Abstract

Malaysia is a multicultural and multi ethnic society in which national and ethnic identities are very critical and widely disputed issues. Accordingly, several Malaysian writers such as K.S. Maniam have addressed the issues in their literary productions. This paper intends to examine the dilemmas, agonies and desolations of Indian community in Malaysia which have been reflected in K.S. Maniam’s autobiographical novel The Return (1981). In the story, Maniam voices out the experiences of Indian minority in the troubled times of Malaysia and their struggle for assimilation and adaptation to the new land as well as their identity crisis. Central characters of the story, Ravi, Periathai and Naina as three different generations of Indian migrant in the landscape of Malaysia attempt to embrace the new land as their home and build their coherent or homogeneous Malaysian identity. This paper also explores Maniam’s protagonist’s (Ravi) identity conflicts and his endeavor to escape from his unsettled identity as an Indian Malaysian. Ravi seeks his identity in mastering English, the colonial language, yet this is the very point of his alienation as he finds out that all his preconceptions about language was false and illusionary.

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