Orientalising the Postcolonial Nation-State: A Study of The Inheritance of Loss and Half a Life

Abstract

In the postcolonial analysis, the term nation-state has been critiqued mainly because the postcolonial nation states experience multiple exclusions and unequal power distribution. This feeling of marginalisation and exclusion is voiced by many postcolonial writers who are concerned with the psychological effects of the political and economic-cultural structures of the postcolonial world. Both the novels selected for this study, disclose the effects of up-rootedness and displacement and ultimately the quest for a particular nation-state. Kiran Desai in her The Inheritance of Loss deals with the themes of cultural conflicts, migration, nostalgia, globalization, multiculturalism, political struggles and economic inequality. Likewise, V. S. Naipaul in his novel Half a Life traces the themes of alienation, migration, displacement, rootlessness, mockery and self-deception of the emigrants. Biju in The Inheritance of Loss and Willie Chandran in Half a Life expose the gamut of issues including the multiple exclusion and distribution faced by postcolonial nation-states, threats of migration, loss of identity, globalization, and economic disparity. The attempt was to analyse both the texts selected for the study to bring forth the underlining beliefs and ideologies. The focus was also on understanding the effects political movements and situations have on personal relations. Study of both the texts foregrounds the miserable conditions of the lives of subaltern people and their continuous struggle and hope of assimilation in the postcolonial nation-states.