"South Asian Woman's Identity: A Comprehensive Analysis of Zara Raheem's "The Marriage Clock"

Abstract

Second-generation South Asian immigrants most often experience cultural hybridity where the task to balance between the home culture and the culture of the new world is gruesome for many. Understanding cultural hybridity signifies that transcultural relations are complex, processual and dynamic (Kraidy, 2002). This paper aims to find out the issues faced by South Asian women in embracing their home culture and its norms completely. It further notices how cultural diversity impacts a South Asian woman in shaping her identity and the perceptions of first generation immigrants with respect to the hybrid culture. The paper tends to observe how the traditional “matchmaking” process in association with marriage in South Asian culture works for a woman in the light of Zara Raheem’s “The Marriage Clock” (2019). A qualitative study is carried out for conducting the research where Bhabha’s “Theory of Hybridity & Third Space” (1995) is employed for interpreting the transcultural relationships present within the book.