This research attempts to examine the theme of alienation, unhomeliness and existential rootlessn... more This research attempts to examine the theme of alienation, unhomeliness and existential rootlessness as experienced by a domestic worker trapped in an urban protracted displacement setting. Annie Zadie's first full-length play in English, Name, Place, Animal, Thing revolves around the incessant struggle of Nancy, a young girl who was brutally uprooted from her happy and simple life in her beloved hometown and placed with a middle-class family in an urban setting. She was forcibly separated from her parents at a young age, and employed as a domestic help by an affluent family. To her utter shock and dismay, she discovered that she was nothing but an alternate source of income for her family, and for the Maliks, she was only a slave, who lacked any agency over her own life. The novel emphasizes the multitude of challenges faced by the migrant domestic workers like Nancy, trapped in an urban protracted displacement. In this paper, I examine how Annie Zaidi's Name, Place, Animal, Thing depict the diasporic subjects' experience of fragmentation and insecurity, and their incessant struggle to create a sense of 'homeliness' in a foreign land. This study attempts to elucidate reasons for the feelings of displacement experienced by the domestic workers of our country, and to discover the extent to which the protracted displacement contributes to the oppression imposed on Nancy by her own family and her affluent employers.
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Papers by Oliva Roy