ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at how the characters, given Jemubhai and Gyan situations, often seek to read the places they inhabit as spaces of liberation and empowerment. By extension, Gyan's attempt at achieving power proves equally unreliable as he "tries to be a part of the larger questions, tries to become part of politics and history". Gyan is a son of the soil and his indecisive nature reflects the contribution of geographic environment and mythic culture to his process of marginalization. Desai's novel pays close attention to geographical place. The Inheritance of Loss analyzes how geographic environments contribute to the traumatic process of marginalization and creation of identity, and how space socially excludes colonized people across class, age, even generational divides. In an ironic replay of the 1947 Indian partition, Kiran Desai's novel describes the thwarted Gorkha National Liberation Front movement of the 1980s in Darjeeling.
