Mimicry, Resistance, and the Desire for Assimilation in Unmarriageable: Reclaiming Identity through Writing Back to the Empire

Abstract

This research paper examines Sonia Kamal's Unmarriageable (2019) as a postcolonial narrative that oscillates between 'assimilation' and 'resistance,' ultimately producing a mimicry of colonial literary form. Homi K. Bhabha's concept of 'mimicry' helps analyse the tendencies of mimicry and a desire for assimilation in Kamal's narrative. Bill Ashcroft's concept of 'writing back' explains how postcolonial writers use literature to reclaim their cultural identity, rewrite history, and counter the dominant Eurocentric perspective. The research contends that while writing back, instead of creating a narrative rooted in Indigenous culture, Kamal's work reflects a propensity to replicate her colonial predecessors' literary forms and structures. This form of mimicry serves as a tool to resist in a postcolonial context through literary re-appropriation. This study critically examines how Unmarriageable (2019) serves as a site of cultural negotiation, where the desire for acceptance (assimilation) within the global literary world results in a significant mimicry of English literary traditions. The study examines whether such mimicry undermines the potential for authentic expression and merely reflects the influence of colonial power structures in shaping postcolonial literature, or whether, as the analysis suggests, mimicry can be valued as a meaningful reimagining and a form of resistance that offers a rich perspective on postcolonial identity by reinterpreting the plot of Pride and Prejudice (1813), a novel rooted in colonial representation.

Keywords: assimilation; resistance; writing back; mimicry; Bhabha

DOI: http://doi.org/10.17576/3L-2026-3201-15