The Quest for Self: Alienation and the Need to Belong in Postcolonial Literature. A Case Study Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North.

Abstract

This dissertation aims at exploring the Afro-Arabs constant search for identity in Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North. The selected novel addresses the existential anxiety of the individuals who find themselves torn between two worlds; suffering from doubleness. Mustapha Sa’eed, a Sudanese character who was deeply affected by his experience in the northern journey, developed a sense of loss due to his fragmented identity. In this multidisciplinary endeavor, we are interested in exhibiting the syndromes of hybridity that plagued and troubled the protagonist’s life. The dissertation examines Salih’s novel from a thematic angle. The work tries first to shed light on a general background of the field of postcolonialism, and highlighting its relationship with identity. Besides, in the second chapter, we attempt to see how Salih traced the protagonist journey as an alienated Other. The third chapter examines the psychology of the oppressed native, namely the African individual who suffers from in- betweeness in his homeland. The study argues that denying one’s past leads to self struggle. Yet getting the best of other cultures and preserving the native roots is crucial for achieving a strong identity. As an African novelist, Salih tries to illustrate the power of acknowledgement of the past in healing the future through exhibiting the impetus of the Western culture and its paramounty in the modern world.