Abstract:

Marie NDiaye, who has written successful works in different literary genres since 1985, tells the traumatic story of an immigrant mother and her biracial daughter in her novel titled Ladivine, published in 2013. Throughout the novel, the biracial protagonist’s effort to be visible in the Western society she lives in is narrated impressively. The difficulty of the protagonist, who has different belongings, in obtaining a coherent identity, causes her to make a decision that will ruin her whole life. The position of Marie NDiaye as a writer, whose mother is French and whose father is Senegalese, is a controversial matter in the world of literature. Having grown up within a French culture Marie NDiaye prefers to be known as a French writer but she is positioned under different titles such as African, Francophone, biracial and immigrant in the field of literature. This situation can be considered the starting point of the identity confusion of Ladivine's biracial protagonist. It is seen that the author reflects the identity confusion in French society as a black/biracial individual in the protagonist's story. Like in many of the author’s novels, themes such as migration, identity, belonging, and hybridity are explored through intra-familial relationships in Ladivine. The marginalization anxiety of the protagonist expresses the prejudices about differences in today's multicultural societies. The need for people to live together requires social approval and thus the adaptation of the individual's identity to the social conditions. However, no matter how successful the immigrants are in adapting their identity to the social context in which they live, it is not always possible for them to gain social acceptance. Hence, this study aims to discuss the immigration and identity relationship in Marie NDiaye’s Ladivine in the light of theoretical knowledge. Analyzing the identity crisis of the protagonist requires multiple perspectives in the theoretical sense. In this context, the identity confusion of the protagonist will be examined through Erving Goffman's Stigma, Amin Maalouf's In the Name of Identity and Zygmunt Bauman's Identity. On the other hand, the reflections of Frantz Fanon, Homi K. Bhabha, and Pap NDiaye will highlight the discrimination based on skin colour.