The paper explores how the past affects the future in Yasmine Gooneratne’s A Change of Skies. The vital aspects of immigration, adjustment to new lands, expatriation and complexities of cross-cultural negotiation with specific issues of cultural identity and authenticity are dealt in the paper. The paper highlights the experiences of Asian immigrants and how they adjust to living in the new environment of Australia. The major characters, Barry and Jean are subjected to tremendous pressures in Australia. The couple relishes the challenge and ultimately prospers in the environment. However, the couples were disillusioned with the first experience of being forced to see themselves as a generic subject in the gaze of the 'Other’. In the novel, A Change of Skies, Gooneratne recognizes the complex sources of the present, she realizes the hope that these can generate a future freed of the limitations of the past, but not free of the universal absurdities of the human condition. People, do, she suggests, change their souls when they change their skies. More importantly, when they change their skies, they do not abandon the past, but produce a new future and new possibilities.

Authors:
Mukesh Yadav, University of Engineering and Management, India

About the Presenter(s)
Dr Mukesh Yadav is a University Professor/Principal Lecturer at University of Engineering and Management, Jaipur in India

See this presentation on the full schedule – On Demand Schedule

Bookmark