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Examining Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran, Bharati Mukhejree

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Examining Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran, Bharati Mukhejree Fetishising the Dominant Culture in Migration Narratives: Examining Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran, Bharati Mukhejree’s Jasmine and Monica Ali’s Brick Lane Katya Alkhateeb A thesis submitted for the degree of PhD Literature Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies The University of Essex October 2015 i Contents Abstract Acknowledgements I Chapter One: Introduction .................................................................................................. 1 I.1 Chapter Outline: .......................................................................................................... 12 I.1.1 Chapter One: Alienating “Home”: Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran ....... 12 I.1.2 Exploiting the Fluidity of the Immigrant Identity in Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine 14 I.1.3 Chapter Four: Interrogating Ideological Ambivalence in Monica Ali’s Brick Lane 16 II Chapter Two: Alienating “Home” in Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran ................ 19 II.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 19 II.2 Critical Review .......................................................................................................... 22 II.3 Rhetoric and Genre: Communicating Ideology through a Semi-Fictionalized Memoir 26 II.4 “Homing” the Narrator and Narrating “Home” ......................................................... 34 II.5 Narrative and Reader Response ................................................................................. 54 II.6 The Language of Alienation in the Narrative ............................................................ 67 II.7 Traversing Spaces of Alienation and Ideology .......................................................... 78 II.8 Reading Reading Lolita in Tehran in the Context of the War on Terrorism ............. 89 II.9 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 98 ii III Chapter Three: Exploiting the Fluidity of the Immigrant Identity in Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine .................................................................................................................................... 99 III.1 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 99 III.1.1 Mukherjee’s Immigration Narrative ................................................................ 101 III.2 Jasmine and the Narrative Form: the Bildungsroman and the Folk-Tale ............... 105 III.2.1 Bildungsroman as Maximalist Assimilation ................................................... 112 III.2.2 An American Fairy Tale .................................................................................. 121 III.3 Problematizing the Fluidity of the Immigrant Identity in Jasmine ......................... 125 III.3.1 National Identity in the World of the Novel .................................................... 128 III.3.2 Colonization of the Self ................................................................................... 135 III.3.3 The ‘We’ and the ‘I’ ........................................................................................ 153 III.3.4 The White Washing of Feminist Narrative ..................................................... 159 III.4 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 167 IV Chapter Four: Interrogating Ideological Ambivalence in Monica Ali’s Brick Lane ...... 170 IV.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 170 IV.2 Contention over the “Authenticity” of the Text ..................................................... 175 IV.3 Ambivalence in the Narrative Style of Brick Lane ................................................ 180 IV.4 Ideological Ambivalence in the Migration Narratives of Chanu and Nazneen ..... 189 IV.5 Nazneen and Razia in the “Reproductive Sphere” ................................................. 198 IV.6 “But you can’t skate in a sari”: Cultural Identity as a Site of Ideological Ambivalence ...................................................................................................................... 217 IV.7 “Fashion Fusion”: A Sign of Hybridity? ................................................................ 232 iii I.1. Alienation and Ideological Ambivalence in the second Generation Characters ...... 239 IV.8 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 253 V Chapter: Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 255 VI Bibliography: .................................................................................................................. 264 iii Abstract: This thesis addresses the ideological underpinnings in the migration narratives of Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books (2003), Bharati Mukhejree’s Jasmine (1989) and Monica Ali’s Brick Lane (2003) in order to reveal how certain meanings become more legitimate than others. In my discussion I expose the ways a narrative can be shaped and aligned such that it appears to provide agency for the migrant character, particularly in respect to inviting the notion of desire, feminist discourses, human rights, alienation, yet fails to challenge the structure of the dominant culture. To sum my argument up, Reading Lolita in Tehran, Jasmine, and Brick Lane do indeed engage with the dominant discourses of migration, yet they are infested with ideological contradictions and political absences. Though empowering the migrant figure, such as Nafisi, Jyoti and Nazneen, is laudable, the authors’ narratives nevertheless grant the migrant the power of assimilation within the standards of the Western dominant culture without communicating the process of negotiating an identity between native and host cultures. These texts suggest that the failure of assimilation is a character flaw and represent “Third World” and “First World” cultures in a series of false dichotomies. iv Acknowledgement There are so many people who have contributed, whether directly or indirectly, to this study that to adequately acknowledge them all would require me to add a substantial chapter. I must therefore confine the following thanks to those who have made the most decisive contributions to my research and academic development over the past few years. My utmost gratitude goes to my supervisor, Dr. Shohini Chaudhuri of the University of Essex. Shohini never hesitated to take me on board when I had one year left to finish the research and for that I am eternally grateful. I will never know how she has always managed to find the time and effort to read my entire research and significantly guide the project to its current form even when she had her own deadlines and responsibilities to contend with. Shohini’s meticulous observation and patience and her way of inspiring self-confidence were invaluable throughout the time of bringing this thesis into maturity. I am also very thankful to Professor Richard Gray of the University of Essex for being the first person to have believed in the project. He had a major role in shaping my critical awareness. It was an honour to have worked with him up until his retirement. His guidance and support throughout the three years of his supervision were invaluable in developing the thesis. This project was funded by Tishreen University, Syria. I was honoured to be the recipient of a Doctoral Studentship, which moved the need for me to support myself while my research was underway. I would like to offer them my full gratitude and appreciation for they never ceased their support even when the country was hit by a crisis. I am also grateful to the Department of Literature, Theatre, and Film Studies for giving me the chance to pursue v my postgraduate studies. I would like to thank Professor Jonathan Lichtenstein and Professor John Gillies for their continuous moral support. Friends have always been a great source of inspiration, pleasure and relief and I am grateful to all of them. Special gratitude goes to Karan Meher for his unconditional love and support in the past. I would like to thank my dear friends and colleagues Rasha Alshalabi, Muhmoud Darraj, Iman Hami, Stephanie Savva, Yamen Sabour, Jeeshan Ghazi and Ahmet Sozalp for their moral and academic support. Last but not least thanks to Alexis Malaktos without whom the past few months of writing this thesis would not be as beautiful. Finally, I would like to thank my father, Sameer Alkhateeb, for everything he has done for me. Without his advice, this study would have been, not just more difficult, but impossible. 1 I Chapter One: Introduction This thesis examines the treatment of the migrant figure’s identity in relation to the dominant culture of the host society, in the migration narratives of Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books (2003), Bharati Mukhejree’s Jasmine (1989) and Monica Ali’s Brick Lane (2003). It addresses how these texts, focalised through the migrant figure, present both the native country and the adopted home, and, in more specific terms, it considers how these texts offer up problematic notions of individual agency in which the female migrant protagonist from the “Third World” is allowed to assimilate relatively unproblematically in the “First World”
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