Forging Transnational Identities: A Postethnic Diasporic Re-imaging of " Home " in Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake (original) (raw)
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Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake Through the Lens of Diaspora Literature
International Journal of Management and Humanities, 2024
Abundant papers have been written on Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake, endeavoring to elaborate on alienation, ecologic overtones, cross-cultural conflict, feminism, existentialism, and identity crisis, to name a few. However, navigating through a labyrinth of complexities, this study, in addition to cultivating the results found hitherto, aims to crack the case of two acculturation strategies opted by Gogol, namely assimilation and integration. To further the point, this qualitative research which has been done based on a close reading approach, will reveal Gogol's shift of strategy from assimilation to integration. In the second place, the lights are to be shed on the remarkable traces of re-orientalizationin the selected work, especially during the arrival of Gogol in Maxine's house where binary opposition, i.e., the Occidental Culture/ Oriental Culture will be visible. Furthermore, this paper sets out to lay bare Moushumi as a foil character for Ashima, who, unlike Ashima's vigorous allegiance to her husband, Bengali roots, and Patriarchal norms, is a Byronic-like character with intelligence, selfishness, refractoriness, complacency, and penchant for infraction of patriarchal rules. Last but not least, this study aims for a deeper understanding of the kernels of this diasporic novel including alienation, uprootedness, nostalgia, and search for genuine identity.
DIASPORIC CONCERNS IN JHUMPA LAHIRI’S THE NAMESAKE
Within the recent years, numerous writers of literature with regard to the feeling of Indianness have come up. It is about those writers who migrated abroad. Some writers immigrated heritage has been handed down from their ancestors and some experience first hand. These writer writings are generally marked by a sense of isolation and far-removedness from the mother country. Such writers are known as 'expatriate writings' or 'immigrant writings.' Generally, at best, their writings are known as writers of the Indian diaspora in English. Diaspora is a word derived from the Greek word 'diaspeiro,' literally means an alien land, away from their traditional homelands. In olden days, the term was used for the worldwide scattering of the Jews outside Palestine. Nowadays it is applied to a number of ethnic and racial group living abroad. Jhumpa Lahiri, a young writer of high acclaim draws her literary excellence through her first collection of stories entitled Interpreter of Maladies which has fetched her the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for fiction (2000), the New Yorker Prize for Best First Book, the PEN / Hemingway Award and was short-listed for the Los Angeles Times Award. Born on July 11, 1967, in London, England, She, however, was brought up in America when her family moved there when she was three years old. Lahiri graduated from Barnard College with a B.A. in English Literature in 1989. She proceeded to attend Boston University and completed three Master's degree in English, Creative Writing and Comparative Literature and a Ph. D in Renaissance Studies. She is currently a member of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities. The paper focuses on Jhumpa Lahiri's work The Namesake and the diasporic elements in it
The In-Between: Navigating Diasporic Identity in Jhumpa Lahiri's Modernist novel
The only way to feel at home is to make somewhere home." This research paper looks deeper at Jhumpa Lahiri's novel 'The Namesake' to explore how characters navigate dual cultural identities and feelings of alienation within diasporic communities. It emphasizes the experiences of characters struggling to reconcile their Indian origin with their American lifestyles. Through a postcolonial lens, the paper examines how these characters, torn between two cultures, seek a
DIOASPORIC ELEMENTS IN JHUMPA LAHIRI’S THE NAMESAKE
isara solutions, 2019
This paper attempts to explain the cross cultural conflicts of Indian immigrant Gogol Ganguli who finds him torn between the two cultures and conflict of quest for identity never ceases. Jhumpa Lahiri belongs to the second generation of Indian Diaspora, an Indian by ancestry, British by birth and American by immigration and her theme of writing deals with the experience of emigrants to USA from India makes her a centre of Diaspora. Diasporic literature is a very vast concept and an umbrella term that includes in it all those literary works written by the authors outside their native country, but these works are associated with native culture and background. The term Diaspora comes from an ancient Greek word meaning “to scatter about”. And that’s exactly what the people of a Diaspora do they scatter from their homeland to places across the globe, spreading their culture as they go. The bible refers to the Diaspora of Jews exiled from Israel by the Babylonians. But the word is now also used more generally to describe any large migration of refugees, language, or culture
Identity Crisis and Diasporic Elements in Jhumpa Lahiri's, The Namesake
THE SPL JOURNAL OF LITERARY HERMENEUTICS, 2024
In this paper, the main aim is to describe the requisite issue of the migration to present the pain and the problems that are faced by the immigrants by understanding the term 'Diaspora' in Jhumpa Lahiri's, The Namesake. The novel, The Namesake, has so many diasporic expressions such as language as a barrier, alienation, culture identity, relationship between parents and children and nostalgia. The novel tells a story about the assimilation of an Indian Bengali family from Calcutta, the Ganguly into America, over thirty years (1968-2000). Methodology and Approach: The author has consulted the primary and secondary sources as part of her research. This research uses qualitative literary analysis of Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake, which focuses on the themes of the identity crisis and diasporic elements. The paper is based on textual analysis aided by secondary sources to explore the impact of migration on identity formation. Outcome: Through this paper, the researcher has found that "The Namesake" complexly portyrays the intense struggles of identity and belonging faced by migrant people. It outlines how cultural heritage and personal yearning shape as well as complicate the protagonist's and his surroundings journey. Conclusions and Suggestions: The study concludes that this novel profoundly captures the complexity of identity crisis. The researcher has tried to explore comparative analysis with other diaspora literature also to get to know more about how different cultural backgrounds shapes and influence identity formation to enrich the understanding of multiculturalism more effectively.
Diasporic Consciousness and Cultural Conflict in Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake: A Critical Analysis
Ars Artium, 2014
The term 'Diaspora' means dispersion of human beings from their mother land to another nation. People of the diasporic groups suffer from the pain of alienation, helplessness, homelessness, dislocation from the roots and divided identity. These people remain in conflictual situation between the native and accepted culture. They maintain their own culture and value system in the new environment and also wish that their children should maintain these traditions and values in the alien country. The second generation immigrants have to fulfill the aspirations of their parents and simultaneously meet the demands of their American peers. Consequently, they lead a life of divided identity. In her debut novel The Namesake, the eminent novelist and second generation immigrant in US Jhumpa Lahiri has meticulously dealt these problems by portraying a Bengali Hindu family who journey from Calcutta and settle in Boston City, America. This paper attempts to explore diasporic consciousness and cultural conflict experienced by the first as well as second generation immigrants in America. Ashoke Ganguli, a research scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, marries Ashima a nineteen year girl and settles in US. Later he joins MIT as a professor. They have two children. Though well settled in US they suffer from pain of alienation, homelessness, nostalgia and sense of loss of roots caused by geographical and social dislocation. They also experience humiliation in America due to their Indian heritage. They make every attempt to maintain native culture in an alien country and also want to pass on their native culture to their children. Ashoke, Ashima and their children are torn between the two cultures as they can neither totally assimilate American culture nor break ties with their inherent Indian culture. Thus they lead a life of divided identity.
Jhumpa Lahiri’s “The Namesake”: A Diasporic Penetration
Abstract Born to Bengali parents in July 1967, in London and with her family’s move to Rhode Island, Jhumpa Lahiri began life in the U.S.A. She grew up in the background of traditional Bengali culture. From childhood, she often accompanied her parents back to India-particularly to Calcutta (now known as Kolkata) because of family ties. She observes that her parents retain a sense of emotional exile and she herself grew up with conflicting expectations. In her novel ‘The Namesake’ (2003), Lahiri, a second generation Indian immigrant, reflects the immigrants’ inner psyche, identity crisis, sense of belongingness, loneliness, alienation, the clash of culture, the conflicts of adjustment and the baffling ties between the first and second generation. Keywords: Alienation, Belongings, Culture, Identity-Crisis, Immigrant, Nostalgic
Indian English fiction is a major component of contemporary Anglophone literature (Ashcroft, 2013), and diasporic writing has had a central role over the decades before and after the turn of the XXI century. However, the complexity of the Diaspora concept has remained largely patriarchal and the intersection of gender and Diaspora has been a less explored literary manifestation (Rao Metha, 2015). Moreover, research has mainly focused on the problems of a whole diasporic community, thus overlooking the specific individual experiences faced by women in their geographical shift (Mohanty, 1991). My paper aims at investigating the role of Indian women in the new homeland as protectors of their culture and faithful custodians of Indianness. Through the analysis of Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story Mrs Sen’s (1999), I will show how women are further marginalised in the new society as victims of a double displacement (Gopinath, 2003), both physical and metaphorical (Said, 1994). I will point out that the distance from the motherland does not coincide with a break with tradition. On the contrary, it entails an additional burden for women who must keep alive the notion of “home” while negotiating a new self within the Western society. In conclusion, I will argue that we should think of Diaspora as a gendered process since the experience of migration for men and women is different: the former have the opportunity to look at the future by achieving self-fulfilment in their jobs and public life, while the latter remain in a condition of stasis, constrained in a constant tussle between homeland and host land. References: Ashcroft, Bill. (2013). “Re-writing India”. Writing India Anew. Indian English Fiction 2000-2010. Ed. Krishna Sen and Rituparna Roy. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Gopinath, Gayatri. (2003). “Nostalgia, Desire, Diaspora: South Asian sexualities in motion”. Theorizing Diaspora: A Reader. Ed. Jana Braziel and Anita Mannur. MA: Blackwell Publishing. 261-79. Lahiri, Jumpa. (1999). “Mrs Sen’s”. The interpreter of Maladies. London: Flamingo. Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. (1991). “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourse”. Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism. Ed. Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Anne Russo, and Lourdes Torres. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 51-80. Rao Metha, Sandhya (ed.). (2015). Exploring Gender in the Literature of the Indian Diaspora. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Said, Edward. (1994). Representation of the intellectual. New York: Pantheon Books.
2016
I have lived that moment of the scattering of the people that in other times and other places, in the nations of others, becomes a time of gathering. Gathering of exiles and émigrés and refugees […]. Also the gathering of the people in the diaspora: indentured, migrant, interned; the gathering of incriminatory statistics, educational performance, legal statutes, immigration status-the genealogy of that lonely figure that John Berger named the seventh man.