Transnationalism in Anne Tyler's Digging to America (Critical Essay‪)‬

Anne Tyler's Digging to America (London: Vintage, 2007) offers an insightful critique into the phenomenon of transnationalism. The present paper focuses on the liberating and constricting aspects of the transnational experience on two generations of Iranian-Americans and also on the first generation of Korean children being raised in the USA. Significantly, the experience of Maryam who had immigrated to America in Tyler's novel is a happy one in that it helped her to leave behind a rigid theocratic society and relocate to a predominantly secular culture that values individual freedom. Young and well-educated and rendered a misfit in Iran precisely for the same reason, she seeks an escape in her marriage to Kiyan, a fellow Iranian, employed in America. The first kind of freedom that immigration brings Maryam involves shedding the purdah. Soon after reaching America, Maryam adopts the western attire and even acquires a driving licence which acts as her passport to mobility and independence.