The Complexities of Alienation, Otherness, and Marginalization in Miral Al-Tahawy’s Novel Brooklyn Heights (Published)
This paper is an attempt to bind the reader to the complexities of otherness and marginalization as trauma experienced by the protagonist and other immigrants in the America depicted in Brooklyn Heights[i]. In all of their complexities and nuances that this paper seeks to explore and discuss these concepts, otherness, alienation, and marginalization, in light of Homi Bhahba’s concept of otherness and Daphne Grace’s theorization on the geographical senses of ‘belonging’ or ‘dislocation’. As such, since Al-Tahawy’s narrative focuses on spaces of otherness and marginalization, this paper aims to reveal how the novelist tends towards the deeply personal, and creates interesting transnational connections through a wide cast of multi-racial immigrants and refugees. The paper further exposes how Al-Tahawy, through her compelling and masterful style, captures the confusions and conflicts of marginalized immigrants and how otherness and marginalization, as experiences of social and psychological disjunction, lead to cultural alienation in America; how attempts at assimilation in a new host country even further highlight the sense of loss and alienation, especially if the immigration from the original home country takes as a result of a traumatic event; and whether or not assimilation necessarily nullifies one’s ethnicity or means total disappearance or “dissolving” into the mainstream.
Citation: Farouq Rezq Bekhit Sayyid (2022) The Complexities of Alienation, Otherness, and Marginalization in Miral Al-Tahawy’s Novel Brooklyn Heights, European Journal of English Language and Literature Studies, Vol.10, No.3, pp.1-15
Keywords: Acculturation, Assimilation, Otherness, Trauma, al-tahawy, brooklyn heights, marginalization
Confused Identities: A Diaspora Study of Aamer Hussein’s Cactus Town and Other Stories and Monica Ali’s Brick Lane (Published)
Confused identity under the diasporic subject has become a crucial entity of the postmodern age that is creating the socio-political and economic interventions resulted by diasporic space. This space paves a new way for diaspora-native relationship; leads towards identity crisis of the diasporas, pinching question of hybrid identity and ultimately, towards assimilation. This research paper is going to explore the dispersion identity of diasporas by living in the host land as a product of native’s otherness and the sense of belonging to the home in Hussain’s literary enterprise, Cactus Town and Other Stories (2002) and Ali’s novel, Brick Lane (2003). The paper unearths how homing desire of the dispersed diaspora is the product of the otherness of the natives and their issues related to conflicting identity by focusing on Brah’s concept of native superiorized diasporic space: a diversion of the interpretation of natives.
Keywords: Assimilation, Otherness, confused identity, diasporic space, homing desire, hybrid identity