Othering of Identity in Teenage Novel: The Case of "The Eye of The Horse" by Jamila Gavin

Identity is a phenomenon that is created in the course of social communication by creating a border between self and other. The importance of this concept during adolescence period increases the necessity of its rethinking in the field of literature. The novel of "The Eye of the Horse" is one of the novels by Jamila Gavin that represents identity-making and identity-accepting of immigrants and by borrowing Western concepts and values and combining them with Eastern identity characteristics, challenges the indigenous Oriental culture (Hindi). The present paper attempts to answer these questions: how do the identity-making elements of the West challenge and change the identity of the immigrant? And to what extent factors such as otherness, bilingualism, etc. contribute to identity making? Accordingly, the relationship between the characters of the "the Eye of the Horse" novel as a symbol of the East and the West, as well as the suspension and consolidation of their identities in the Western dominant atmosphere are analyzed. The findings of this research show that in the process of forming the identity of the teenage characters of the novel the author has integrated the decentered and centered attitudes of East and West toward each other by creating an intermediate space, and has justified the supremacy of the West as a fixed principle by creating linked subjects. He has also introduced the naturalization and diminution of indigenous identities as an entry to the civilized world and globalization.