Quest for Identity in Nadine Gordimer’sThe Pickup

Abstract

This paper analyzes Nadine Gordimer’sThe Pickup, a post-colonialdiasporic novel. It examines how Gordimer showsdiasporic people’s sense of displacement, loss, identity crisis and their attempts for identity formation. It analyzes Gordimer’s several motifs behind using Abdu, Julie and other minor characters to show the continuous process of identity formation which has vividly shown people’s choice to exile from their place and willingly and unwillingly forms their diasporic identity. To explore the concept of diasporic people's formation of identity, this paper engages the ideas of cultural hybridity and diasporic people's formation of identity developed by Homi K. Bhabha’s The Location of Culture, R. Radhakrishan’s Diasporic Mediation, Stuart Hall’s Diaspora and Identity and Salman Rushdie’s Imaginary Homelands. This paper contends the issues of migrant people's identity formation as well as cultural hybridity depending upon the people and the land they belong to and they stand. By doing so, this paper opens new avenues showing that there are multiple ways to examine a particular theme with special attention to contextual relations.