The Evolving Self of an Alienated Youth in Ruskin Bond’s “The Room on the Roof”

Abstract

This paper examines the growth of Rusty, a teenager alienated protagonist of Ruskin Bond’s novel “The Room on the Roof”, whose gradual development from alienation to self-governance finally provides him with his own self-identity or subjectivity. Alienation, here, means the moment of abjection; however, as a captivating force, it also portrays the gradual process of the evolving self of the protagonist. While doing so, this paper basically focuses on the Theory of Abjection and the Kegan’s Constructive Developmental View as the center of critical attention, while remarkably little attention has been paid to supporting critics as well. Thus, this paper by the end provides us an innovative perspective to perceive adolescent’s identity formation process; focusing on how within abject, in the process of reification, the discarded youth Rusty has resilience and reformative ability to develop own subjective ‘self’.