FROM ROLE CONFUSION TO SELFHOOD:AN ERIKSONIAN STUDY OF IDENTITY AND POSTCOLONIAL MATURATION IN KIRAN DESAIS THE INHERITANCE OF LOSS

Name of Author : Dr.S.Mahalakshmi

Abstract: Kiran Desais The Inheritance of Loss presents maturation as a painful movement through uncertainty, rejection, memory and cultural displacement. The research focus of this article is the movement from role confusion to selfhood in Sai and Biju, two characters who grow within different yet connected postcolonial pressures. Read through Erik Eriksons psychosocial theory, especially the stage of identity versus role confusion, the novel shows how young subjects seek continuity in worlds marked by colonial inheritance, migration and social fracture. Erikson states that the danger of this stage is role confusion (261), while Desais opening image of mist replacing solid objects with shadow gives that psychological crisis a visible landscape (2). Sais orphanhood, convent education and troubled love for Gyan place her between English habits and local realities. Bijus undocumented labour in America turns migration into a test of dignity rather than a fulfilment of ambition. Halls view that cultural identity is a matter of becoming as well as of being helps to read their growth as unfinished but meaningful (225). The major finding is that Desai converts loss into a mode of postcolonial self recognition and makes disillusionment central to coming of age fiction.

Keywords : migration and social fracture, psychosocial theory, ambition

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