Critique, Analysis and Aesthetics of Texts
Quarterly

The Refusal of Definite Closure: The Study of the Identity Crisis of the Second-Generation Indian Americans in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies

https://doi.org/10.22034/caat.2024.449895.1084
Volume 7, Issue 3 - Serial Number 24
Autumn 2024
Pages 126-150
Critique, Analysis and Aesthetics of Texts

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Ali Taghizadeh 1
Leila Hajjari 2

1 Assistant Professor, English Language and Literature, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran.

2 department of English Language and literature, Persian Gulf University, Bushehr, Iran.

Abstract
The present research, attempts to uncover the ambivalence of Lahiri’s second-generation migrant characters who are invariably subject to hybridizing forces of the American culture as well as their attempts, either failed or successful, to transform, to adjust to the novelty, to settle on the middle ground, or to hold on to their own cultural values and identities. Exploiting the relevant short stories that mainly address the second-generation migrants, “A Temporary Matter,” “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine,” and “Sexy,”. There will be an attempt in the up-coming pages to give exclusive attention to the inherited confusion of these migrants as heirs of diasporic ambivalence. It is hoped that the results of this study will be useful to those who want to further this or any other similar study of the issue of ambivalence in the second-generation migrants in Lahiri’s stories which so far has been rarely addressed separately by Lahiri scholars.

Keywords

“A Tempo‌rary Matter”
“When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine”
“Sexy”
"Jumpa Lahiri"
"Interpreter of Maladies"
Subjects
Anwer, Megha, (2017). After melancholia: A reappraisal of second-generation diasporic subjectivity in the work of Jhumpa Lahiri. Rev. Journal of Postcolonial Writ- ing. Retrieved 21 April 2017. http://www.tandfonline. com/doi/abs/10.1080/17449855.2017.1283727?journal- Code=rjpw20.
Ashcroft, Bill, and Pal Ahluwalia, (2001). Edward Said. London: Routledge.
Bahmanpour, Bahareh, (2010). Female Subjects and Nego- tiating Identities in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Mal- adies. Studies in Literature and Language, 1(6), 43-51. Retrieved 21 April 2017. www.cscanada.net/index.php/ sll/article/view/j.sll.1923156320100106.006.
Bhabha, Homi K, (2004). The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge.
Brada-Williams, Noelle, (2004). Reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies as a Short Story Cycle. MELUS. 29(3/4),451-464.Retrieved21April2017.https://academ- ic.oup.com/melus/article-abstract/29/3-4/451/1080624/ Reading-Jhumpa-Lahiri-s-Interpreter-of-Mala- dies-as?redirectedFrom=fulltext.
Goldberg, David Theo, (2005). Heterogeneity and Hybridi- ty: Colonial Legacy, Postcolonial Heresy. A companion to postcolonial studies. Edited by Henry Schwarz and Sangeeta Ray. 2nd ed. Australia: Blackwell.
Haghighat, Amir Mehdi, trans. Interpreter of Maladies. Tehran, Nashr-e-mahi, 1385.
Huntington, Samuel P, (1993). The Clash of Civilizations. Foreign Affairs, 72(3): 22-49. Retrieved 21 April 2017. DOI: 10.2307/20045621.
Katrak, Ketu H, (2002). The Aesthetics of Dislocation: Writ- ing the Hybrid Lives of the South Asian Americans. The Women’s Review of Books. 19(5), 5-6. Old City Publish- ing, Inc. Retrieved 16 April 2016. http://www.jstor.org/ stable/4023785.
Leyda, Julia, (2011). An Interview with Jhumpa Lahi- ri. Contemporary Women’s Writing, 5(1), 66-83. Retrieved 2 January 2017. https://academic.oup. com/cww/article-abstract/5/1/66/327848/An-Inter-view-with-Jhumpa-Lahiri?redirectedFrom=fulltext.
Lutzoni, Silvia, (2017). Jhumpa Lahiri and the Gram- mar of a Multi-Layered Identity. Journal of In tercultural Studies, 38(1), 108-118. Retrieved 2 January 2017. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07256868.2016.1269062?journalCode=c- jis20.
Madsen, Deborah L, (2003). Beyond the Borders, Ameri- can Literature and Post-colonial Theory. London: Pluto Press.
Macwan, Hiral, (2014). Struggle for Identity and Diaspora in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake. International Jour- nal of Humanities and Social Science Invention, 3(12), 45-49. Retrieved 2 January 2017. www.ijhssi.org/pa- pers/v3(12)/Version-1/G031201045049.pdf.
Schwarz, Henry, and Sangeeta Ray, (2005). A companion to postcolonial studies. Malden: Blackwell.
Sharp, Jenny, (2005). Postcolonial Studies in the House of US Multiculturalism. A companion to postcolonial stud- ies. Edited by Henry Schwarz and Sangeeta Ray. Mal- den: Blackwell.
Shukla, Shilpa and Niroj Banerji, (2012). The theme of ‘alienation’ and ‘assimilation’ in the novels of Bhara­ti Mukherjee and Jhumpa Lahiri: A socio – literary perspective. International Journal of English and Liter­ature, 5(1), 19-22. 4 January 2017. http://academicjour­nals.org/journal/IJEL/article-abstract/3B50DFE42714.
Srikanth, Rajini, (2003). Unsettling Asian American Litera- ture: When More than America is in the Heart. Beyond the Borders, American Literature and Post-Colonial Theory. Edited by Deborah L. Madsen. London: Pluto Press.
  • Receive Date 25 March 2024
  • Revise Date 27 April 2024
  • Accept Date 25 May 2024

Home

Submit Manuscript

Reviewers

Contact Us