It shall be my endeavour in this research to explore the theme of Indian Postcolonial diaspora, the cultural dislocation and consequent alienation. The paper attempts to re-trace the multiple terrains of cultural and psychological struggle within for the expatriate, the nostalgia accompanied with the expatriate experience and the continuous conflict between past and the present. I also intend to analyse the series of crises the migrants experience in order to seek acceptance in new cultural denominations. The nature of this postcolonial study intends to explore the conflicts between Indian traditions and Western habits. To support my arguments, I have chosen the celebrated novel, The Namesake written by the diaspora writer Jhumpa Lahiri.
Defining Diaspora. The word diaspora is important and relevant to all who have migrated to various countries across the world in search of better fortunes. The word diaspora literally means “to disperse”. It is Greek in origin. In the book, “Key Concepts of Postcolonial Studies”, Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin define Diaspora as the “voluntary or forcible movement of peoples from their home lands into new regions…”(Ashcroft 68). In the words of Robert Cohen, diasporas constitutecommunity who live together in foreign territories to “acknowledge the old country – a nation often burieddeep in language, religion, custom or folklore- always has some claim in the loyalty and emotions”. (Cohenix). In Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel The Namesake, we find the first generation migrant protagonist Ashima Ganguly looks back towards past, tries to find solace in recreating her homeland which was Calcutta in the new foreign territory of Cambridge and New York. On this context, I find it relevant to d...
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... only to a single culture or ethnicity or nationality. In other words the second generation immigrants like Gogol, Sonia, Moushumi are the product of hybrid cultures. In the age of globalisation, with locational changes the expatriate incorporate new ethnicities which give birth to an entirely new cultural identity. The narrative philosophically explores the spatial dislocation, cultural alienation and emotional isolation of the expatriates. The journey for the quest for identity is always difficult, more so, in the expatriate experience. The land of opportunities simultaneously becomes the land of crises and confusion. Psychologically, the expatriate slowly imbibes hybrid cultural denominations and continue to evolve into new dimensions while consciously accepting the historical past as the point of origin for its spiritual and emotional identification of the soul.
“Like many immigrant offspring I felt intense pressure to be two things, loyal to the old world and fluent in the new, approved of on either side of the hyphen” (Lahiri, My Two lives). Jhumpa Lahiri, a Pulitzer Prize winner, describes herself as Indian-American, where she feels she is neither an Indian nor an American. Lahiri feels alienated by struggling to live two lives by maintaining two distinct cultures. Lahiri’s most of the work is recognized in the USA rather than in India where she is descents from (the guardian.com). Lahiri’s character’s, themes, and imagery in her short stories and novels describes the cultural differences of being Indian American and how Indian’s maintain their identity when moved to a new world. Lahiri’s inability to feel accepted within her home, inability to be fully American, being an Indian-American, and the difference between families with same culture which is reflected in one of her short stories “Once in a Lifetime” through characterization and imagery.
Hall, S. (1995). Diasporas. from "routes" to roots (pp. 427-428). new york: oxford university press.
In “My Two Lives”, Jhumpa Lahiri tells of her complicated upbringing in Rhode Island with her Calcutta born-and-raised parents, in which she continually sought a balance between both her Indian and American sides. She explains how she differs from her parents due to immigration, the existent connections to India, and her development as a writer of Indian-American stories. “The Freedom of the Inbetween” written by Sally Dalton-Brown explores the state of limbo, or “being between cultures”, which can make second-generation immigrants feel liberated, or vice versa, trapped within the two (333). This work also discusses how Lahiri writes about her life experiences through her own characters in her books. Charles Hirschman’s “Immigration and the American Century” states that immigrants are shaped by the combination of an adaptation to American...
The Face: Strangers on a pier by Tash Aw, is an implausible novel where Aw’s family background about the experience his grandfather had migrating somewhere else was. The novel illustrates his grandfather's journey, and the heritage from which he derives from, but it also inputs a new key term of “forgetters”. It lack the sentimental element that every migrant novel carries. The pity, and pathos most people relate to when recounting the hardships an immigrant goes through to gain acceptance and stability in a new country. In addition, it adds what others don’t which is assimilating the novel to the grandchildren, and new generation of people from the migrating families. It puts in perspective how the generations to come lose the dialect, forget
As the Diaspora experience is presented as a distinct identity trait of the Jewish people, there is ...
The concept diaspora was derived from Greek and means the migration, movement, or scattering of people from their homeland that share the some links or common cultural elements to a home whether real or imagined. The reason why the term ‘diaspora’ is important to understand and is useful because it refers not only because its linked and refers to globalization, linking and connecting place, social consequences of migration, but also, to a form of consciousness and an awareness of home at a more personal level. The feelings, relationships and identities that is often very deeply meaningful to migrants. (Raghuram and Erel, 2014, p. 153 -
Knott , Kim, and Seán McLoughlin, eds. Diasporas Concepts, Intersections, Identities. New York : Zed Books, 2010. Print.
Rajan, R. S. (n.d.). Concepts in postcolonial theory: Diaspora, exile, migration . Retrieved from http://english.fas.nyu.edu/docs/IO/10743/G41.2900fall09.pdf
Sometimes religion can be a necessity for comfort. Over time, we may already possess our very own identities and then develop different ones after a tragedy. In order to easily move on from a plight, some sort of comfort or security is needed, whether its time, family, friends, a sport, or religion. In the novel, The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, one can clearly see the viewpoint of how Gogol’s life over time has evolved from American to Bengali. With the comfort of his Bengali life he’s able to push through the tragedy of his father’s death. However, apart from when Gogol needs his family and culture for comfort, he is simply a true American.
Consequently, the families, and the parents especially, feel isolated from society in their new homes. Especially in Ghada’s case, the reader observes how the children, who naturally become more integrated thanks to their education in the school system, begin to feel less close to their parents. Indeed, this characteristic of both Khadra and Ghada’s families demonstrates the unique situation in which many Muslim migrants find themselves. For some, their move is seen as temporary at the beginning, which provides no incentive to integrate. However, this ultimately makes their lives in the new country more difficult and lonely.
Immigrant enclaves, a term coined by ecologists at the Chicago School at the beginning of the twenty-first century, is understood as a place where a large number of immigrants, group together upon their first arrival within a new environment, such as a global city. These enclaves provide affordable accommodation, and a form of community to newcomers who often have very little in the way of financial support, but are often run down. Today, immigrants are not limited to the poor and desperate, but include a more diverse spectrum of people, including those with professional status. Whether a place is regarded as an ethnic enclave or an ethnic community, the neighbourhood continues to be a critical part of minority groups’ experiences of the diaspora. These spaces are the first form of community that is experienced by immigrants that have some connection to the environments and traditions that they have left behind.
Do our names give us meaning or do we give meaning to our names? From the moment we are born our parents are the ones to give us our name without knowing our personality, only hoping it fits who we grow up to be. In Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel The Namesake, the protagonist is struggling with a conflict within himself whether to accept his Bengali culture or to embrace a new way. The American way. Being the son of two Bengali parents Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli were in a rush to name their newborn child after never having received the name sent by the protagonist’s grandmother. In this moment, at the rush of the hour the child was named Gogol, taking the name of an author of the book that saved the life of his father after having been in a horrible
Migration of the human population began over a million years ago beginning in Africa and later across Asia and Europe. Since the beginning of human existence, migration has continued through both voluntary migration within one’s country or elsewhere and through involuntary migration, which includes the slave trade and human trafficking. The movement of labor to capital can simply illustrate modern migration, in its purest form. Because of the constant migration of humans across the globe, the assimilation of many cultures was forced. This in turn led to inherent problems such as cultural alienation and cultural fragmentation to exist within society. In each of the short stories, “One Out of Many” written by Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul and “The Old Chief Mshlanga” written by Nobel laureate Doris Lessing, the authors are able to successfully express the subject matter of cultural alienation and fragmentation through careful analysis of class and race in each of the stories respective societies.
Postcolonial authors use their literature and poetry to solidify, through criticism and celebration, an emerging national identity, which they have taken on the responsibility of representing. Surely, the reevaluation of national identity is an eventual and essential result of a country gaining independence from a colonial power, or a country emerging from a fledgling settler colony. However, to claim to be representative of that entire identity is a huge undertaking for an author trying to convey a postcolonial message. Each nation, province, island, state, neighborhood and individual is its own unique amalgamation of history, culture, language and tradition. Only by understanding and embracing the idea of cultural hybridity when attempting to explore the concept of national identity can any one individual, or nation, truly hope to understand or communicate the lasting effects of the colonial process.
The term “Diaspora” is used to refer either to singular person or ethnic population forced or induced to leave their traditional ethnic homelands being dispersed throughout other parts of the world, and the ensuing developments in their dispersal and culture. In the beginning, the term was used by the Ancient Greeks to refer to citizens of a grand city who migrated to a conquered land with the purpose of colonization to assimilate the territory into the empire. A large number of Indians migrated to Far East and South East Asia to spread Buddhism during the ancient times. The migration was a history of misery, deprivation and sorrow during the colonial period. In this century the migration was mainly due to the industrialized and