Split-up Identity: Reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake Geo-critically
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51474/elepraxis.v2i1.649Keywords:
Diaspora, anxiety, duality, domesticity, foreignnessAbstract
Jhumpa Lahiri’s writings are often marked by the constant tension between domesticity and foreignness, and she has explored this theme through her own multicultural self, which emerges from the crossroads of three different continents. She was born in London to Bengali parents, brought up in New England, USA, and is currently living in Italy, where she writes in the Italian language to forge a deeper connection with it. Her multicultural perspective influences the characters in her fiction and short stories, constantly challenging cultural monopolies and the constraints of identity politics. Her debut fiction, titled The Namesake, explores the problem of ambivalence in multicultural situations, which leads its protagonists into a space of identity crisis. Despite being originally Indian diaspora, Gogol, the male protagonist, looks upon himself as an American. At the same time, his mother Ashima Ganguli remains in the cleavage of anxiety and ambivalence. This predicament can be interpreted as a consequence of the conflict between dominance and disavowal. They work in parallel, leading them to a situation where they are thrown into the site located between becoming and non-becoming. This qualitative paper, which appears to inspire subsequent researchers to explore this field further, seeks to demonstrate geocritically how split identities are constructed in the current context of glocalization and transnationalism. The research will draw on the theoretical frameworks of postcolonial diaspora theories and geocriticism.
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