Cultural Hybridity in Kamila Shamie's Burnt Shadows

Abstract

This explanatory research analyses the effects of cultural hybridity upon identity within the field of Postcolonialism in Kamila Shamsie's novel Burnt Shadows. To highlight the hybrid identity of a postcolonial subject the writer focuses on the different cultures of the world namely the Indian, the Pakistani, the English, and the American. Postcolonialism is a specifically postmodern intellectual discourse that consists of reaction to and analysis of the cultural legacy of colonialism. It aims at combating the legacies of colonialism on culture. The area of the research is ‘Cultural Studies'. Postcolonial world is a culturally hybrid world in which hyberdization or the process of culture mixed-ness is always on the move. I seek to apply Homi K.Bhabha's theory of ‘Cultural Hybridity' on Kamila Shamsie's novel Burnt Shadows. Culture, hybridity and identity cannot be separated from one another as there is no concept of the one without the other. By applying the concepts of hybridity, ambivalence and liminality by Homi K.Bhabha it seeks to explore the different factors within different cultures of the world which promote cultural hybridity and consequently exert their influence upon identity.