LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 12 : 7 July 2012
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

HOME PAGE

Click Here for Back Issues of Language in India - From 2001

BOOKS FOR YOU TO READ AND DOWNLOAD FREE!

REFERENCE MATERIAL

BACK ISSUES

  • E-mail your articles and book-length reports in Microsoft Word to languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.

  • PLEASE READ THE GUIDELINES GIVEN IN HOME PAGE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LIST OF CONTENTS.

  • Your articles and book-length reports should be written following the APA, MLA, LSA, or IJDL Stylesheet.

  • The Editorial Board has the right to accept, reject, or suggest modifications to the articles submitted for publication, and to make suitable stylistic adjustments. High quality, academic integrity, ethics and morals are expected from the authors and discussants.

Copyright © 2012
M. S. Thirumalai
Custom Search

Quest for the Past in an Alien Land: A Study of Jhumpa Lahiri’s Namesake and Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine

Monica Balyan Dahiya, Ph.D. Scholar

Abstract

An analysis of the experiences of the immigrants in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Namesake and Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine, reveals that the migrants are searching for Home in an alien land to find meaning and a belonging in their diasporic situation, with an amalgamation of their Indian roots and the alien culture. The works of the authors create a kaleidoscopic view of these migrants’ lives which unfolds various issues related to cultural transformations in their identities, new possibilities, new ways of thinking and complex experiences faced in the process of their assimilation in a new country.

Regardless of location, ethnic origin, age or gender, immigrants in Europe and the world overall have to struggle with the tension between alien/native culture and identity. They keep journeying between the land of their roots/origin and the land of adoption for their existence.

Lahiri’s Namesake narrates the assimilation of an Indian Bengali family from Calcutta, the Gangulis, into American culture, the cultural dilemmas experienced by them, and their American born children in different ways; the spatial, cultural and emotional dislocations suffered by them in their efforts to settle “home” in the new land. This shows the juxtaposition of conventional thinking, and unconventional desires, their fruitless effort to satisfy a traditional lifestyle, while trying to comprehend the open western culture.

Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine, the story of a widowed Punjabi peasant who is re-exploring herself in America is another example of search for an identity in an alien land. She does this through several transformations during her journey of quest in America, from Jyoti to Jasmine to Jane. The objective of the paper is to study the efforts of immigrants assimilating two cultures, while seeking to find a place in the mainstream life in the adopted country.

KEY WORDS: Identity, Loss, Roots, Assimilation, Alien/Native Culture, Multicultural, Homeland, Host land, Recollection, Uprooting, Loneliness, Negotiation.

The Focus of This Paper – Why Diasporic Longing?

The present paper proposes to study the reasons that draw immigrants back to their roots and analyze the causes and consequences of the alienation, as well as the Diaspora writers’ longing for homeland that figures in their writing. These immigrants are haunted by some sense of loss and agonize over the home left behind; and they create their writings with elements of imagination. The impact of diasporic experiences on their psyche depends on their level of belonging in a foreign land. When these experiences are expressed in literature, there emerge writers who search for their roots in the lands of their ancestors. The diasporic writing depicts the experience of encountering a different mode of living strange to them, and the cultural adaptation is the only solution; and this brings in cultural shock.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Monica Balyan Dahiya, Ph.D. Scholar
Department of Humanities
Deenbandhu Chhotu Ram University of Science and Technology
Murthal (Sonepat) 131027
Haryana
India
elite1282@gmail.com
Custom Search
  • Click Here to Go to Creative Writing Section

  • Send your articles
    as an attachment
    to your e-mail to
    languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • Please ensure that your name, academic degrees, institutional affiliation and institutional address, and your e-mail address are all given in the first page of your article. Also include a declaration that your article or work submitted for publication in LANGUAGE IN INDIA is an original work by you and that you have duly acknowledged the work or works of others you used in writing your articles, etc. Remember that by maintaining academic integrity we not only do the right thing but also help the growth, development and recognition of Indian/South Asian scholarship.