Post-9/11 American Society and the Identity Negotiation of Muslim Characters in Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced (2012)

Abstract

This article studies the Negotiation of Muslim Identity in Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced (2012) that Muslim characters practice after the 9/11 attacks in the USA. The paper, moreover, evaluates the Muslim characters encountering the backlash, discrimination, harassment, othering, religious profiling, media propaganda, and alienation despite their complete integration and assimilation into the hostland identity. To explore how the Muslim Immigrant characters, as members of the minority out-group(MO), adopt the strategies of identity negotiation and construct the reactive Muslim identity in the selected play in the post-9/11 American context, The Social Identity Theory by Tajfel and Turner (2004) is used as the theoretical model through the textual analysis and Close Reading Method. The paper, furthermore, aims to study the Muslim characters struggling with the identity crisis and the derogatory treatment from the majority in-group Americans (MI). It also adds to research on the selected play the comprehensive understanding to the readers about the identity negotiations and Muslim identity construct after the 9/11 attacks in America.