The topic of immigration in historical novels. An examination of Daughter of Fortune and Portrait in Sepia by Isabel Allende

Master’s Thesis from the year 2011 in the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: Masters, National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad (NUML), course: Masters in English Literature and Linguistics, language: English, abstract: This master’s thesis explores the theme of immigration in Isabel Allende’s fictional work. It deals with the question how Allende deals with the issue in her novels Daughter of Fortune and Portrait in Sepia . The objective of the work is to identify, explore and communicate the various dimensions of intricate phenomenon of immigration presented by the modern emigrant American author Isabel Allende who shares her personal and first hand experience of an uprooted person in the new world of America. She finds herself neither true Chilean nor an American woman but a displaced woman of modern age. She presents the true and miserable side of the picture of emigrants and their various reasons which motivate them to leave their own homeland. She discusses in her novels the effects of the process of immigration upon immigrants. She takes in to account all the aspects of immigration including the dilemma of migrants in host country like America. The research work tries to identify the factors which promote the migration pat-terns of women and difficulties faced by them in new world where they have to adopt new ways for their survival.