The Evaluation of Child Development in Kamila Shamsie's Visionary Trilogy: A Bildungsroman Analysis of The City by the Sea, Burnt Shadows, and Home Fire

Abstract

This qualitative study explores child development in the visionary trilogy by Kamila Shamsie using a thematic analysis within a Bildungsroman structure with four accumulated forces, namely, trauma and resilience, the family influence, the cultural belonging in Kamila Shamsie's visionary trilogy: The City by the Sea, Burnt Shadows, and Home Fire. The City by the Sea, Burnt Shadows and Home Fire are the interrelated novels by Kamila Shamsie that provide the in-depth study of the topic of maturation within the context of the significant historical events, which is a unique chance to study the developmental processes affected by the mass trauma. This paper thus reviews the complex research of child and adolescent development in this futurist trilogy, and how the inter-textual subjects of trauma and resilience, family impact, and cultural affiliation all contribute to the collective development of the psychological and ethical character of its youthful heroes. Theoretically informed by developmental psychology and the postcolonial theory, the research applies a qualitative thematic analysis built on a Bildungsroman framework to trace the non-linear trajectories of characters going through the events around the partition of Karachi to the bombing of Nagasaki and marginalization of the British-Muslim diaspora. It has been identified that the transmission of trauma between generations and the pressure of cultural displacement are not just the decorative elements of the narrative but the driving forces that essentially define identity negotiation, and moral maturity can be gained through a multifaceted play of historical recollection and blood ties. In the end, it is concluded of this present research that the work by Shamsie is reinventing the Bildungsroman of the 21^st century that individual coming-of-age is always sublimated by the remnants of the past, the complications of family, and the forces of societal prejudice that pervade, thus provides a highly crucial literary model of development in the postcolonial world.

Keywords: Bildungsroman, Child Development, Kamila Shamsie, Identity Formation, Trauma Studies, Postcolonial Literature, Thematic Analysis, Coming-of-Age.