Analysis Specificity of Generational Conflict in Migration Literature on H. Kureishi’s Novel The Buddha of Suburbia

Key findings from this study

• The study found that generational conflict in the novel operates as a structural mechanism exposing the crisis of patriarchal-traditional institutions within migrant communities.
• The authors demonstrate that first- and second-generation migrant characters embody opposed behavioral strategies rooted in their divergent historical positions and cultural inheritances.
• The researchers identify that second-generation characters' internalization of British social values directly precipitates the collapse of institutions that stabilized first-generation immigrant identity.

Overview

The study examines generational conflict in H. Kureishi's The Buddha of Suburbia, a canonical postcolonial novel, by analyzing how first- and second-generation migrant characters occupy distinct positions within historical processes and generational cycles. The research integrates literary analysis with sociological generational theory to understand conflict dynamics between migrants of different generational cohorts.

Methods and approach

The authors conducted textual analysis to identify life strategies and behavioral patterns characteristic of migrant characters across generational categories. They mapped character positions against both migration wave chronology and sociological generational frameworks. Oppositional structures in the narrative were extracted to reveal dominant values and conflict mechanisms.

Results

The study found that first- and second-generation migrants in the novel embody fundamentally incompatible worldviews and behavioral strategies. Patriarchal-traditional institutions that anchored first-generation identity collapse under pressure from second-generation characters who internalize British social values. This generational rupture exposes the destructive nature of dominant British cultural values and their corrosive effect on family structures and immigrant identity formation. The novel's thematic architecture reveals not merely individual character conflict but systematic institutional failure rooted in cultural incompatibility and historical discontinuity. Second-generation characters navigate irreconcilable claims between parental cultural inheritance and host society integration, a tension that the text presents as fundamentally unresolvable through conventional patriarchal mediation.

Implications

Understanding generational conflict in postcolonial literature requires frameworks that account for both migration chronology and broader sociological generational categories. Literary texts like The Buddha of Suburbia document how institutional crisis emerges from generational displacement rather than from individual pathology. This approach enables recognition of systemic cultural transformation processes operating within migration narratives. The study contributes methodologically to postcolonial literary criticism by demonstrating how generational analysis reveals ideological fault lines within multicultural societies. Recognition of these fault lines has implications for interpreting how literature responds to structural social contradictions that individual characters cannot resolve.

Scope and limitations

This summary is based on the study abstract and available metadata. It does not include a full analysis of the complete paper, supplementary materials, or underlying datasets unless explicitly stated. Findings should be interpreted in the context of the original publication.