摘要
After experiencing racism in Canada, where multiculturalism emphasized ethnic differences and fixed identities rather than allowing for cultural interaction and hybridity, the author, B. Mukherjee, moves to the USA whose biculturalism favors cultural interactions and fluid identities. Here she experiences the transformative powers of cultural interactions and frees herself and her work from the static power of cultural disjunction. Her personal experience highlights the need of immigrant characters to connect to the mainstream and not to be isolated from it The paper explores the problem of cultural adaptability and integration as experienced by Dimple, the main character in Mukherjee＇s novel Wife （1975）. Based upon contemporary research on cultural and social identity formation, the paper analyses Dimple＇s inner struggle of identity in the context of her immigrant status, and it relates her ultimately tragic response to loneliness and alienation resulting in cultural disjunction, non-adaptability, and non-assimilation.
