Postcolonial Portrayal: A Slave’s Face in the Master’s Clothes in Akhtar’s Disgraced

Cross-cultural identities have been an important topic in the field of postcolonial literary criticism. In this study, Akhtar’s play, Disgraced, is noted for the nuanced mapping of a symbolic struggle for a post-colonial cultural experience. The composite experience that Pakistani origin Akhtar writes about is inconsistent, and involves internal contradictions. Based on many postcolonial writings, the postcolonial literary themes are expected to challenge the binary understanding and give an authentic representation of the Other; while, this paper sheds light on the Muslim character’s endeavor for cultural assimilation fails. This article explores how such failure in the play is symbolically portrayed when the Muslim character loses all his job unfairly, his American wife leaves him and is accused of supporting terrorism. This close study employs theories of Homi Bhabha to explore the mimicry and ambivalence of the Muslim character; a slave’s face in the master’s clothes.