The Mimic Men(1967), The Lonely Londoners (1956)and Second-Class Citizen (1974) are three books highlighting questions of exile and alienation, both in physical form and figuratively. All of the novels contain characters who are all placed as marginal users of society at some point, and are forced to modify their lives consequently. The difficulties they are simply faced with, determine the 'new' identities they come to look at. Craib says that "The do it yourself, identity, becomes something to be revamped and relaunched at regular intervals ". The question of identification arises when there's a challenge to a set notion of who we could as themes, and identity is crucial in a capitalist traditional western culture and modern culture. Identity creation and creation is made more difficult through the role of colonialism, imperialism and post-colonialism. As Boehmer suggests in post-colonial literature issues, of individuality come to the fore by writers who are "Seeking self-representation, colonial nationalists designed Western european ideals of subjectivity and its own rhetoric of protection under the law " The nature of post-colonial discourse in questioning the worth of both the colonised subject matter and the colonising land make identity a area for question. By being exiled from other own 'home' cultures the theme of exile is figuratively portrayed as alienation, and leads to the representation of an seek out the self by those who are taken off cultural principles and norms. The visit a new identity, which allows the individuals to adjust and improve as content in their new area, is an integral theme in post-colonial books.
V. S. Naipaul's The Mimic Men, says the story of Ranjit "Ralph" Kirpal Singh, a forty-year- old Indian colonial standard, now surviving in exile from the tiny Caribbean island of Isabella. The story starts with Singh living considering how he his life is "the shipwreck which all my life I had sought to avoid ". The narrative is complicated and has no chronological order, Ralph reflects on the four main intervals of his life, as Nazereth points out that the book is divided into three main parts. Ralph is both a narrator and a participant in the narrative. He details himself through the various 'identities' he has experienced, as students, politician and today as a 'recluse'. As a young man in London Singh matches and marries Sandra, an British woman plus they go back to Isabella, where they gain extensive wealth and success. However, they feel alienated and have "a feeling of having been flung off of the world ". The next part of the novel, represents Singh's child years, his daddy also identifies that he is detached from his country of origins, condemned to being "shipwrecked " on a tiny Caribbean island.
Singh's changing identification is illustrated in college, when he discards his first name Ranjit, towards Ralph and breaks his surname 'Kripalsingh' into two brands 'Kripal' and 'Singh '. This is seen as his first action of 'mimicking', as Boehmer suggests ". dominant cultural myths and dialectsEuropean conceptual customs in history, beliefs, literature. . . got first to be displaced by an work of repetition, even 'slavish' copying. Success lay in the camouflage and subterfuge " This is a key second of desperation in endeavoring to integrate into his area in fracturing his surname into two 'manageable' halves, discarding an essential personal information label and changing from the Indian to the 'English' or 'international' name Ralph. He thinks he will be more accepted by those around him and complete his own sense of individuality. His mistaken child years belief is that the linguistic change will be enough to bridge the gap between the social and social alienation and loneliness, and generate a 'real' individuality just through the change in his label/name. However 'Ralph' is an English name, and Singh is neither Indian, nor British.
Englishness is a repeating theme in the physical places of Singh's life, with memory of colonial India, entrance in Great britain, and the reflection of Englishness as seen through the post-colonial experience of being an 'Indian' in the Caribbean. The down sides which Ralph has had to find their way in his life span symbolize the dynamics of the partnership between your 'black West Indians' and the 'Indian Western world Indians' as Nazareth implies "The blacks have a profound contempt for any that's not white, their principles being those of imperialism at its worst. The Indians despise the blacks for not being Indian. Such a population understandably does not have any inner principles. It merely copies its way of life from American consumer culture "
Issues of isolation, alienation and racism slice across the distributed West Indian ethnical experience, and ethnicity involves the fore. Folks are alienated, dismissive and hostile one to the other because of enforced barriers of variances. The shared experience of Isabellan life are not enough to determine a coherent identity; instead the individuals feel threatened by issues of difference and prefer to give attention to the 'racial' differences with their fellow islanders. For Ralph the question of identification is "somewhat typical of colonial experiencehe has to borrow, to imitate the examples which were established for him by others. The effect is restlessness and disorder; and it is to beat this that he finally withdraws form life and undertakes writing "
For Singh his West Indian identification in a contemporary society which itself lacks a coherent sense of personal information is "an obscure New World transplantationgiven birth to to disorder ". Writing gives Ralph Singh a target where he can determine his own individuality, reflecting on the many assignments he has performed in life imitating others; reinforcing that he is becoming one of the mimic men. He longs to flee "to a location mysterious, among people whose lives and even language " in such a society he's a visible outsider never totally accepted as English, whereby he may take 'comfort' in his id as the alien. However, he realises that his conception of identification, is only the reflection of what others see him as. With out a 'legitimate' individual id, he is free to imitate others and thus becomes a imitate man.
Sam Selvon's The Unhappy Londoners is a depiction of the lives of several newly arrived Western Indian immigrants in London. The terms is in the native Trinidadian dialect reflecting the experiences of the new immigrants because they are not fully built-into English culture. The character types in Londoners obviously possess a Caribbean identification and are too busy building their new lives to subject themselves to internal conscious debates about implementing new identities, but id formation is inevitable for the new immigrants. Moses can be an authority figure, mentor, and guide in the eye of the newcomers. He is aware of the changes to his own position as an immigrant and more importantly in the British attitudes towards the latest influx of West Indians. Although Moses has a sentimental side which obliges him to fulfill his duty as 'guide' and create the new arrivals to London life, their distributed identification as foreigners, aliens and outsiders, binds them into a common knowledge of how it feels to be a minority in a major metropolitan city such as London. The alienation that the heroes feel abroad is captured when Selvon shows Moses reflecting on his life in London ". sometimes tears come to his eyes and he have no idea why really, if he is home-sickness or if is merely that life on the whole starting to get too hard "
Moses yearns for the possibility to gain home to his own world and culture and he's disappointed in his experiences in London because he'll never be 'British' and displays "as the years pass wondering what it is focused on ". Galahad on the other palm is ready to make an effort of assimilation into London and British society, he's aware that his behavior is a cause for matter and thinks that "peoplemust bawl to see black man so familiar with white lady ". The notion of identity is strongly connected throughout the booklet with ideas of the masculinity and sexuality, and Galahad's desire for the white women he's now meeting in London "is something he uses to dream about in Trinidad ". The West Indian men are given opportunities to enter into English society through the erotic liaisons they have with white British women. The role of sexuality and the erotic identification of the dark-colored men and white women becomes a place of connection, which is symbolic of the colonized minority increasing an element of control and subverting the power relations between dark-colored and white Londoners. As Galahad demonstrates "The time when he was going out of, Frank simply tell him: "Boy, it have luggage of white pussy in London, and you'll eat till you fatigued. " And now, the first date, in the hear of London, dressed to kill, ready to escort the quantity around town, anywhere she want to go, any place at all " A couple of challenges in the attitudes of the men who are inherently sexist in how they view the white women who are available to them as intimate partners. Any difficulty. the black men are playing into the stereotypical representation of 'over-sexualized' black men. Their identities are mediated and distorted as things which are alien and the identified 'norm' of English society. But for Galahad this is an area of real excitement and unrestrained pleasure, so that a young sexually active dark-colored man he is happy to make a deal this stereotype, and take on the identification of the intimate object as it offers him sexual praise and freedom.
The rooms that the characters are lodged in are one shut rooms and emphasized how London can be "powerfully lonely when you on your own ". Areas of London receive nicknames by the immigrants such as "the Grove ", "water " "the Gate " and followed as recognized areas where other dark immigrants live. Yet at the same time these areas and the immigrants, are marginal, detached, and disengaged from mainstream London culture and contemporary society. The identities of the new immigrants matter the basics of life sharing a pursuit for good times and financial gain; this is something distributed to the English working class areas. Despite their efforts, you can find little chance that the immigrants will be able to relieve the loneliness. There can be an underlying alienation from the native English Londoners, where in fact the immigrants are often treated as objects of attention and sometimes ridicule. The personality of the immigrants is proclaimed as in physical form different so when a basic question of epidermis colour. For Galahad this is illustrated when he pats a 'interested' young white child on the cheek and her reaction is to "cower reduce and get started to cry ". The mom struggles to engage in dialog with him and she pulls the child away, walking off, Galahad's reaction is to "give a sickly sort of smile, and the old Galahad, focusing on how it is, laugh back again and walk on ". The other apparent difference with their 'race' is what sets them apart from the white English, yet binds the black immigrants alongside one another in their 'alien' identity. The racism and irritation they experience is area of the progression of identity formation, for both the host nation and for the minority subject matter as Bolaffi points out "These transformations have undoubtedly impacted on the varieties which ethnicities and racisms are now taking in various parts of the globe " There is a sense in the booklet that each figure is unable to get away from the physical presence of their contest. This 'racial' identification is outlined in the behaviour of the number community; for the immigrants their sense of shared identification and experience is one of an minority coming into a majority.
Buchi Emecheta's book Second-Class Citizen targets the activities of Adah as she negotiates her wishes and dreams as a woman in Nigeria so when a dark immigrant minority in London. It employs the protagonist Adah through the turmoil, issues, disappointments, and achievements she faces in life. The narrative is told in the third person in a traditional linear composition where Adah develops as a persona, questioning the interpersonal worth, norms and anticipations of her personality, in both societies. Adah faces prejudices, and racial and gender structured expectations. She actually is pressured to comply and conform to the cultural values and societal norms of her identification as a black women, and always placed as a 'second-class citizen', expressing that "nobody considered recording her delivery. She was so insignificant ". Adah differs from the characters in Lonely Londoners along with the Mimic Men, in that even as a kid, she has a particular sense of identity in her dreams to be educated and becoming a writer.
Adah's id as a article writer is definitive in the position of a Postcolonial writer, as Boehmer advises postcolonial "writers sought the freedom to name the earth for themselves ". Adah is adamant from an extremely early get older that she will be informed, is sensible and sole minded in her pursuit of her dreams. For Adah education will free her from the constraints and limitations of African culture, and can only be achieved through an education in Great britain which is the "holiest of holies " for education. This ambition is a continuous 'occurrence' in her psyche throughout her life (Emecheta 1974, 11). However, on appearance she discovers, her childhood dreams of the land of educational opportunity are misconceptions. England will not prolong the warm open pleasant to the educated middle income affluent Nigerian Dark female that Adah is becoming; and she actually is situated as a nuisance, a minority, and discriminated against as a 'second-class citizen'
She can't ever fully escape the patriarchal values of her indigenous Nigeria as she actually is bound in matrimony to a guy who only values her for her ability to make money and reproduce. Francis her husband considers Adah's singular goal in life is to serve him, actually, sexually, while providing an income for him. Adah questions her role as a wife and as a woman; she encounters an awakening challenging the worth and customs that are enforced on her behalf. By refusing to conform to the approved gender assignments and social Nigerian prospects, Adah draws on her own freedom and strength to forge in advance with her ambitions which is disconcerting for both the women and men around her. Adah is mocked, and alienated by people of the immigrant Nigerian community, because she's a solid sense of identity, and is convinced in her own protection under the law and ideas of liberty as a female. Adah's own conceptions of the superiority of the British are called into question when she confronts her children's babysitter Trudy. She is shocked and astonished at the working class English female who falls considerably below her criteria an African girl and an " Igbo tigress ". She involves realise the damage of the myth "that the white man never lied " (Emecheta 1974, 51). This triggers her to revalue the notion of superiority that has been forced on her behalf by elements of the white community and also functions to bolster her sense of 'superiority' in her own being; that she is much better than how she is treated, or made to feel. As Gikandi highlights "Postcolonial subjects seem to be, however to face an intractable problem here: even though the mythology of Englishness displaced by substitute nationwide histories, the imperial myth still continues to truly have a sacred presence, if not in the colonies themselves, then at "home" in Great britain " She also issues the role she actually is approved as a mother, and decides that as an operating Nigerian mother and since a black female who is a "second-class citizen" she'll combat for the to keep her children and send them to nursery and has "exploded another misconception ". Again, Adah issues the norms and goals of her home role as a partner, as an African woman as a minority immigrant in London (Emecheta 1974, 67).
Francis' sense of masculine pleasure is infuriated when Adah makes a decision to seek contraception, he discusses this with other Nigerian tenants and back with family members (Emecheta 1974, 155). This humiliation signifies the finish of the relationship in Adah's head (Emecheta 1974, 155). Adah's refusal to be oppressed by Francis culminates in the realization of her fantasy and writing her first novel. Francis can burn her manuscript and revels in the pain he will inevitably cause her in this action (Emecheta 1974, 179); this is an integral turning point and she challenges Francis declaring: "Bill called that storyline my brainchild. Do you really hate me a great deal, you could get rid of my child? Because that is what you have done. " That to Adah was the previous straw. Francis could wipe out her child. She could forgive him all he previously done before, however, not this " (Emecheta 1974, 181). She realizes she'll no longer be a partner to such a man. For Adah her role as a mom so that as a writer will be the two positive areas of her identification which she give her expectation and she decides to adopt. Adah never loses her sense of self applied and her dreams and changes her position from a victim of assault and oppressed erotic object, by gaining financial control and freedom from her man, and she eventually leaves him. Adah has a strong sense of her own individuality and her id does not automatically participate in the goals of the Nigerian community or the English society she involves live in. Through the entire novel Adah's personality as a woman is central to her activities and motivations for wanting more than is prescribed for her, she fulfils her ambitions as a copy writer and as a female, and progresses to find the independence and liberty from restrictions she has craved as a kid. As seen in the three books the characters attempt journeys which trim across colonial and post-colonial discourse of identity, this is an essential question which develops at the same time of turmoil, as Bolaffi et al express:
"Issues of identification come to the fore when there is a turmoil of identities, and there have indeed seem to such a crisis of identities in the last part of the twentieth century, and will be for the foreseeable future in to the new millennium " The postcolonial protagonist then undergoes an identity problems, which prompts him or her to search for the best and positive image of the personal as subject. Generally to be able to attempt this quest for the self, the stable current idea of identity in the protagonist must first be separated, shattered, or called into question, further resulting in his or her alienation from contemporary society. Boehmer says that "colonials who migrate to the administrative centre do not get away alienation. . . they must learn to triumph over the 'fracture' which divides their lived experience from other fantasy of metropolitan life, they mustmake their used language their own by talking about such fractures, delivering discordances into prominence in their work ". This sense of alienation is similar to exile for the reason that the subject is no more "at home" either bodily or psychologically in their local land, in all three books the alienation is displayed as having a strong psychological affect on the people. Hall states that "Id is not before found, but in the future to be produced ". It is the express of not belonging, of not having a genuine home where postcolonial subject matter are alienated by Eurocentric, imperial systems that will never fully admit them, either culturally or racially. Most importantly the books all take the positioning that postcolonial id is not secure, absolute, or set; instead it is a continuing procedure for flux, renegotiating itself with regards to the context and particular experience of the individual subject.
