Neither Here Nor Within: Diasporic Alienation in Kiran Desai’s The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

Author(s): Drishyarita Gogoi and Dr. Diganta Borgohain

Abstract:

Kiran Desai’s The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny tells an intertwined tale of two young individuals who leave India to study abroad with their incandescent dreams that so often accompany today’s youth. Their transnational move to a “better” world is considered to provide them with better opportunity, academic ascension and aid in their cosmopolitan becoming. To leave one’s homeland is to ascend, while to return prematurely is to disappoint. However, in reality and in the novel, the United States exposes them to subtle and overt forms of racism, stereotyping and cultural flattering. In an attempt to reconcile who they are with who they are expected to be and what part should they conceal in order to get accepted, they are met with alienation. Their lives in the foreign country become suspended in liminality and cultural in-betweenness. The characters feel unseen, disconnected and fragmented. They try to deny or suppress their individuality and cultural authenticity in the hopes of fitting into the foreign world which in turn deepen their internal void and makes them more alien. This paper attempts to study how The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny reveals the multifaceted nature of alienation produced by the pressures of diaspora. Sonia and Sunny’s story becomes emblematic of a larger generational condition of loneliness that is marked by mimicry, ambivalence and a continuous negotiation of their sense of selfhood.

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Pages: 72-76     |    26 View     |    4 Download