The Crisis of Identity and Retention of Identity in Kamila Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows
| dc.contributor.author | Rabia Arshad | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-11-29T10:37:36Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2025-11-29T10:37:36Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2020 | |
| dc.description.abstract | The Crisis of Identity and Retention of Identity in Kamila Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows The present study seeks to explore the theme of identity crisis faced by the characters of the contemporary fiction writer Kamila Shamsie’s novel Burnt Shadows and how they struggle hard to retain their earlier identities either cultural or religious. Kamila Shamsie is a Pakistani British writer who herself lives in diaspora and has the first hand experience of the problems of immigrants and people living in diaspora. She portrays the same in her epic novel which covers more than the half century where the characters live through historical incidents and personal events and lose their genuine identities many times but they struggle hard to retain some of the aspects of their identities. This study also sheds light on the post colonial aspect of the novel related to the quest of identity. Question of identity is one of the controversial issues of post colonial world. In the modern world with the increase of immigrant numbers, hybrid nations and countries with different cultural diversities the question of identity came to surface. That is the reason the researcher takes this question to explore in depth by using textual method and applying Stuart Hall’s theory of “Cultural Identity and Diaspora”. Hall very aptly says that identity is the least well-understood concept that is never fixed. It is not a transparent and indisputable. All the characters in the novel keep on changing their identities. They have fluid identities and adapt in their new cultures and situations but keep on struggling consciously to retain their earlier identities too. Hiroko, Sajjad, Raza and Harry James Burton are the main characters who suffer the identity crisis most and try to retain their earlier identities too in the globalised world. KEYWORDS: Postcolonial, Identity, Retention, History, Culture, Displacement, Migration, Terrorism | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://escholar.umt.edu.pk/handle/123456789/13759 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | UMT Lahore | |
| dc.title | The Crisis of Identity and Retention of Identity in Kamila Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows | |
| dc.type | Thesis |