Cross-Cultural Conflict and Pursuit of Identity in Ameen Rihani’s The Book of Khalid

Abstract

Multiculturalism is an outcome of developing global culture emanating from ceaseless flow of people between nations and intercultural interactions. Crossing the borders results in psychological transformation of the immigrants as their ethnic identity shaped by social, religious, historical and political forces over decades is in continual flux. Though different kinds of responses to the situation of cultural multiplicity may be diagnosed, the fact remains that there are no simplistic ways of dealing with or responding to multiculturalism. The immigrants face cultural clash and find difficulties in acculturating. When the immigrants come to install in another country, they are accosted with a new culture, a new statute and a reserved group of people who do not mix so very easily. Everyone does not have the capacity to adjust their feelings and mind. They form a community of diaspora who are always reminded of their roots in an alien land. The impact of diasporic experiences on immigrants’ psyche depends on their level of belonging in an alien land. Ameen Rihani’s odyssey from Lebanon to United States gives him a cutting edge over his contemporaries to be established as most revered author of Arabs diaspora abroad. Rihani, molded and transformed by the cultures of his countries of origin, movement and settlement, has been earnestly engaged in re-conceptualizing the idea of diaspora as a profitable affair as opposed to the popular beliefs that render immigration and displacement as a condition of loss. His novels are bulging with different protagonists of staunch spirit and calibrating credence who win the tussle with cultural conflict and in the process evolve and finally lost. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how Rihani’s protagonist Khalid in his novel of the same name evolves with cultural changes, endeavors for pursuit of identity in both origin and adopted worlds and finally takes control of his destiny.