Shifting Cultures: Diaspora in Monica Ali’s Brick Lane

Abstract

The changing fashions of migration and the dwindling international borders have given a possibility to the inhabitants of different countries to discover world as the platform of the action. In the recent times, cultures are incessantly changing to give path to a multiethnic and a multicultural society. But sometimes this cultural difference gives way to a hard time of identity crisis.

          Monica Ali’s widely acclaimed novel Brick Lane conveys the story of Nazneen, a young Bangladeshi woman, married at 18 to Chanu Ahmed and thus drifts to London where they are squashed in between the native Bangladeshi identity and now a state of the art identity. It is not astonishing for the two to feel isolated and withdrawn both socially and culturally. This paper will make a deep study of the changes, which various characters in the novel undergo as a result of a shift in the culture because of immigration.