Navigation Extremism: Loyalty And Belonging In Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire Through The Lens Of Political Identity

Abstract

The paper examines notion of loyalty, belonging, and political identity in Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie (2017). By weaving the motifs of extremism, relations inside a family, and the role of the state, the novel gives the identity of individuals within the framework of the clashing national and political allegiances. A close reading and discourse-analytic approach will also be considered in the work that will challenge how linguistic and narrative practices are deployed to construct the competing conceptions of home and citizenship. Resting the discussion on the theories of political identity and belonging, the analysis predetermines the fact that the characters of the story will meditate on the tension between loyalty to the family and loyalty to the state, exposing the linguistic construct of extremism as the externalized and internalized phenomenon. As the evidence shows, Home Fire is a sign of extremism not merely as the indication of religious radicalization, but of the discourse of exclusion, assimilation and divided belonging. The work is a contribution to English linguistics in that it shows how narrative frames can express political identity in order to advance the scholarly discussion on the spheres of overlap among language, literature and ideology.

Keywords: political identity, extremism, belonging, Kamila Shamsie, discourse, loyalty