Soraya Nazari's cultural adaptation in the mismatch by Sara Jafari

This study is research to analyse the impact of British cultural adaptation on Soraya's Identity in The Mismatch novel by Sara Jafari. Soraya is an Iranian girl who was born and raised in England. It is not easy for Soraya to adapt to the differences between British culture and Iranian culture. This adaptation process also greatly affects the formation of identity. This research examines the phenomenon of adaptation with two problem formulations to be resolved, as follows: (1) How does Soraya adapt to British culture in The Mismatch? (2) How is the impact of British cultural adaptation on Soraya's identity described in The Mismatch? This research is studied by approaching Homi Bhabha's theory of postcolonialism. The postcolonialism theories that are applied are ambivalence, mimicry, hybridity, and third space. This theory helps to understand how global cultural differences affect individual identity. This research uses a qualitative research method that focuses on the text of the novel as the main data and then interprets with close reading techniques to understand the whole data without missing important details needed in this research. The result of this research is that Soraya attempts to adapt to the British environment by imitating British people. Soraya attends parties, takes drugs, engages in sexual activities, strives to have pure white skin, wears sexy clothes, and has a secular perspective towards her religion. However, no matter how much Soraya tried to mimic British culture this mimicry was never perfect. Soraya always feels guilty when she imitates the British because these things go against her identity as a Muslim. Furthermore, although Soraya wants to look and be perceived as British, she never be fully British because Soraya is of Iranian descent and this has always been part of her Identity.