Volume IV Special Issue VI August 2024

Name of Author : P. Johanna Jenifer

Title of the paper : Discovering Identity Through Roots in Ha Jins A Free Life

Abstract: Immigrants, though their experiences vary, often share a deep love for their country and their past. They long for the day they would return to their homeland. Various hurdles like financial instability prevent them from fulfilling their wish to return. Unlike many diasporic novels, Ha Jins A Free Life narrates the story of Nan Wu, an immigrant who develops hatred for his own country, China, after the Tiananmen Square massacre. As a result, he abandons his dream of starting a new life in China with his family. He believes that detaching himself from his native land and rejecting his past will offer a free and peaceful life especially for his family. Despite holding dissident views and openly severing ties with his home country China, Nan grapples with the traces his country and his past has left in him. This paper attempts to bring out the masked and suppressed love Nan has for his country that he displays involuntarily in the novel, and mainly how he discovers his identity by accepting his past and leaving behind his fears and regrets.

Keywords : Immigrant experience, Paradoxical attachment, Identity, Assimilation, Disillusionment, Attachment.

DOI :

Page Number : 116-119