Negotiating roots and routes in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies

Abstract

The research paper examines the representation of South Asian diasporic experiences in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies, focusing on the struggle between cultural backgrounds and migratory paths as a negotiation. Drawing on theories of hybridity and alterity in a postcolonial context, particularly in the work of Homi K. Bhabha and Edward Said, the investigation explores how identity is articulated and put under stress and reconfiguration (redefinition) by displacement, memory, and cultural encounter. Based on qualitative textual analysis, the dissertation uses four chosen stories, specifically: “A Temporary Matter”, “Interpreter of Maladies”, “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine”, and “The Third and Final Continent” to explore emotional turmoil, psychological complexity, and cultural dilemma that first and second-generation Indian immigrants face in the United States. The characters in Lahiri’s stories exist in the interworld, where they are uncertain of their identity, and it keeps shifting. Movement and migration are part of their identity rather than residing in a particular place. The immigrants of the first generation draw power from the recollection of their homeland and cultural heritage, that enable them to survive in new surroundings. In comparison, the second-generation needs to seek belonging differently and, in most cases, in scattered and challenging social and cultural networks. The psychological impacts of migration and resettlement, which include the sensation of loss, longing, fear, and resilience, are also exposed by the stories. Lahiri’s examination of interiors, the unstated, austerity, and metonymic objects all contribute to this sharp portrayal of cultural struggle and emotional negotiation. Overall, the study shows how diasporic identities in Lahiri's writings are formed in the relationship between inherited cultural pasts and migration experiences. The work also contributes more broadly to diaspora and identity studies by its attention to the affective dimensions and lived experiences of transnational lives.