A study of identity and diaspora in Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth

Abstract

This dissertation produces an investigation of the contemporary conception of diaspora in order to analyze migrant identity processes in the short stories of Nilanjana Sudeshna Lahiri, better known as Jhumpa Lahiri, which are part of the collection Unaccustomed Earth (2008). In the following pages, I will present the three chapters that structure this work. Such chapters lay the groundwork for an analysis of the stories in Lahiri's acclaimed collection, which deals with the geographical and psychological dispersions of American-Bengalis. In this work, the author focuses on the identity conflict between the first and second generation of immigrants and on the conflicting emotions engendered by migration; in the articulation of displacement and reintegration; and the ability to take on the diasporic experience and transform it into a necessary experience for the affirmation of one's own identity. This dissertation also aims to investigate and explore the issue of home and homeland, as well as the fine line between the issues of belonging and non-belonging in the lives of the diasporic characters portrayed. Thus, my goal is to produce a study of diaspora and identity as key questions in the work of this contemporary writer. The entire discussion exposed in this study is based on theories of renowned academics and critics, such as Stuart Hall, Avtar Brah, Komal Verma, Salman Rushdie, Rosi Braidotti, Anh Hua, Ajit K. Mohanty, Anita Rau Badami, Sandra Regina Goulart Almeida, James Clifford, Simone de Beauvoir and Zygmunt Bauman