POSTCOLONIAL WOMEN IN THE ERA OF GLOBALIZATION: A STUDY OF MONICA ALI’S BRICK LANE

Abstract [English]

This paper aims to critically analyze postcolonial women in the age of globalization concerning the novel Monica Ali’s Brick Lane (2004). Monica Ali is a Bangladeshi-born British writer and novelist. She shows in her book the changes due to globalization that have been seen in women’s lives in third-world countries. Globalization increases the gap between the haves and have-nots. It also impacts the life of postcolonial women who belong mainly to the middle and lower class, since upper-class women are comparatively less affected and barely benefit from economic globalization as their male counterparts. Women in the third world are labourers both low-priced and employed for longer working hours than men. They are influenced negatively by economic inequalities, leading to an increased sexualization of lower and lower-middle-class Third world women. This sexual exploitation is executed at manifold levels. Hence, the paper will analyze both the negative and positive aspects associated with globalization in the life of Bangladeshi women, Nazneen and Haseena, who are sisters but living in different countries, and their economic condition as they interact with the globalized economy both within the national framework and the Diaspora community, makes a relevant case to analyze the positive or adverse impact of economic globalization on the lives of postcolonial women.