T 1290.pdf - Pondicherry University DSpace Portal

of an expatrlate, Mukherjee emphatically brlngs out thefutility of such a stance. In Darkness she observes:If you have to wonder, if you keep looking forsigns, if you wait-surrendering little bits of areluctant self every year, clutching the souvenirsof an ever-retreating past-you'll never belong,anywhere. (2)In the United States of Amerlca Bharati Mukherjee sees herselfas an immlgrant. In her works which were either completed orfully wrltten In the Unlted States, Mukherjee explores theimmigrant senslbility, recogn~zing its duallty and fluldIdentity and acknowledging alternate realltles. In theIntroduction co Darkness Mukherlee clearly articulates hermovement from expatrlatlon to lmmlgratlon and traces the changeto the act of mrgratlng to the Unlted States of Amerlca. Thetransformat~on as wrlter and as resldent of the new world,occur~ed wlth the act of inmlgratlon to the UnltedStates4,(Darkness 2). . . "For me lt 1s a movement away from thea1oofnt:ss of expatrlatlon to the exuberance of lmmlqratlon"(3).The movement from expatriation to immigration is alsoreflected ln the cholce of the wrlters whom Mukherjeeacknowledges as her models. When she experienced herself as anexpatriate, Mukherjee saw Nalpaul as her model. It 1s Onlywhen she outgrew and discarded the posture of an expatrlate