In Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss twin strands straddle across continents mapping the contours of the ethno-racial and historical relationship between people from different cultures. Primarily it is about Love, Longing, Loss and Identity Crisis. It depicts the pair of exile of post-colonialism and the blinding desire for a “better life”. In New York the racial discrimination makes Jemubhai retreat into solitude making him a stranger to his own identity in quest of a ‘better life’. Sai appears at the outset of the novel. She interprets love as the “gap between desire and fulfilment”. This sets the very theme of the novel, a tryst with loss at all levels. In a parallel narrative we are shown the life of Biju who belongs to the class of ‘shadow-immigrants’, moving from one ill-paid job to another in search of a green card. The experiences of Biju in America expose how the dream of globalization has become a threat to the identity of the ethnic community. As a student in America Jemubhai feels barely human but on returning to India, he finds himself despising his ostensibly backward Indian wife. The Anglophilic seeds in his bosom culminates in beating and drawing away his wife. All characters in the novel struggle with their cultural identity. The novel ends with the return of Biju. The present paper intends to focus on the theme of identity crises in the novel.
Associate Professor, Dept. of English College of Commerce, Patna
