Paradoxes of Generational Breaks and Continuity in Jhumpa Lahiri’s <i>The Namesake<i>

Authors

  • Venkatesh Puttaiah, Maharaja College, University of Mysore, India

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31436/asiatic.v6i1.238

Abstract

Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel The Namesake (2003) shifts its focal point from the first generation of immigrants to the second, in the process establishing interconnectedness of the two generations. While opportunity, movement, displacement and stabilisation form the sequence that defines the lives of the first generation immigrants, the lives of their children, the second generation, revolves around the issues of belonging – whether they belong to the country of their origin or to the country of their birth and whether to adhere to the culture and tradition of their parents or to subscribe to the standards of their immediate world outside home. The article analyses the movement of the two generations of Ganguli family in the United States and the various ways in which they are divided and united in the novel. The focus is on the aspects of cultural variance and assimilation between the two generations.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Venkatesh Puttaiah, Maharaja College, University of Mysore, India

Dr. Venkatesh Puttaiah teaches English at Maharaja College, University of Mysore. He was a Shastri Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, during 1999-2000. He specialises in twentieth century and contemporary literatures in English and has published research papers in these areas. He has edited the book Cosmopolitanism in Contemporary Fiction (2010).  

Downloads

Published

2012-06-15

How to Cite

Puttaiah, Maharaja College, University of Mysore, India, V. (2012). Paradoxes of Generational Breaks and Continuity in Jhumpa Lahiri’s &lt;i&gt;The Namesake&lt;i&gt;. Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature, 6(1), 84–94. https://doi.org/10.31436/asiatic.v6i1.238

Issue

Section

Articles