Immigrants‟ Dislocation in Divakaruni‟s The Unknown Errors of Our Lives

Abstract

In most of stories in The Unknown Errors of Our Lives, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni examines the South Asian immigrants, their experiences and dislocation in the United States of America. America is a highly urbanized mechanical society which seeks to dominate other cultures by imposing its own codes of morals and principles. Consequently, characters in Divakaruni‟s narratives are immersed in it and not separated from. The young generations like Mira, Tarun and Shyamoli operate through the codes of beauty, romance and fashion to maintain their personal existence in the New Land. Eventually, Mira fails to secure boyfriend, job and apartment. On the one hand, she recalls her homeland, mother and childhood age to get the meaning and value of life. On the other hand, the old generations like Mrs. Dutta and Khuku‟s mother reach in America to live with their families. When they are outraged by their own children, they lament over changing moral standards and dramatization of kinship. They feel the decline of their position and manifest their restlessness in a foreign land. After their migration to America, most of individuals from India remain somewhere between the old and the new, the Indian and the American, past and present, to investigate critically conditions in Divakaruni‟s narratives, the researcher applies the diaspora perspectives.