Identity and cultural conflicts in Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, The Namesake

Abstract

Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, The Namesake describes the struggles and hardships of a Bengali couple who immigrate to the United States to form a life outside of everything they are accustomed to. It explores the concepts of cultural identity, of rootlessness, of tradition and family expectations in a lucid and elegant prose. In her fiction, memory, nostalgia, loss and longing are some of the prominent themes. Her stories tell of people who have moved countries in the hope of a better life, but past remains there as a shadow to remind them of their original roots. This novel is a documentary of such experiences, a glowing miniature of a tiny family making the voyage between two worlds. The aim of the paper would be to analyse first and second generation immigrant characters in the novel, The Namesake and explore complex cultural relations and identity crisis from the contemporary cultural discourse. The paper would be an attempt to examine the conflicting attractions of the American way of life and the tug of traditions between two different cultures. The kind of relationship these characters develop over the years in an alien land, and how the inherited values always determine one’s cultural identity.