Postmodern elements in two novels by diasporic Muslim writers : Mohja Kahf's The girl in the tangerine scarf and Mohsin Hamid's The reluctant fundamentalist /
This qualitative research studies postmodernism, postmodern culture and the postmodern mind in two novels written by diasporic Muslim writers: Mohja Kahf's The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf (2009) and Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007). By focusing on postmodern elements, th...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Kuala Lumpur :
Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and Human Sciences, International Islamic Universiti Malaysia,
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Click here to view 1st 24 pages of the thesis. Members can view fulltext at the specified PCs in the library. |
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| Summary: | This qualitative research studies postmodernism, postmodern culture and the postmodern mind in two novels written by diasporic Muslim writers: Mohja Kahf's The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf (2009) and Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007). By focusing on postmodern elements, this research investigates the lives of immigrants who came from South Asia and Syria, as well as the major challenges these immigrants encounter in adapting to American culture. Immigrants face problems such as a yearning for home, trying to find a sense of belonging in a new land and a sense of displacement. However, this study would like to add to the discussion that not only do the immigrants in the novels face these problems but they are also confronted by additional challenges while trying to navigate postmodern American culture. This study attempts to understand the hurdles that immigrants face due to postmodernism and to study the ways in which they are attempting to survive a culture that promotes constant changes and instability. This research also explores how postmodern culture affects the thoughts of individuals who live in the age of postmodernism by trying to understand the postmodern mind. In addition, this research analyses how postmodern ideals influence social relationships between the immigrants and Americans in the novels. A thorough analysis of the two texts reveals that the authors acknowledge the differences of Arab and Pakistani cultures in comparison to postmodern American culture. The acceptance of their American identity is one of the major challenges that the immigrants face in addition to the other challenges of accepting multiple identities or multiple selves. The findings of this research suggest that immigrants can overcome these challenges by assimilating into the host culture and accepting their multiple selves whereas repatriation to the country of origin is the solution for immigrants who reject their multiple selves and are unable to cope with postmodern American culture. |
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| Physical Description: | x, 85 leaves : ill. ; 30cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (leaves 80-85). |