Traveling and writing as metaphors towards self-relization in the exile context

Abstract

ABSTRACT By comparing Jamal Mahjoub's Travelling with Djinns and Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul's Mimic Men, I have attempted to depict how the state of metaphorical exile enables the postcolonial intellectual to change his state of alienation to a process of self-realization through the more conscious usage of the processes of traveling and writing. Here writing and traveling form metaphorical grounds where the individual confronts himself as `the other` through which he is better to judge himself and order his life. In Travelling with Djinns by Mahjoub we are confronted with a 37 years old Sudanese-English protagonist Yasin who has chosen England to spend the rest of his life but by becoming disillusioned by the society and family has become alienated. Throughout the novel Yasin by making a journey in Europe with his son Leo tries to regain the lost sense of space which will enable him to understand what the enigma of Europe is. The journey also becomes a metaphorical quest in time in which Yasin confronts his intermixed memories that burden him. Similarly, in The Mimic Men by Naipaul, we come across a disillusioned middle- aged individual, Ralph Singh, who is in exile in England. Having been born on Isabella from Indian parents, Ralph has never been able to feel himself a part of any land due to racial prejudices which has led him to lead a life of alienation. After his political failure on Isabella we confront him lonely in a hotel room in London detached from friends and family. There he tries to give some order to his life by writing his autobiography which also becomes a metaphorical journey in space and time. Finally the aim is to make a study of the aesthetic and literary historical implications in the text. vi