Trauma Of Migration And Racial Discrimination In Abdulrazak Gurnah's Pilgrims Way

Abstract

Human migration is a socio-political phenomenon that refers to the movement of one person or persons from one place to another. Migration occurs in search of better opportunities to study or join family. Migration also occurs because of unrest in societies to escape conflicts, human violations, and compulsions of circumstances. Immigrants from poor cultures often suffer from an identity crisis, racial conflicts, exploitation, insults, and violations of human rights. Abdulrazak Gurnah's Pilgrims Way (1988) undertakes an exploratory journey into the circumstances and reasons that force a person to migrate and the trauma and racial torture that an immigrant faces in a new land. In the writings of Abdulrazak Gurnah, most of the characters immigrate from one culture to another because of political reasons or unrest in the societies they belong to. Because of immigration, the characters of Gurnah's novels suffer from identity crises, cultural conflicts, and racial conflicts. This paper states that because of uncertainty in society and the desire for a better future, the protagonist of Pilgrims Way, Daud, migrates to England, where he experiences racism and the trauma of migration. This displacement to a new land leads to mental trauma and the agony of being able to do nothing for himself and his family.