Reinterpreting Identity Crisis as a Postcolonial Theme in the Road to Mecca by Muhammad Asad through Content Analysis

Abstract

This research aims to analyze identity crisis faced by Muhammad Asad in his autobiographical travelogue named "The Road to Mecca" which is one of the leading themes found in postcolonial literature. Post colonialism tends to shed light on some of the basic eccentricities found in the subaltern literature. Identity crisis is one of the canons through which we can interpret "alienation" as a major psychological mindset of the people who found themselves as "Other". The writer experienced this identity crisis as a Jew newspaper reporter among the Muslims of the Arab world. Leopold Weiss wanted to belong to some definite orbit of life. So he changed his faith from Ashkenazi Jew to a Muslim. The present study is an attempt to delineate this identity crisis through the lens of postcolonial alienation. The research design for the present study is a using content analysis, textual analysis and critical discourse analysis and discusses the due course of findings as its contributions in the literature.