The Namesake Critical Analysis

Identity Crisis in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake The present paper is an effort to understand the conflicts of the second generation of Indian Diaspora with special reference to The Namesake,a novel by Jhumpa Lahiri. Jhumpa Lahiri, herself has been the child of Indian immigrants- middle class Bengali parents, born in London and grown up in Rhodes Island, America. The Name sake, therefore, is a kind of auto biography as Lahiri authentically portrays her diaspora experiences as a second generation immigrant in the book. Experiences of Lahiri as a growing child of immigrant parents in America are well expressed through the character of Gogol in The Name sake. As a child she is the second generation of Indian Diaspora who also has faced the quest for identity which will have no answers. Her parents have tried to bring her up according to Bengali culture on one hand and on the other hand she has observed different culture where she really had been. This is exactly the second generation in America must have experienced. They feel sandwiched between the country of their parents and the country of their birth. They struggle to maintain ties between the ideologies of these two countries. They find themselves quite a stranger to both of the countries – in India

They struggle to maintain their identities while trying to shake them off at the same time. As Terry Eagleton writes in “The Idea of Culture”(2000) that the very word ‘culture’ contains a tension between making and being made most Diaspora writers concentrate on generational differences in exploring how new and old Diasporas relate to their land of origin and the host culture. Often their major concerns in works are split and flowing nature of individual identities. The rootlessness, coupled with the indifferent attitude of host culture adds to sense of otherness and