Journal Article

Identity Crisis in Yussef Elguindi's Back of the Throat \2006\ and Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World \2012\

Noureiddin, Haris A, عبدالسميع، تسبيح عادل محمد

2024

Overview

The Egyptian-American playwright, Youssef Elguindi, in his plays Back of the Throat (2006) and Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World (2012) shows an interest in exploring the issue of cultural power dynamics bringing to the fore the experience of eastern immigrants in the west. He portrays characters that find themselves, as immigrants, trapped between the western American culture and their original eastern one. In his Location of Culture, Homi Bhabha discusses the concepts of Mimicry, Ambivalence, and Hybridity discussing the cultural and trans-cultural ties between the western host culture and the Eastern one. In fact, cultural ties are reciprocal, so when one imitates another culture, one will reach a point where he combines the two cultures producing what Bhabha refers to as a 'third space.' This third space is a new cultural arena in which the immigrant adapts his existence. Hybridity is a stage which simultaneously combines the thing and its opposite, and with which the culture of the other completely mixes with the original one producing thus a third space for the individual. It could be that the playwright suggests that through adopting Hybridity one may find a solution for the struggle of the hyphened identities. The individual must be fully aware of, tolerant with, and accepts the diversity and the dynamics of east-west cultural and trans-cultural ties.

• Publisher: جامعة أسوان -كلية الآداب
• Subject: أزمات الهوية / الاختلاف الثقافي / الجندي، يوسف، ت. 1359 هـ / الروابط الثقافية