POST-COLONIAL PSYCHIC ALIENATION OR IDENTITY CRISIS IN ABDULRAZAK GURNAH’S “PILGRIMS WAY”: A FANONIAN READING

Abstract

This paper examines in the Fanonian sense this crippling sense of “negro,” “blackness” and “inferiority” complex or the identity crisis in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s novel Pilgrims Way. As argued in the paper, Gurnah artistically explores the experiences of immigrants in England after the end of colonialism in the novel. This exploration includes themes such as racism, segregation and marginalisation experienced by immigrants due to their cultural differences and physical appearance in the indigenous white society and culture. The paper examines how racism, exclusion and marginalisation in the novel bring about a severe identity crisis represented through the lives and opinions of immigrants in postcolonial Britain as in the past. That is, the paper discusses that the Fanonian “internalised” feeling of inferiority continues in the unconscious of people of colour as in the colonised period; they are unable to get rid of it, even though they are free and independent now.