Despair and Survival in Rohinton Mistry’s Such a Long Journey

Authors

  • Anushka Nagpal Research Scholar, Department of English, IGNOU, New Delhi

Keywords:

Despair, Survival, Diaspora, Identity, Culture

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to bring to light the fascinating and multi-layered journey of the protagonist of Rohinton Mistry’s award-winning novel Such a Long Journey. This novel is a diasporic novel. The word “diaspora” originally comes from the historical movement of Jewish people who were compelled to migrate to other countries, where they sought to preserve their social and religious rights and live in freedom of body and mind. The term is also used in relation to the Parsi communities who live in India and work for their livelihood among the Indian population while seeking to preserve their cultural identities in the country. Initially, they had to face religious persecution and were compelled to migrate to India. In India, they live chiefly in villages and towns in and around Mumbai and in cities such as Kolkata, Chennai, Mangalore, Pune, and Hyderabad, as well as in Karachi in Pakistan. There are a great many diasporic men of letters in Indo-English literature, including Nissim Ezekiel, a descendant of the Bene Israel community. The novel deals with the predicaments and vicissitudes of the Parsi community at the broader social and diasporic level. Such a Long Journey is a representative novel of diasporic Indian literature.

References

Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, New York; Oxford University Press, 2010, p 418.

Vijay Mishra. The literature of Indian Diaspora, New York; Routledge, 2007.

Rohinton Mistry. Such a Long Journey, London; Faber and Faber, 1991.

Santwana Haldwar. Such a Long Journey: A Critical Study, New Delhi; Asia Book Club, 2006.

T. S Eliot’s, Selected Poems. London; Faber and Faber, 1954.

Manoj Kumar. Rohinton Mistry’s Creative Response To India, Meerut; Shalabh Publishing House, 2011

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Published

31-03-2017

How to Cite

Anushka Nagpal. (2017). Despair and Survival in Rohinton Mistry’s Such a Long Journey. The Watchman, 1(1), 13–16. Retrieved from https://watchmanjournal.com/index.php/tw/article/view/25

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 1 (2017): March 2017

Section

Research Article

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