HOME IS WHERE WE LOST: A PSYCHOANALYTIC STUDY OF ALIENATION IN KAMILA SHAMSIE’S HOME FIRE
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17914533Keywords:
Alienation, Displacement, Home Fire, Identity, Lacan, Psychoanalysis, TraumaAbstract
The significance of examining alienation in contemporary diasporic fiction has grown increasingly important, as global displacement, cultural fragmentation, and identity crises continue to shape human experiences. Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire offers a compelling exploration of these psychological tensions; however, despite its acclaim, a research gap remains regarding how alienation operates through deep psychoanalytic structures rather than solely sociopolitical contexts. While previous studies have emphasized terrorism, citizenship, and cultural identity, few have explored the internal psychic conflicts, unconscious desires, and fractured emotional landscapes shaping the characters’ sense of “home”. This study, therefore, examines how alienation is constructed, negotiated, and intensified through psychoanalytic processes in Home Fire. Specifically, it analyzes characters’ emotional dislocation using Freudian and Lacanian concepts such as repression, desire, identity formation, and symbolic authority. To achieve this, a qualitative, interpretive methodology is employed, utilizing textual analysis to uncover both explicit and implicit narrative meanings. The analysis, furthermore, reveals that alienation in the novel is rooted not only in external sociopolitical pressures but also in unconscious conflicts and unresolved trauma. Furthermore, the loss of “home”—symbolically, emotionally, and psychologically—triggers profound identity ruptures, forcing characters like Isma, Aneeka, and Parvaiz into cycles of longing, rejection, and emotional fragmentation. Consequently, the novel portrays alienation as a psychological struggle for belonging rather than mere cultural displacement. This study, ultimately, highlights how Home Fire critiques the interplay of trauma, desire, and political systems while contributing to psychoanalytic literary scholarship. It underscores the importance of interdisciplinary research integrating trauma theory, migration studies, and political psychology.
Downloads
References
Ahmed, S. (2019). Post-9/11 citizenship and Muslim identity in contemporary British fiction. Journal of Postcolonial Inquiry, 12(3), 215–230.
Bağlama, S. H. (2020). Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire: Neo-racism and the “House Muslim.” Motif Akademi Halkbilimi Dergisi, 13(32), 1641–1652. https://doi.org/10.12981/mahder.810514
Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. Polity Press.
Bhabha, H. K. (1994). The location of culture. Routledge.
Butler, J. (2004). Precarious life: The powers of mourning and violence. Verso.
Caruth, C. (1996). Unclaimed experience: Trauma, narrative, and history. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Chambers, C. G. (2018). Sound and fury: Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire. Massachusetts Review, 59(2), 202–219.
Djohar, H. I., Jayanti, I. D., & Tayem, N. (2024). Combating the war on terror in Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire (2017). Muslim English Literature.
Fanon, F. (2008). Black skin, white masks (R. Philcox, Trans.). Grove Press. (Original work published 1952)
Freud, S. (1957). Repression. In J. Strachey (Ed. & Trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 14, pp. 141–158). Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1915)
Freud, S. (1961). The ego and the id (J. Strachey, Ed. & Trans.). W. W. Norton. (Original work published 1923)
Frosh, S. (2010). Psychoanalysis outside the clinic: Interventions in psychosocial studies. Palgrave Macmillan.
Hall, S. (1996). Cultural identity and diaspora. In Modernity and its futures (pp. 274–316). Polity Press.
Hussain, R. (2020). Politics of assimilation and minority identity in Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire. Contemporary Literary Review, 8(4), 45–57.
Khan, M. (2022). Trauma, memory, and displacement in modern diaspora narratives. South Asian Literary Studies, 15(2), 102–118.
Khan, S. Y., Ajmal, M., & Shah, A. (2025). Fragmented selves and dislocated identities: A postmodern study of Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire. Policy Journal of Social Science Review, 3(6), 275–281.
Khan, T. (2020). [Study on radicalization and identity in diaspora literature]. Journal of Postcolonial Studies.
Lacan, J. (1977). Écrits: A selection (A. Sheridan, Trans.). W. W. Norton. (Original work published 1966)
Lacan, J. (1998). The four fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis (J.-A. Miller, Ed.; A. Sheridan, Trans.). W. W. Norton.
Lacan, J. (2006). Écrits: The first complete edition in English (B. Fink, Trans.). W. W. Norton & Company.
Naz, B., & Safdar, Z. (2022). Multiculturalism, diaspora, and the conundrum of origin: A postcolonial reading of cultural politics in Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire. University of Chitral Journal of Linguistics and Literature, 6(1), 423–443.
Puar, J. (2017). Terrorist assemblages: Homonationalism in queer times (2nd ed.). Duke University Press.
Qureshi, L. (2018). Radicalization and familial rupture in Home Fire. International Journal of Modern Literature, 6(1), 61–75.
Rahman, A. (2020). Migration, citizenship, and the Muslim subject in Home Fire. Postcolonial Text, 15(1), 1–18.
Saeed, N. (2021). Feminist agency and resistance in Shamsie’s Home Fire. Feminist Literary Forum, 9(1), 77–93.
Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. Pantheon Books.
Shamsie, K. (2017). Home Fire. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Spivak, G. C. (1988). Can the subaltern speak? In C. Nelson & L. Grossberg (Eds.), Marxism and the interpretation of culture (pp. 271–313). University of Illinois Press.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Fazal Ghufran, Dr. Zakia Bibi, Yasir Rafiq Khan, Zaiwar Khan (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
