A DISCOURSE ON DIASPORA -EXPLORING JHUMPA LAHIRI'S 'NAMESAKE' (original) (raw)

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

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.

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 Literary Worlds of Three Authors: Bharati Mukherjee, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and Jhumpa Lahiri

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.

Unhomely Home: Cultural Encounter of Diaspora in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake

NUTA Journal

This article discusses unhomely home of the diasporas which is constructed geographically and psychologically by encountering the alien culture based on Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel The Namesake. The purpose was to highlights recent debate on ‘home’ for immigrant and diasporic people. The notion of home for diasporas has become an injured concept which forces them to face scars and fractures, blisters and sores, and psychic traumas on the move. In such a situation, unhomely home refers to the condition of living here and belonging elsewhere. Jhumpa Lahiritells the story of two generations of Indian family and their struggle to acculturate themselves in the west. She presents a gloomy spectacle of racism, prejudice and marginalization in which Gogol, the son of a Bengali couple, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli, becomes a victim of it. Gogol struggles to transform himself by escaping from the traditions of the community of Indian immigrants to which his family belongs. He also cannot assimilate wi...

“Home is where we have to gather grace”: Shifting “overcoats” of ethnic identity in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake

“ ‘I should probably warn you that I live with my parents’, she adds. ‘Oh.’ This unexpected piece of information deflates him, confuses him. He asks if her parents will mind his coming over, if perhaps they should meet at a restaurant instead. But she laughs at the suggestion in a way that makes him feel vaguely foolish. ‘Why on earth would they mind?’ “ (“The Namesake”, 129) Nothing is static in Jhumpa Lahiri’s “The Namesake”. Whether it is Gogol hesitating to meet Maxine at her house in the above extract, or his parents’ hesitant foray into an alien land three decades earlier, journeys rule. Journeys not only from Calcutta to Boston, but also journeys spanning hearts. “The Namesake” cannot be categorised only as a family saga. It is a story of love and deceit, of friends and loners. Of ‘home’ and ‘abroad’. The two generations of Gangulis--- Ashima-Ashoke and Gogol-Sonia--- share the joys and pains of discoveries as they undertake almost parallel journeys in terms of experiences. Their existence in America mirrors the dilemma faced by every member of the Indian diaspora settled abroad. Substitution becomes a game of one-upmanship, as Indian and American traditions vie for their acceptance. So, we find a pregnant Ashima trying to rustle up some jhalmuri using ‘Rice Krispies and Planters peanuts’, while Gogol’s lackadaisical attitude towards the idea of ABCDs (American-born confused deshis) indicates his own existentialist dilemma and his struggle to be accepted in society as Nikhil, the ‘American’ citizen. Gogol’s journey, thus, becomes a journey that the diaspora all over the world, goes through in search of that elusive and metaphysical place called ‘home’.

JOURNAL OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND RESEARCH SOCIETY A REFEREED INTERNATIONAL DIASPORIC IDENTITY IN LITERATURE

The Diaspora encompasses narratives of displacement, immigration, identity, transnational's and the cross-fertilization of ideas. The immigrants feel lonely and solitary, because of the difficulty they come across in lack of adaptability, lack of acculturation, multiple identities in the foreign countries. Diaspora Literature comprises of an idea of a homeland, a place from where the displacement or dislocation occurs and narratives of merciless journeys of the migrants from one place to another. Indian Diaspora, today, has emerged with the multiplicity of histories, variety of culture, tradition, and a deep instinct for survival. The process of survival of the diasporic individual in between the "home of origin" and the "world of adoption" is the voyage undertaken in the whole process of "Alienation" which the migrants experience in real life situations. Alienation and quest for identity has always been a theme in literature. This paper is an attempt to study the Diasporic Identity in literature with reference to the novels of Bharati Mukherjee, Salmaan Rushdie, Kiran Desia and Jhumpa Lahiri. This paper also aims at tracing the quest of the protagonists for his/her identity in the novel.

The Intertextual Dimension of Otherness in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake

Journal of History Culture and Art Research, 2015

The work of the Pulitzer prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri has been referred to as a solid representation of diaspora and immigrant literature. One of her most famous books, the novel The Namesake (2003), illustrates the experience of dislocation psychologically exploring the identity crisis and the sense of alienation. Nevertheless, the novel offers the opportunity of a trans-textual approach that leads to a philosophical vision of the traditional issues of alterity. The aim of the paper is to explore the extent to which an intertextual reading of the novel can provide a better understanding of the multitude of socio-cultural and identity questions the book raises. The resonance of Nikolai Gogol's name, work and tumultuous existence transgresses the pages in layers of meaningful interpretation of Otherness as a duality of name and cultural affiliation. The never read essential text, Gogol's short story The Overcoat, shapes the tragic paternal imagery in a continual struggle of the inner self to clarify the sense of displacement and hybridity.

Diasporic Consciousness: Cultural Identity in 'The Namesake' and 'The Lowland'

Migration and scattered occurrence end up amongst the most significant issues in the contemporary world where 'globalization' and 'postcolonialism', are ceaselessly scrutinizing the limits of national identity. So due to this highly ambivalent state of identity, there has been a need of very specific descriptive words so that people can identify themselves as who and what they exactly are. Words like transnationalism, transculturation, hybridity, creolization and diaspora find very common usage in the modern world. In the light of the terms stated above, this paper proposes a literary examination of Jhumpa Lahiri's works through the viewpoint of diasporic consciousness. After a concise examination of the word Diaspora with focus on the Indian subcontinent, this paper investigates the literary structure of Lahiri's The Namesake (2003) and The Lowland (2013), connecting them to diasporic discourse and scrutinises the social, cultural and national identity crisis that the characters face due to their ambiguous state of being.

Identity Crisis, Displacement and Rootlessness in Migrant Literature with Special Reference to Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake

Migration has become a common trend today. Though having an age long history of migration, migration studies have only gained prominence since 1980s and have started to establish itself as a new genre in literature. Migration is a voyage between two cultures in which a migrant is neither able to assimilate the new culture nor able to cast off its root culture and gets tangled in between. The immigrants face the problem of assimilation into the other culture and there is a perpetual push and pull between two traditions. The present paper focuses upon the life struggle of a Bengali couple Ashoke and Ashima who immigrate to America from India and try to incorporate the new culture. They try to keep their roots alive in the foreign land by observing some of the Indian rituals and thus developing a sense of belongingness to their homeland. But for the second generation, the couple had to adopt the tradition of the immigrant country. Gogol and Moushumi often feel as if they are torn and lost between the country of their birth and the values inherited from their parents. Not only Gogol and Moushumi but all other characters are bewildered about their self and are shuttling between two worlds. The present paper explores the theme of displacement and rootlessness in their life and a quest for the self.