Double Exile: Psychological Dislocation and the Quest for Self in Anita Desai’S Bye-Bye Blackbird

Abstract

This research article explores the deep sense of nostalgia in the lives of the immigrants. Migration takes place in everyone’s life. The reasons may be vary according to the situation they undergo. The immigrants who migrate to other countries face critical situations and unfair treatment by the colonizers. They experience a sense of longing, loss of cultures, loss of traditions, alienation, dislocation, depression and torn between multiple cultures in the new land. The settlers experience mental trauma and homesickness. The treatment by the westerners on the indigenous people is unfair. They are treated as outsiders. However they have to remain resilient in every situation.

Nostalgia is not only a sentimental longing for the past, but it is the driving force in bringing people to their homeland. The nostalgic effects can be overwhelming, prompting individuals to return to their homeland. Nostalgia serves as a catalyst in the protagonist’s life, leads to self- discovery and ultimately, return to his homeland. This research analyses the psychology of the immigrants through the lens of psychoanalytical theory proposed by Sigmund Freud and the concept of fragmentation by Jacques Lacan. The settlers are torn between the impacts of nostalgia and unable to escape the bitter life in western life. This inner conflict made a tremendous change in their lives and ultimately made them to return to their homeland. Homeland is a place of joy, happiness and peace which made the settlers to return to their homeland by using nostalgia as a catalyst.