The Quest For Identity In Postcolonial Literature.

Abstract

The quest for national and personal identity is the most controversial and debatable issue in the post colonial era, this conducted dissertation aims to examine the identity issues and investigate the portrayal of the quest for personal and national identity in the most fascinating and successful post colonial novel "Midnight Children" by Salman Rushdie, the principal purposes of this research is to explore the way that colonialism had effects on the identity of individuals and nations particularly in the post colonialism and the way post colonial literature dealt with the quest for identity theme, on that account, to accomplish the mentioned purposes above, a qualitative theoretical research conducted with meticulous investigation and examination into the theme of identity through the Midnight Children novel as a case of study, to conclude, the study started with discussion of two key concepts personal and national identity from a philosophical framework, and it concentrates on the post colonial studies which reveals that the colonialism had a immense influence on the identity of the individual and nation, and as a response, the post colonial literature emerged to eagerly highlights the identity issues in post colonial era, Salman Rushdie as a post colonial writer had successfully managed to portray the quest for identity through his characters; with his incredibly techniques relying on magical realism, he demonstrated the identity crises of both the individual and his Indian nation which generated by the British colonialism through the characters mainly through the protagonist Saleem Sinai who is related and mysteriously handcuffed to his nation’s history and considered as a mirror to India, Rushdie’s used the narration of Saleem’s story of his own experience and other characters experiences of several identity crises and illustrated the quest for personal and national identity.