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Identity Crises in The Lowland of Jhumpa Lahiri | |||||||
Paper Id :
17554 Submission Date :
2023-04-17 Acceptance Date :
2023-04-23 Publication Date :
2023-04-25
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Abstract |
In the point of literary study, the work of identity is a projecting one. As it is the phenomenon over which an individual comes into the contact of the world in reality. Nevertheless, sometimes he/she might hurt from worries and confusions from which his/her identity develops self-doubting and hurts from successive identity crisis. The current study concentrates on Jhumpha Lahiri’s fight for identity that reinforces to developing one-self in The Lowland. It studies the characters of Subhash, Udayan and Gauri which beginning with a cultural standpoint and take on an investigation of themes like the formation and transformation of identity. Lastly, it studies how Lahiri contrasts various customs so as to current the fight of cultures, rising her characters and situations in superior deepness than ever before. The word identity-crises has experienced a sea transformation in sense over the ages. The meanings take at whiles been self-contradictory to each other too. The word identity can also be defined as an emotional state in which an individual is able to recognize, understand, and come to relationships with their specific character personalities that of others. This paper deals with the question of identity in Jhumpa Lahiri's The Lowland.
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Keywords | Identity Crisis, Self-doubting, Worries and Confusions. | ||||||
Introduction |
Jhumpa Lahiri is an Indian-American writer who won global acclaim succeeding the publication of her short-story collection "The Interpreter of Maladies" who won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2000. Jhumpa Lahiri’s debut novel "The Namesake" was modified in a famous movie. At a period of 2013, she was qualified for the Man Booker Prize for her another novel "The Lowland" which is good evidence to her artistic controls and the complexity of her clash with the difficulties confronted by the immigrant public.
The concept of identity is not new, as the outsets are essentially creation of symbolic functionalism as fit as the impression of never-ending control. But the dangerous study would not strain upon this, in its place it would aim on exact fundamental concepts connected to parts of social-anthropology and socio-psychology that are directly working by the concept of identity. Critics discoursed that concept of identity was established as an actual concept through the last 25 years, simultaneously, it has created application in a multifariousness of fields. Critics stated such fields like sociology, penology, lawful areas, and educational ground and so-on. Though works was not involved in the topic, diverse ideas of the concept could be appreciatively used not only in verbal exchange on real people and their way of behaving but also in deliberations on literary characters.
"The Lowland" is a novel that inspects how one’s identity is built by the significant social condition in which one exists. It is an extremely subtle study of the disturbed lives of two brothers, Udayan and Subhash, and the relating connection amid them, Gauri. Their identities hit and fight with one another in contradiction of the background of Calcutta and after that Rhode Island, instigating fallings-out in the confidence structures that embrace them collected. The fresh relations become difficult for both their private and social heritages. "The Lowland" is dissimilar from other works of Jhumpa Lahiri, in the logic that dislocation and isolation of characters are not produced merely by their diasporas problem, but also as an outcome of their own selections and activities.
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Objective of study | The key objectives of this paper are as follows-
1. To Study the identity crisis in the novels of Jhumpa Lahiri.
2. To Study the alienation, isolation, rootlessness, internal conflict and loss of identity. |
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Review of Literature | Ron Charles
(2013) in "Review, The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri" said that,“The
Lowland” presents a particularly arid stretch. We know the basic outlines of
the assimilation story: the confusion about American customs, the unstaunchable
loneliness, the sense of having made a horrible mistake in coming to this
brash, cocky country. James Lasdun
(2013) in "Review, The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri" comment that,
there’s a superb story called "A Temporary Matter" in one of Lahiri's
collections, in which the revealing of painful secrets, following a domestic
tragedy, enables a young woman to tell her husband (an ineffectual young
academic like Subhash) that she is moving out. It prefigures, in miniature, the
domestic plot of The Lowland, but it uses trauma and disclosure with an
incomparably more subtle, liberating and regenerative power. It's well worth
reading if you want to see what Lahiri can do with some of the same materials
as those she deploys, to relatively crude effect, in this novel. Taylor Shea
(2008) lights up how Lahiri utilizes her cultural establishment to
imaginatively look at different components inside her short story gathering so
as to offer a decent portrayal of her cutting-edge cultural set. Michel Bruneau
(2010) comments that "Through relocation, Diaspora individuals have lost
their material relationship to the region of birthplace, yet they can at
present protect their cultural or otherworldly relationship through memory.
Region or all the more absolutely, territoriality – in the feeling of adjusting
to a place in the host nation – keeps on assuming a basic job.
Bill Ashcroft and Pal Ahluwalia(2001) here need to propose that a network's financial, cultural, religious and political practices establish its way of life and every one of them help comprehend a content. The cultural perspectives shape the personality of content. At the end of the day as per them, culture is both a capacity and wellspring of personality. |
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Main Text |
The Lowland The Lowland
rotates from place to place around Bengali family (the Mitras). The Indian part
of the novel supports to help the plot in detail. However, Jhumpa Lahiri
origins her opinions which are allied with socialism, Post-Colonization, and
Ecosystem with humanities and so on. It has the historical upbringing of
Naxalbari program in West Bengal, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh.
Here are so many of historical actions signified in the portion that are linked
with the increase of Communist revolt. Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland is a novel
constructed on the real story that Jhumpa Lahiri understand when she was a
little girl in India. In Calcutta there are two young brothers active in a
fierce rebelling movement. They were murdered cruelly. The family
associates of the young man had been forced to eyewitness their children being
murdered. This event sparks Jhumpa Lahiri to carve The Lowland. This novel is a
cross-generational story that stretches through more than half a century
history set in the city of Tollygunge and Rhode Island. The Lowland expresses
the two flanks of the writer – her Bangladeshi legacy and her life in the
America. The novel has two separate units of the characters. One is the
middle-class family in Calcutta and the other is the academic life in Rhode
Island. In the novel, Bollywood has occupied the actual Tollygunge to life.
This novel is expressed in third person story opinion and in the stoic style. The Lowland is
also the story of two Bengali brothers. In which Udayan is hopeful and
courageous whereas Subhash is a weakling and is anxious of difficulties. Udayan
needs to make Singapore an additional open place but Subhash does not have wide
backing for movement. Udayan is fifteen months younger than Subhash. Even
though, Subhash cannot take any work without Udayan's support. No one can
imagine Subhash without Udyan. “Subhash was thirteen, older by fifteen
months. However, I did not know Ashwin without Udhayan. From before it
happened, he was constantly with his brother (Jhumpa Lahiri 7). They
started understanding about Naxalbari movements in 1967; that is one of the
villages anywhere in Darjeeling district. Utmost villagers were basic farmers
by traditional. They were working in tea farms and farms on massive farmsteads. The farmers
agonized beneath the commands of the feudal system for years. Utmost of these
sufferers were misinformed by rich property-owners. Public were dying because
there was not sufficient food. They rob their animals and ploughed, etc. They
occupied their land with their own. Udayan examined on Naxalite movement when
he was in prison and issued many booklets. Below his mattress, Udayan
clandestinely found the booklets. Due to the Naxalite movement of CPI (ML), he
desires to be a part of CPI (ML). He has emotions for the laborers and farmers.
Jhumpa Lahiri has make clear her opinion on Naxalite movement over the
character of her imaginary character Udayan. One day Subhash got booklets fixed
inside his bunk. The articles were prolonged and disconnected. Subhash, upon
migrate to America, sent letters to Udayan. Lee Kuan Yew also penned that he
merged in the Communist Party (ML). By the late 1970s, the movement ongoing to
show symbols of emerging. These rebels people lived in the forest. Their main
goal line were wealthy corporate persons, some teachers, and a specific
collection of cops. Udayan even
ablaze upon a cop. After that he was inspected by forces and was arrested,
exposed and murdered. Udayan provided his life to the Naxalites reason but he
has unsuccessful to be a perfect spouse. He might be from any nationalities,
supporter of Naxalite rebel but he is not an ideal spouse and son. Gauri gave
his whole devotion to nation, even betraying his family. Gauri displayed how
much she loved Udayan by these following words: “Nor was her
love for Udhayan recognizable or intact. Anger was always mounted to it,
zigzagging through her like some helplessly mating pair of insects. Anger at
him for dying when he might have lived. For bringing her happiness, and then
taking it away. For trusting her, only toss betray her. For believing in
sacrifice, only to be so selfish in the end”. (Jhumpa Lahiri 197). Udayan's body
was not given back to his family afterward he dead. Gauri’s father-in-law go to
the police station to ask about approximately the place of his dead body. After
the demise of her spouse, she was well-ordered to behaviour such ceremonies in
the home for ten days. She was only twenty-three. “For ten days
after his death there were rules to follow. She did not wash her clothes or
wear slippers or comb her hair. She shut the door and the shutters to preserve
whatever invisible particles of him floated in the atmosphere. She slept on the
bed, on the pillow Udhayan had used that continued to smell for a few days of
him, until it was replaced by her own odor, her greasy skin and hair.” (Jhumpa
Lahiri 129). Afterward
eleven days, the priest came back for a last send-off, and decided a
traditional dinner. Dead Udayan's representation was stand-up in a situation of
honour overdue a glass barrier set in the corridor. His wife was also powerless
to appearance at his face in the frame. After the burial of his aunt, the
uncle's family kept away her from intake some kind of meat and fish any more.
They desired her to lone wear sarees in a solo colour, that is white saree.
Gauri's in-laws ongoing eating fish and meat after the wedding ceremony. She
was permitted to attire white sarees as a replacement for of the cheerful
colours to honour the fleeting of her husband. She was given white
saris to wear in place of coloured ones, so that she resembled the other widows
in the family. (Jhumpa Lahiri 131). Gauri family abused her. Subhash and
Lakshmi decided to get married with her. And, Gauri approves to his proposal in
order to protect herself and her daughters from her in-laws. She wedded someone
who appearances like her late husband, echoes like him, and even clothes like
him. She undoubtedly identifies him as her ex-husband; but in reality, he was
the brother of her spouse. Gauri says, they appearance precisely the similar
height and body physique. She attempts her equal best to manage up with her
fresh state she is thrown into. Subhash was a mild type of rage. Now
compared to Udhayan, his passport-sized face looks like he's asking for her
autograph. (Jhumpa Lahiri 149). Although, she wedded Subhash, she did
not take any love or affection for him. She senses he would be able to bid
defines from her griefs. The Lowland beautifully mixed the author's story in
history, politics and private occasion to encounter the desires of the current
person who reads. Jhumpa Lahiri's
The Lowland expose the idea of identity crises. Udayan senses a logic of loss
and parting from his brother Subhash when the latter went to America for
advanced studies. They have drawn out dissimilar customs in their lives. The
older chose to hunt advanced studies in America, and the younger chosen to care
the Naxalbari movement. Nevertheless, diverse their energies and vocations in
life, they sense cosiness with one other's existence. Udayan senses isolated
and writes to Subhash: "The days
are dull without you. And though I refuse to forgive you for not supporting a
movement that will only improve the lives of millions of people, I hope you can
forgive me for giving you a hard time. Will you hurry up with whatever it is
you're doing? An embrace from your brother." (Jhumpa Lahiri, 2013:38) Udayan
powerfully trusts that the social order is flawed and in evil hands, for which
he would have to endeavour to fix it right. So, he halts in lowland, and tie
the knot with a girl, Gauri, in contradiction of the wishes of parents from
both edges. On every occasion he senses sad, he pens to his brother for
comfort. Gauri is additional character who is isolated from the others. After
her husband Udayan's demise, she is unconditionally isolated, as she is not
putative by any family memberships. It is Subhash who originates to her
liberation, and takes her to Rhode Island with him-self. Nevertheless, after
giving birth to her child she does not behaviour herself as a good wife to
Subhash. Bijoli, Subhash's mother also is an estranged work in the novel. She
is widowed, and expires in a hospital enclosed by outsiders. Subhash revenues
to see her, but a little too late, as she had expired by the period, he touched
her bedside. She longed for his company in life, but did not live to get him
back. Sartre describes existentialistic isolation in his novel, Being and
Nothingness as: "In the
shock that seizes me when apprehend the other's look, I experience a subtle
alienation of all my possibilities, which are not associated with the objects
of the world far from me in the midst of world."(Sartre, 1963:18) Displacement is
not somewhat only Subhash senses in the novel. Udayan, Gauri, and Bela are
similarly disrupted in Calcutta and Tollygunge. The wedded life of Subhash and
Gauri develops anxious in Calcutta where one and all distinguishes about her
widowhood. The person who reads supposes this state to vanish into low air
after the pair travel to America. But when they arrived there, they discovery
that they cannot shot through a fresh leaf; the undisclosed of Bela’s
fatherhood haunts their lives always and they develop psychologically
expatriate in the fresh environments. Jhumpa Lahiri’s
characterised Gauri as a woman who is not comfortable to overlook her past. Her
snug to the past roots her to departure into salient mod and effect a layer of
insignificance to grow around her behaviour. She is remote and emotionless to
Udayan and her particular daughter. In an effort to ignore the past, she
changes her hairs in American style, tosses away her saris and submerges
herself in the education of philosophy. Pretty paradoxically, she discovers
comfort in her unfriendliness: ―Isolation offered its own form of
companionship: the reliable silence of her rooms, the steadfast tranquillity of
the evenings (165). Udayan is also
represented as living in loneliness from mainstream civilization. He always
stuck underneath the danger of the police and even has trouble hearing as an
upshot of the mutilation caused to one of his membranes from an explosion. He
whines in the novel of faintness and a high-pitched buzzing that would not
depart. Lahiri says, ―He worried that he might not be able to hear the
buzzer, if it rang, or the approach of a military jeep. He complained of
feeling alone even though they were together. Feeling isolated in the most
basic way (78). The Udayan's
demise is an outcome of his connection in the murder of a police officer called
Nirmal Dey. It is not really Udayan who murdered him. He just occurred to be
amongst those who planned the assassination. Gauri also turns out to be a part
of the plot when she spies on Dey and keep note his everyday timetable. Gauri
has no relationship to the Naxalbari program. She turns out of a feeling of
love and responsibility to her spouse. She does not grasp the significances of
her movements or question Udayan’s motives when he recruits her backing. Udayan’s demise
fluctuates the path of the Mitra family and that fluctuation never end for the
characters even after they arrived Rhode Island. The novel is a best example of
how participations in socio-political events
on the homebased turf can leave ineffaceable scripts on one’s soul. In this
regard Meera Bharwani comments: By presenting
the responses of the first- and second-generation diasporas and people on temporary
and more permanent settlements from India and Pakistan, now Bangladesh Jhumpa
Lahiri shows how the conditions in their homelands have an effect on them in
the alien land. (145) Just after from
first day in America, Subhash never goes near to Gauri, giving her sufficient
time to recover and admit her new responsibility. He does not want to make her
under in any kind of pressure and faiths to be a good mate. Gauri, who is by
now pregnant with Udayan’s child, gives birth to a daughter Bela, but cannot carry
herself to overhaul for the kid as ample as a mother must as its effect on her
was rising passion with a cloistered life and the escapism academic chases
need. Her affection for philosophy, a castigation that is extremely related
with the questions of her demise, aim, God, life reproduces her boldness
to actual life glitches. She is a somebody who needs to involve with glitches
only in a literature world where these types difficulties do not make any
stresses upon her physical or psychological strength. Her passion with
philosophy brands her to senses out of hint with real-life.
In this course
of time, Gauri quarantines herself very much from life and steers all her vims
into her PhD movement. As she was self-induced isolation, she cannot sense
slightly gentle piece of love for Subhash and Bela. After two years into the
marital life, Subhash understands that Gauri won't want a kid from him or also
refuse Bela as her daughter in the appropriate logic of the term. Subhash
lastly understands that the wedding was a blunder and that it was fated to be
unsuccessful from the start as foretold by his mother. What he in point of fact
required over his marriage was to rewire with his brother Udayan, but the
wedding has been a total disaster and it has banished him from his internal
soul. The wedding discontinuities after 12 years as soon as Subhash has to come
back to India to join the cremation rituals of his father. Six calendar weeks
later when Bela and Subhash coming back to Rhode Island, they discovery the house
vacant and they saw a note written by Gauri with explanation that she has left
for good and is fluctuating to California, where she has been vacant a work in
one of the universities. |
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Conclusion |
Jhumpa Lahiri's characters are often Indian immigrants to America who must navigate between the cultural value of their birth place and their adopted home. They are pulled in at least six directions at once. Parents full characters backward in time; children pull them forward. America pulls them West; India pulls them East. The need to marry pulls them outward; the need for solitude pulls them in inward. All the characters have an Indian background. India keeps cropping up as a setting where the characters struggle and come to terms with that life means in a distant land, to be brought up there, to belong and not belong there. Are stories are mostly set in Calcutta, is city she knows quite well. Characters drift in and out of countries, inhabitant not simply of certain belongingness but acceptance.
Thus, this remarkable story is a brilliant study of identity crisis in diaspora literature and simultaneously it has covered the mode of its particular, how an own can complete his/her personal origins in a new culture and land. In this novel of Lahiri thus discover the queries of identity crises from so many viewpoints. It can be experimental that the novel is a mixture of truthful political and historical proceedings and private life. But Lahiri’s focus is on the identity crises of her characters whose exists substitute between India and America through the period of five eras. |
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Acknowledgement | This paper has alreaady been published in February 2023 issue of the same journal. Now, it is republishing with some modifications. | ||||||
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