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,
Initially, Elisabeth is the matriarch of the four generations of women talked about in the story. Elisabeth works in the house, but she’s married to a field slave and has three daughters. Not much insight is given on Elisabeth and her feelings, yet through the narration it is as if she lived vicariously through her youngest daughter, Suzette: “It was as if her mother were the one who had just had her first communion not Suzette” (20) Even though Elisabeth too worked in the house, Suzette had more privileges than her mother and the other slaves. Elisabeth represented the strength and the pride of her people: “You have a mother and a father both, and they don’t live up to the [plantation] house” (25). She would constantly remind Suzette of her real family, which signifies the remembrance of a history of people and their roots. It is up to Suzette to keep the heritage even through the latter miscegenation of the generations to come.
Pirzada is from East Pakistan and Lilia’s family is from India where both cultures are fighting on the other side of the world while these two cultures are able to have peace in America. The theme is the overall message of the story and the overall message in this story is that in America cultural differences can be put aside, and people can come together without fighting over issues that are going on the other side of the world. Lahiri writes, “He seemed concerned that Mr. Pirzada might take offense if I accidentally referred to him as an Indian, though I could not really imagine Mr. Pirzada being offended by much of anything. ‘Mr. Pirzada is Bengali, but he is a Muslim’… ‘Therefore he lives in East Pakistan, not India’ (Lahiri 26). This shows readers that Mr. Pirzada and Lilia’s family are opposites because Mr. Pirzada is a Muslim, which Lilia’s family is not. These were the two cultures at war on the other side of the world. Lilia’s father didn’t want Lilia to accidently refer Mr. Pirzada as an Indian because he was afraid that he might take offense. This is because Mr. Pirzada is not an Indian, he is a Muslim. Mr. Pirzada is Bengali because East Pakistan
I was 23 years old. My husband Bharat came to the US from Gujarat, India in 1985 on a student visa to study for a masters in engineering. After one year at his new job he returned to India for marriage. Our marriage was a completely arranged marriage. I had never seen him before, I had never talked to him before, we were set up by our families. I was chosen because they (the families) thought my background in pharmacy was more helpful when you come here (to the US) so you don’t struggle as much. Bharat and I met on April 13, 1987, we were married on April 26, Bharat came back on May 17th to do paperwork for me as and I came here on July 1st. If I think back I felt like I was hallucinating or like I was not myself. I felt like someone had been
to America with grace and compassion. This story by Jhumpa Lahiri, is an allegory establishing an identity with using symbolic meaning between two cultures that intersect. The themes throughout the story refer to immigrant experiences, the conflict of cultures, the contrast of assimilation and the connection between generations. The Namesake, opens the worlds of emotions Ashima experiences, while straddling her two worlds. This story of identity allows readers to travel with Ashima on an intimate journey through her life as an immigrant.
The stories and book thus gives the ample examples of successful cultural translation. Lahiri’s characters reveal almost every facets of life, their migration from their native land to their settlement in abroad and thus bring forth different aspects of human life. The stories are the reflection of what Indian immigrants really experience after leaving the country.
America, the great melting pot, is where people from all over the world come to be accepted and have opportunities to be whoever they want to be. An author praised for her eye-opening works, Jhumpa Lahiri is a Bengali-American author who writes about life as an immigrant in America. Being both Indian and American created a complex identity for Lahiri. She struggled with the competing cultures of assimilation into American culture but keeping her heritage and Bengali roots. Although Jhumpa Lahiri is known for her collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies, she was significantly influenced by her family’s heritage and struggle of growing up stuck between two cultures.
Do you ever imagine you and your family in a perilous country like Kabul,? The Breadwinner is set during the rule of the Taliban who hold a restrictive and oppressive view of Islam. In the novel, many Afghans struggle to maintain their human dignity and keep a hopeful posture about their dire situation and future. Do you ever think of yourself struggling to live in a cruel town with war and brutality And many traumatizing things to see? But if that’s true then you should probably look at Parvana's life and examine how it goes in the book, the theme is on struggling.
Lastly Khaled Hosseini looks at a Afghan family and how its each family members commitment and strong bond is what is essential in ones future/identity. In the novel it was evident that Pari’s relationship with her family, mainly her brother, Abdullah was Pari’s source of unconditional love and it was that very thing that kept Pari connected to her roots which is the very thing that shaped her future/identity. Pari’s uncle was the very reason why Pari was sold in the novel and the cause of Abdullah being stripped from his only family. In the novel the separation of Pari and Abdullah caused sever pain as Abdullah was not just a brother rather he played the mother and father figure for Pari. In the novel the author, Khaled Hosseini uses many
Jhumpa Lahiri was born as NalanjanaSudeshana. But as Jhumpa was found easier to pronounce, the teacher at her pre-school started addressing her Jhumpa. In the course of time it became her official name. Jhumpa Lahiri tries to focus on the issue of identity what she had faced in her childhood. Nikhil replaces Gogol when he enters Yale as a freshman. Here nobody knows his earlier name. He feels relief and confident. No one knows him as Gogol but Nikhil. His life with new name also gets changed. His transformation starts here. He starts doing many activities which he could not dare to do as Gogol. He dates American girls. He shares live in relationship. His way of life, food everything changes. But a new dilemma clutches him. He changes his name but “he does not feel like Nikhil” (Lahiri, 105). Gogol is not completely cut off from his roots and identity. He tries to reject his past but it makes him stranger to himself. He fears to be discovered. With the rejection of Gogol’s name, Lahiri rejects the immigrant identity maintained by his parents. But this outward change fails to give him inner satisfaction. “After eighteen years of Gogol, two months of Nikhil feels scant, inconsequential.” (Lahiri, 105) He hates everything that reminds him of his past and heritage. The loss of the old name was not so easy to forget and when alternate weekends, he visits his home “Nikhil evaporates and Gogol claims him again.” (Lahiri,
“If you go anywhere, even paradise, you will miss your home.” (Malala Yousafzai.) In “Mrs. Sen’s” by Jhumpa Lahiri, Mrs. Sen is far from home, and far from paradise. After leaving India to move to America, life hasn’t been half of what Mrs. Sen expected. Back in India, neighbors could walk into each others house just to say hello, and it would be fine with the host. In America, it is quite different.
In this text Mohanty argues that contemporary western feminist writing on Third World women contributes to the reproduction of colonial discourses where women in the South are represented as an undifferentiated “other”. Mohanty examines how liberal and socialist feminist scholarship use analytics strategies that creates an essentialist construction of the category woman, universalist assumptions of sexist oppression and how this contributes to the perpetuation of colonialist relations between the north and south(Mohanty 1991:55). She criticises Western feminist discourse for constructing “the third world woman” as a homogeneous “powerless” and vulnerable group, while women in the North still represent the modern and liberated woman (Mohanty 1991:56).
In a time of war and hardship, a little girl in New England is forced to learn the hardships of life. This little girl is Lilia, and she is the main character in the short story “When Mr.Pirzada Came to Dine” written by Jhumpa Lahiri. She learns more about the world with the help of Mr. Pirzada, a middle eastern man from Pakistan. Mr. Pirzada is sent to the US by his university in Dacca to study the flora and the foliage of New England. During his stay, Mr. Pirzada would dine with Lilia and her family, and when war breaks out in India and Pakistan, both of their lives will change forever. In their frequent interaction Mr. Pirzada indirectly taught Lilia the harsh reality of the world, and how hardship can bring anyone together.
Live Free and Starve was an interesting story because people from develop countries view other countries in a same way as they think of their country. In a third world countries people have hard time to food on the table. Story write Chitra Divakaruni has shown us exactly how it’s going to effect if we ban products from third world countries. I was very supportive on freeing child labor movement, because after spending seven years in The United States of America I forget how I used to live in Nepal. I also had chance to live in India for three years. I know the daily struggles of this poor parents when sent their kids in order to put food in the table, because once open a time they were labor as well. Since they were labor from small age they
Moni Mohsin is a famous columnist and a freelance writer who originally belongs to Lahore, Pakistan. Her current writings are published by several renowned publications, one even owned by her own sister here in Pakistan, Jugnu Mohsin, called ‘Friday Times’, and others being; The Guardian, The Nation, The times of India, and The New York Times (Emirateslitfest). Her first two novels, The End of Innocence and Duty Free, are both prize winning pieces of work (Emirateslitfest). The former novel is based on a sensitive and astounding story centered in west Punjab during the unstable times of Pakistan during the 1970’s (Mukherjee), while latter is more of a satirical and humorous writing based on a woman who helps her cousin to find him a suitable wife (Mohsin, Google books). Moni belongs to a liberal and educated family background. During the General Zia-ul-Haq's dictatorship, as the political and social environment became a bit religiously extreme, she and her family felt uneasy during that time (Lau). This might be the reason why she has critiqued in so much depth over the Pakistan’s politics and Pakistan’s elite class, in her journal- The Diary of a Social Butterfly. The journal is satirical commentary through the perspective of a socialite. It is filled with humor, tongue in cheek tone and wit which gives the reader fits of laughter. Moni has maintained periodicity while presenting the real events that occurred from 2000 to 2008. Most prominent thing about this writing is the malapropistic voice of the protagonist which maintains the humor even while presenting the sad and awful events in the journal. Also there is use of both English and Urdu language which makes the writing unique and interesting. However in her writing the autho...
In Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, The Namesake, the protagonist, Gogol, struggles with his cultural identity. He is an American-born Bengali struggling to define himself. He wants to fit into the typical American-lifestyle, a lifestyle his parents do not understand. This causes him tension through his adolescence and adult life, he has trouble finding a balance between America and Bengali culture. This is exemplified with his romantic relationships. These relationships directly reflect where he is in his life, what he is going through and his relationship with his parents. Each woman indicates a particular moment in time where he is trying to figure out his cultural identity. Ruth represents an initial break away from Bengali culture; Maxine represents