Traumatized Immigrant: Monica Ali’s Brick Lane

Abstract

Postcolonial fiction and trauma are almost coalesced into one another as a result of the nature of postcolonial cultural condition. Trauma emerges as one of the most important and inevitable themes in postcolonial novels written, in particular, by the British authors of colonial origin. In Brick Lane, Monica Ali portrays the tragic destiny of Nazneen, a young Bangladeshi woman, forced into an arranged marriage, when she is eighteen, to a Bangladeshi man in his forties living in London. It is a story of trauma, migration and adultery. After her mother’s suicide, Nazneen’s father arranges her marriage to Chanu and sends her away from home to the Imperial centre. As a postcolonial Bangladeshi immigrant, Nazneen not only suffers from the trauma of her deceased mother but also from the trauma of her arranged marriage that results in the birth of a son who dies when he is only a few months old. In addition to her personal breakdown after a series of tragic events, she inevitably undergoes cultural clashes. This study discusses Nazneen’s traumatic background and her postcolonial identity and questions whether or not her tragic situation stems from the postcolonial cultural condition.