Negotiating Displacement and
Identity: Social Realism in the Fiction of Arundhati Roy,
Kiran Desai, and Padma Viswanathan
Dr. Priya Wanjari¹ & Nidhi H. Purohit²
ABSTRACT
Contemporary Indian English fiction persistently
engages with the complex dynamics of displacement, identity
construction, and socio-cultural transformation in an increasingly
globalized milieu. The present study undertakes a comparative
exploration of The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, The Inheritance of
Loss, and The Toss of a Lemon, situating them within the broader
discourse of postcolonial and sociological literary criticism. These
texts collectively delineate the struggles of individuals attempting
to negotiate and reconfigure their identities within intricate
social matrices shaped by caste stratification, migratory
trajectories, political unrest, and shifting cultural paradigms.
Adopting an interpretative framework grounded in postcolonial
theory, the paper interrogates the narrative strategies through
which these authors render visible the lived experiences of
marginalization and displacement. The analysis foregrounds how Roy,
Desai, and Viswanathan construct deeply textured narrative worlds
that not only depict but critically engage with the socio-political
realities governing their characters’ lives. Their works reveal the
multifaceted psychological repercussions of displacement—manifested
through alienation, fragmentation, and the perpetual quest for
belonging—while simultaneously exposing the entrenched inequalities
that structure contemporary society.
Moreover, these narratives complicate reductive notions of identity
by presenting it as fluid, contingent, and continually renegotiated
in response to external pressures and internal conflicts. Through
their nuanced portrayals, the authors amplify voices that are often
relegated to the margins, thereby challenging hegemonic discourses
and re-inscribing subaltern perspectives within the literary canon.
Ultimately, this study contends that the selected novels offer
profound insights into the dialectical tension between belonging and
estrangement, as well as between tradition and transformation,
underscoring the enduring capacity of literature to illuminate and
critique the evolving contours of human experience
Keywords: displacement, identity, social realism, postcolonial
literature, Indian English fiction.
