“The Bricks will not Move”: Territory, Identity and Agency in Monica Ali’s Brick Lane

Abstract

Monica Ali’s Brick Lane delves into the complexities of migration, identity, and selfhood through the journey of Nazneen, a Bangladeshi woman navigating life in London. Initially resigned to fate, Nazneen gradually asserts her agency, shaping her own identity beyond cultural and patriarchal constraints. Drawing on Stuart Hall’s concept of identity as fluid and Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of reterritorialization, this paper examines how migration destabilizes and reshapes personal and communal identities. In contrast, her husband, Chanu, clings to nostalgia and ultimately returns to Bangladesh, highlighting divergent responses to displacement. The paper concludes that, Nazneen’s evolving relationship with language, community, and independence, Brick Lane portrays migration as both a site of struggle and a process of self-reinvention.