Be(longing) and E/Ethno(scape): Losing of Self and Identity in The Inheritance of Loss

Abstract

This paper begins with the notion that postcolonial literature is the most important and emphatic tool of representing various issues, the offshoots of a colonial hangover like displacement, orientation, self-contradiction, alienation, and identity crisis. Taking into consideration the various illustrations of Kiran Desai’s Booker prize winning novel The Inheritance of Loss (2006), this paper purports how the Self and identity of the characters are recognized or determined on the basis of his community and society which creates a sense of belonging in them and again how their longing for Western values, manners, language and economic stability lead them to escape or migrate to the colonial places, the globalized ethnoscape. The paper also emphasized though the ethnoscape provides them the basis to fulfill their aim and aspirations, they confront the Western Self which essentialise them and creates a crisis in their Self and identity.