Multiculturalism and Quest for Identity in Chitra Banerjee Divakurani’s Queen of Dreams

Abstract

Chitra Banerjee Divakurani presents her vision of life which deals with various fictional themes as alienation and involvement, multiculturalism, compromise, existentialism materialism, quest and complacence. Through her protagonists, Divakurani makes her readers glimpse into the confused inner self of the contemporary westernized and materialistic man who is spiritually barren. Divakurani’s novels are structured in the immediate socio-cultural situations and are concerned with moral and spiritual problems of the contemporary Indians. They suffer from uprootedtness, cynicism, evils of materialism, loss of faith and identity crisis. This paper highlights the issues of ethnicity, race, multiculturalism, displacement and identity in Chitra Banerjee Divakurani’s Queen of Dreams.

The Postcolonial literature refers to the literary works emerged during the Indian Independence. The Postcolonial authors tried to establish their identity through their literary works. Socio-economic conditions and the sufferings of women, and the down-trodden were the major themes dealt within these postcolonial writings. Postcolonial fiction is free from social and political implications of a nationalistic variety. It has concerns with the human society and explores the problems faced by the man in the twentieth century.