The suffocation and alienation force a woman inching towards her psychological freedom from age-old tradition and shackles of false morals and customs that make woman secondary to the man.
Manju Kapur’s fourth novel The Immigrant focuses on exploration of protagonist Nina and her journey towards own freedom from shackles of tradition and customs. It explores her journey from bondage towards freedom, but the journey was not too easy to complete. Nina is portrayed as suffering woman in the traditional society. In the beginning of the novel, she leads life as a spinster. Because of her father’s death Nina and her mother leads miserable life. Her lover who was a teacher cheats her. Due to traditional set up, both Nina and her mother suffer a lot.
When she gets married and migrates to Canada she faces social discrimination. Kapur has explored the distress of immigrants in the novel. Nina feels suffocated in Canada because of her loss of identity. Though she was teacher in India, she finds her degree has no value in Canada. She feels isolated in an alienated land. Because of her husband’s problem of premature ejaculation; she could not get fertilized. She feels incomplete without motherhood. Her husband stays out of home and she feels aliened due to new environment and new culture. She finds that she has no identity rather than immigrant wife which has no