Naming Jhumpa Lahiri Essay Themes

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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

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