Immigrants Writing about Immigrants: A Transnational Reading on Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine and Manjushree Thapa’s Seasons of Flight

Abstract

This thesis is a comparative study made on Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine and Manjushree Thapa’s Seasons of Flight with the lens of transnationalism. It explores both the novels concerning the features of transnationalism. Both the authors, Mukherjee and Thapa, are transnational writers who write in diaspora. They include their transnational experience in their works. The novels thus are imbedded with hybrid characters, culture and identity. The protagonists Jasmine of Jasmine and Prema of Seasons of Flight, migrate to the West leaving their homeland to fulfill their dream. Their migration is the first step towards transnationality which results in displacement and transformation. This study observes the migrated female protagonists, their transformation, hardships, and effort to adjust in their place of settlement and create their identity. It finds that they create an alternative world by connecting the new place with their root, their place of origin. It also highlights the similarities and differences worthy enough to be noticed in these novels. On the whole, it shows how the alternative world is created in the novels.