Thesis Type: Postgraduate
Institution Of The Thesis: Middle East Technical University, Turkey
Approval Date: 2012
Thesis Language: English
Student: Selime Onmus
Supervisor: FATMA MERAL ÇİLELİ
Abstract:This thesis studies two novels: The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi and The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. There are characters with hybrid qualities in each novel and they tend to use or encouraged to use mimicry to find their identities and establish themselves in the cultures they live. Hence, the result of mimicry is ambivalence on both sides, the colonizer and the colonized. The first chapter is dedicated to explaining the theory of hybridity based on the ideas of leading theoreticians like, Homi Bhabha, Robert Young and others. The situation, problems and the coping strategies of character are studied in detail, in individual sections. The final chapter is dedicated to the comparison of the hybrid situations of the second generation male and female characters. Eventually it is seen that all hybrid characters, especially the second generation immigrants use mimicry to create their own ‘Third Space’ and find their own voices to exist in their environment.