Colonial Legacies and the Third Space: A Comparative Study of Hybridity and Mimicry in Moni Mohsin’s Novels

Abstract

Mimicry and hybridity are key concepts of postcolonial theory given by Homi K Bhabha. These ideas explain how colonized people adopt the culture of their former masters, often creating new, mixed identities. The aim of the study is to discover these two significant concepts within the socio-cultural framework of the South Asian elite class as portrayed in Moni Mohsin’s novels The Diary of a Social Butterfly and Between You, Me and the Four Walls. The research used qualitative comparative analysis approach to analyze how Mohsin use satire and characterization as a literary tools to reflect the enduring colonial mindset in Pakistan’s upper class. Further, by employing a comparative literary analysis both novels have been analyzed. It also used theory of Homi K Bhabha to explore elite characters from the novels and highlighted how they navigate their identities through mimicry of Western norms as well as the resulting hybridity in their cultural or personal expressions. The results show that both novels reveal a deep entanglement of postcolonial identity struggles rooted in linguistic and cultural hybridity in the Pakistani society.