مجلة البحوث و الدراسات الإنسانية
Volume 20, Numéro 1, Pages 330-351
2026-06-11
Elusive Homeland And Fragmented Identity In Bharati Mukherjee’s The Tiger's Daughter (1971)
Authors : Dib Fatima Zohra .
Abstract
This paper examines notions of return, home, and identity in Bharati Mukherjee's The Tiger's Daughter through the lens of diaspora theory. It explores how the protagonist, Tara Banerjee Cartwright, experiences an impossible return to her native India after seven years in America. The paper argues that Tara’s journey challenges the traditional, fixed notions of homeland and essentialist identity. Her idealized memories of home clash with the reality of a changed India, generating feelings of disappointment, alienation, and a profound sense of unbelonging. The paper demonstrates that this disconnect leaves Tara suspended between two cultures, unable to reconcile her Indian and American selves. Ultimately, the novel underscores that physical return does not guarantee a return to one’s origins, thereby highlighting the fluid, fragmented, and hybrid nature of identity for diasporic subjects. The analysis draws upon the work of key theorists such as Avtar Brah, Homi Bhabha, and Carole-Boyce Davies to demonstrate how Tara’s experience redefines and complicates established concepts of home and identity.
Keywords
Bharati Mukherjee ; Diaspora ; Home ; Identity ;Return
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