LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 20:10 October 2020
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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Indian Women in Diaspora: A Study of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake

Subham Ghosh

Abstract

In Indian English fiction women are usually presented as passive, submissive, and docile. The traditional, patriarchal society is largely responsible for this. But when these women shift to an overseas country, they face some different kinds of problems. While men in foreign countries, apart from all the problems regarding dislocation, can somehow console themselves by the dream to fulfill which they have gone there; the women, specially the homemakers, find nothing to clutch upon. They suffer heavily from rootlessness, nostalgia, and identity crisis. This paper is therefore a study of some of these female characters from The Namesake, where we shall try to focus on how they assimilate themselves in a foreign nation and finally find out a new identity.

Keywords: Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake, Diaspora, identity crisis, women.

Introduction

Name is a very essential part of our identity. It is the name which identifies and differentiates one from other at the initial level. In the words of Hamid Farahmandian et al, “Names we are given by our parents help shape our identity and sense of belonging.” (953). Thus, name undoubtedly plays a vital role in our life. However, the main theme of The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri is also the name that is given to a person, its meaningfulness, the culture it carries with it, the effect that it leaves upon somebody when its meaning is something undesirable and how all these things together contribute to develop the identity of the character.

Gogol Ganguli, the son of Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli, the main protagonist of the novel, was named after the famous Russian author Nikolai Gogol, a name which does not apparently have any meaning and the whole story revolves around his life, his growing up in Boston, the mental tensions and traumas and his struggle to find out his identity in a very confusing state of mind. Being raised up in a Bengali atmosphere at home, surrounded by the American atmosphere outside home and having a name which is neither Bengali nor American and which is not even a name but a surname, Gogol finds it really difficult to cope up with his name from the very childhood and this affected his psyche a lot to assert his identity. The cultural conflicts, language and the problems regarding manners and values, all of which together constitute a state of in-betweenness among every Indian diasporic to America, tormented Gogol too. But when the question comes to the identity of Indian Diasporic women, the situation becomes more acute. Their sense of belongingness, isolation, dislocation, mental conflicts and nostalgia are totally different from that of men. They face completely different sets of problems while asserting their identities and finding a place in a foreign land where everybody and everything is different from what they are habituated to see. Therefore, this paper will examine the female characters in The Namesake, with special emphasis on Ashima Ganguli, Moshumi and Sonia and thereby try to analyse these characters’ mentality, attitudes and how they respond to their diasporic situations in America.

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

Subham Ghosh
Research Scholar
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
IIT Patna
P.O. Bihta, Dist – Patna, Bihar, India
mintaghosh@yahoo.com
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