Shifting identity is used by Zadie smith, Salman Rushdie in their novels White Teeth and Memoir Joseph Anton respectively as a theme. The themes of immigration is the part of their fiction but their approach is different than Lahiri. Their focus is more on cultural diversity than tribulations of immigrants. They tell after effects of immigration while on the other hand Lahiri uses shifting of identities to depict the trauma of immigrants which is related to the inner/personal world of characters. She does not use a warlike atmosphere or religious scenario like them rather she just focuses on mental trauma of immigrants which is more painful than anything else. 2.5 Critical researches on Lahiri’s fiction Lahiri’s fiction is being explored …show more content…
This is basically a collection of short stories and they provide information about the subjectivity in the works of Lahiri. Furthermore writer discusses about family, gender, relationships, conflicts, identity and nationality in lahiri’s fiction (Dhingra 2). The writer explains that Lahiri’s writing style is realistic and also her highlighting of human events in her fiction like death of husband in The Namesake, giving or rejecting the name of a new born baby, pregnancy, being a father or mother which many reader can relate (introduction xvi). Except subjectivity in writer’s fiction or issues of name this research tells nothing about shifting of identities and their effects on the lives of immigrants. Lahiri’s purpose of writing such fiction is to mirror the bitter realities of immigrant’s life. She herself has faced all these problems in her life while living between two cultures. She describes shift in identity and reasons behind this thing. Shifting identities need to be searched in a broader way. In the first chapter of the book Ethnicity as Intertextuality: Instantiations of “deep time” Floyd and Dhingra discuss issues of ethnic identity in Lahiri’s fiction no doubt if a person is struggling for ethnic identity, it is always hidden in past (10). In her novel The Namesake Lahiri tries to …show more content…
In this book writer has also used the perspective of psychoanalysis to examine lahiri’s fiction and it has also used different ideas of Sigmund fraud, Andre Greene and Julia kristeva. The book comprises of four chapters and the first chapter of the book Diaspora Hereafters pertains the gap between first generation and second generation. First generation In Unaccustomed Earth is Indian American Immigrants with their American born children living in a community of diaspora, maintaining their American identity and also resisting their parent’s love for past life, migration experience and their memories of their mother country (1). Jhumpa lahiri’s interviews always gives an indication that after her parent’s death she felt she had lost her identity (2). The second chapter is Revenant Melancholy which deals with Kaushik crime and exile. The third chapter is Dead Mothers and Haunting which describes intentions of Hema. The fourth chapter is Future of Diaspora which explains the loss of immigrants’ identity and loss of mother land. Still this books lacks in describing immigrants predicaments due to shift in their identities. Though researcher has defined the problems of immigrants but lahiri’s play of continuous shifting identities is not even touched by
She says, “My perception as a young girl was that I fell short at both ends, shuttling between two dimensions ... I followed the customs of my parents, speaking Bengali and eating rice and dal with my fingers. These ordinary facts seemed part of a secret, utterly alien way of life, and I took the pains to hide them from my American friends” (Lahiri 182). Lahiri could not change the fact her skin was brown. This was beyond her control, but has shaped her identity in adulthood. Regardless, the decision to assimilate in childhood made all the difference. The annoying and most real part about assimilation, is that no matter how hard you try, your name and skin color give off so many things that people love to stereotype you before you even open your mouth. I laugh at how many people have told me "your voice doesn't match your face". I really feel with Lahiri when she says, " The immigrant's journey …secures for the subsequent generation a sense of arrival and advantage" (Lahiri
“We are a nation of immigrants. We are the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the ones who wanted a better life” said former Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, at the 2012 Republican National Convention. Since its establishment, the United States has grown through immigration, lending to a multicultural society. However, immigration and its government policies have become of great public interest due to illegal immigration at the Mexican border and violent events in the Middle East. For this reason it seems sensible to investigate the lives of immigrants so that U.S. citizens may take a stance on this disputed topic. Regardless of their origins, whether they are from Latin America, Asia, or anywhere else, immigrants seem to encounter similar endeavors. In Jhumpa Lahiri’s collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies, the author depicts the immigration of Indian citizens to the United States. Noting various matters ranging from motives to the cultural identity crisis, Lahiri exposes the struggles and ramifications of American immigration. The collection elucidates the lives of first and second generation
Haidri deals with conflict of self in regards to the way she identifies herself. She argues that culture and heritage is always undeniable a part of a human that can’t be avoided. Both Wright and Haidri, coming from different backgrounds, shares the quality of having language as the missing puzzle piece that connects them to family and ancestors as well as being multicultural human-beings having to adjust to the societies they live in. As they find the link each writer begin to understand the privilege of being multicultural which helps them become more of a unique individual. A multicultural identity incorporates the customs and traditions like language, families, and ancestors of two or more cultures into one which helps shape a
She conveys a moral to the migrating Indians in their pursuit of material wealth. She asserts that in Change of place or locality one must preserve the philosophical maturity of his native culture and tradition without which life becomes solipsistic. The theme of the novel is cultural but the tone is functionally ethical. “Namesake” seems to be autobiographical where Ashima is Jhumpa herself, though life situations may not be similar exactly. Jhumpa Lahiri with her three works has created history.
In the short story, “When Mr. Pirzada came to Dine,” Jhumpa Lahiri makes is evident that an individual’s identity is found in their family, rather than their job or education. The story is about a man who travels across the world for an education opportunity, leaving his family in Pakistan. He had been awarded a grant from the government of Pakistan to study in New England, but he had to leave his seven daughters in Pakistan. He frequently visits the narrator, Lilia’s home telling stories of back home. Over the course of the short story, the war between Pakistan and India draws closer and his focus shifts from his studies to his family back home. Lahiri make this clear through the quote, “It was only then raising my water glass in his name,
“Mrs. Sen” from Jhumpa Lahiri’s, 1999 short story collection “Interpreter of Maladies” deals with the experience of the Indian immigrant to America. Mrs. Sen is constructed around her experiences of immigration and the cultural differences between Indian and America. Additionally, this story discusses the issues of identity, cultural displacement and the difficulties of those who are physically and psychologically displaced. In his book “The Postcolonial Short Story,” Paul Russell states that it Lahiri’s stories focuses more on dislocation rather than location and thus this dislocation has become a dominant trait and theme in her stories (np).
The central problem in Flannery O’Connor’s story, “Everything That Rises Must Converge”, Maxine Hong Kingston’s “The Woman Warrior”, and Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif”, revolve on the issue of race. Morrison and O’Connor focus on the theme of race specifically between blacks and whites in America. It could be said that Kingston’s “The Woman Warrior” concentrates on the racial difference between Asian and Caucasian but race is not made to be a big issue in this novel, since almost all of the characters is ethnically Chinese. Instead, the relationships are more marked by nationality. The characters in Jhumpa Lahiri’s collection of stories “Interpreter of Maladies”, are of Indian origin and deal with the problem of ethnicity.
The Namesake, written by Jhumpa Lahira, a famous Indian writer who won the Pulitzer Prize for her story collection Interpreter of Maladies, brilliantly illustrates the immigrant experience and the tangled ties between generations. In this novel, the main characters Ashima and her husband, Ashoke, were first generation immigrants in the United States from India. The whole story begins with Ashima's pregnancy and her nostalgia of her hometown, and a sense of melancholy revealed from the first chapter. While Ashima felt insecure and worried about her new life in the United States, her husband Ashoke, rather wanted to settle in and struggle for a new life. All of uncertainty and reluctance of this new-coming couple faded way when their son, Gogol, was born.
The word ‘Diaspora’ is derived from the Greek word ‘Diasperio’ which means to scatter or to distribute. The term originally associated with the Jewish historical experience but today the term has got a more expanded meaning it refers to common ancestral homeland, voluntary or involuntary migration and a sense of marginality in the country of residence. This term cuts of various disciplines such as Political Science, Cultural Studies and Sociology, etc. On the history of globalization, the term ‘Diaspora’ raises the question of acculturation, assimilation, the loss of identity, etc. Diaspora has been a favorite topic in the transnational world of literature for innovative literary outputs in recent years. People who have flown and tried to settle over the distant territories of the world for various reasons have always settled assurance of home and they cannot allow their roots being blown over into fragments of uncertain insecurities on a foreign land. The intellectuals and authors have tried to represent these feelings in diverse ways in diverse writings all over the world. Having been born of educated middle class Bengali parents in London and grown up in Rhodes Island, Lahiri truly portrays her diasporic experiences in her first novel The Namesake.
Indian English writers have always been responsive to the changes in material reality and theoretical perspectives that have influenced and governed its study from the very beginning. At the earlier stage the fictional works of Mulk Raj Anand, R.K.Narayan and Raja Rao were mainly concerned with the down-trodden of the society, the middle class life and the expression of traditional cultural ethos of India. The writings of Bharati Mukherjee, Jhumpa Lahiri, Anita Desai, Kavita Dasvani, M.G. Vassanjee, V.S.Naipaul and Hari Kunjru, to name a few, provide an insight of the problems faced by the dislocated people in their adopted homes in a way that questions the traditional understanding of the concepts like home, nation, native and alien. Contemporary writers hailing from the previously colonized nations, particularly India, explore the forms of life that existed during the British rule and expose the subtle strategies employed to make the colonized
By portraying women that find themselves in extraordinary situations at various points of their lives, Nair and Lahiri-whose novel does not focus primarily on women-challenge the traditional roles Indian women, are ascribed. Most of the women they depict in their novels are particularly strong women who are determined to fight for themselves no matter what. Doing so, they often break the codes the society has imposed on them, either deliberately or as a side effect. Crossing the lines of what is and what is not allowed in human relationships is what Nair's novel examines, as well as the consequences that it brings for all who are involved either directly or indirectly. The characters in “Namesake” are strong women who fight for their rights and are prepared to face the consequences. None of them is, however, able to imagine how different-and much crueler-the real consequences can be from what they expect. There is a great discrepancy between what they imagine would be an appropriate punishment if they cross the lines and what they really have to face when they do. What might seem to be a normal behaviour to a Western woman can have literally lethal consequences if performed by a South Indian middle class woman, acting on a whim or following one's dreams regardless of what the others may say is a behaviour that not only is not tolerated, but is punished rather severely.
The narrator looks forwards to the opportunity that the new country can afford. He finds that it is where he feels at home, he refers to himself and his family as “American citizens”(196) For Lilia’s parents in Mr.Pirzada Came to Dine, the move to America presents them with many opportunities not open to them in India, however Lilia pays the price in terms of connection to her culture. In Mrs.Sen’s, Mrs.Sen refuses to adjust to American Culture. Her whole life is still in India and she feels that there is no reason to try to enjoy her life in this new culture. Each character in this collection struggles with their identity, whether newly displaced or stemmed from a different
This autobiographical narrative is a collection Bharati Mukherjee’s experience returning to India with her Canadian husband who is also the co-author. They both separately wrote about their experiences in the country and the daily life for it’s people. The book focuses on these two contrasting points of view and cultural backgrounds ("Days and Nights in Calcutta , Bharati Mukherjee”). It is rated four stars out of five on Amazon.com.
The understanding of migration and existing in a Diaspora have aroused active engagement in Postcolonial literature, criticism and theory. Writers like Buchi Emecheta, Amitav Ghosh, Bharati Mukherjee have become famous in Western literary Criticism whereas theorist like Homi K Bhabha, Paul Gilory, Stuart Hall introduced new critical thinking and developed relationship between literature, history and politics. In the modern times the world is globalizing, people have to move from one place to the other to earn their livelihood or other multiple reasons thereby creating interdependence upon each other. Whether these migrations have been out of choice or forced, the idea of Diaspora in particular has been prolific as far as the movement of people throughout the world, in real-life is concerned. The Diasporic studies see migration in terms of adaptation and creation—adaptation to changes, dislocations and transformations, and the creation of new forms of knowledge and different ways of examining the world. The Indian Diaspora in the West has experienced a physical displacement but there is little cause for them to feel exiled. The external circumstances of displacement become less important while the psychological and spiritual condition of the mind, gain promi...
Lal’s observation is important to focus on Indian social matrix where women discriminations still exists. Though Indians are westernized externally, they are very Indian by psychology. They cannot consider women as separate and central part of humanity. The woman’s existence beyond man is still denied in Indian patriarchy. Manju Kapur has aptly caught the thread through the novel. She has depicted the woman’s yearning for self-autonomy and individual identity on the canvas of male dominated society. She has aptly depicted Virmati’s conflict, her dilemma whether to choose the psychological or sociological existence. Virmati combusts on each level of life, gains little, and lose much in journey. She struggles for education, love, individual space