Ostracism and Slavery: An Analysis of Sufferings in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Paradise.

Slavery has been a part of human history from the very beginning. Sometimes, it was direct slavery, and sometimes, it was indirect. Slavery also makes a person migrate, and the migration that comes with slavery is forced migration. Sometimes a person is ostracized even without his knowledge which leads to the trauma of being separated from his loved ones and made him suffer. The displacement is not only from one place to another but also from the geography, culture, language, eating habits, friends, relations, and the environment in which one is brought up. The migration that comes because of direct or indirect slavery is sometimes permanent, and the person who is ostracized, many a time, never gets the opportunity to go back to his place or to meet his people. In Abdulrazak Gurnah’s writings, the characters are displaced because of one reason or the other. Paradise (1994) is the fourth novel of Abdulrazak Gurnah in which Yusuf, the main character of the novel is ostracized by his family when he was just twelve years old. Yusuf, the protagonist of Paradise, was forced to migrate without his knowledge. This displacement was permanent for Yusuf, who never met his family again. This paper describes the suffering Yusuf faces because of the forced migration. Migration makes a person experience nostalgia, and this paper also explores the mental trauma of displacement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]