Quest for Identity in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Mistress of Spices

Abstract

Perspectives that emerge from at least two cultures, identities, and in some cases, language forge the recent literature of emigration and exile. The “themes in migrant literature, however, vary depending not only on country of origin but also on the pattern of migration itself” (Velmani 174). The focus of migrant literature is often directed at the act of migration to another land, issues of rootlessness and racism, nostalgia and longing. For the immigrants, the process of fitting into their new home country involves the loosening of ties with the country of their origin, a strong sense of dislocation within the family where traditional gender roles are newly defined under the pressure of the surrounding society in the newly acquired community. They undergo the plights of identity crisis, cultural dilemmas and displacement.