“In-Between Worlds: Diaspora, Hybridity, and Belonging in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies”

Abstract

Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies (1999) gives a representation of diasporic existence through examination of the lives of Indians and Indian Americans struggling and negotiating between cultural memories and social realities of the United States. Not showcasing the traditional narrative of migration simply as a movement from geographical location to another, Lahiri represents it as a complex psychological, cultural, and linguistic process involving alienation, nostalgia, assimilation, hybridity, and the continuous reconstruction and reshaping of identity. This paper examines selected stories from the collection, especially “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Die”. “Mrs. Sen’s”, “Sexy”, “A Temporary matter”, “This Blessed House”, and “The Third and Final Continent”, through the theoretical lens of Homi K. Bhabha, Stuart Hall, Avtar Brah, Robin Cohen, Salman Rushdie, and James Clifford. Bhabha’s concept of the ‘third space’ illuminates the hybrid identities that are created through cultural encounters, while Hall’s understanding of the identity is a process of ‘becoming’ rather than any fixed essence, explains the character’s continuous redefinition of belonging. Brah’s concepts on “diaspora space” and “homing desire” complicate the conventional opposition between India and host land. The paper attempts to argue that Lahiri’s characters gradually move beyond a binary opposition between the two-India and America. Their identities are neither completely Indian nor completely American; instead, they turn out, emerging through process of negotiation, translation, and cultural interaction. Lahiri consequently transforms the experience of diaspora from a narrative loss into a complex process of ‘re-homing’ and ‘identity formation’.