed exploration of the psychological responses of particular individuals to the traumas of migration and marginalization, alongside an investigation of the psychological roots of the current conflicts between different ethnic and religious groups. This research represents an interdisciplinary study, combining a detailed reading of Brick Lane with recent psychoanalytic analyses of personality development and the effects of geographical displacement and migration on the individual and collective psyche.  Salman Akhtar’s work on the psychological causes and consequences of migration is used as a major theoretical framework in this research. The novel is mainly concerned with the personal development of a protagonist Bangladeshi woman, Nazneen, in England. This paper presents the diasporic consciousness along with the psychoanalytical perspectives of the migrants of the South Asian region and how they face the issues of cultural ambivalence.