Identity Crisis, Diasporic Predicament, Displacement and Factors of Alienation in Jhumpa Lahiri's novel The Namesake

Abstract

In the present world of literature especially, in the Indian English literature the word diaspora is used in written and heard in the discourse in a larger scale. The very term, diaspora has become a universal yet very complex phenomenon in the postcolonial literary world. The postcolonial literature connects the local to the global. In course of time, we can see that in the field of communication technologies major positive changes have taken place and as a result of this the Indian diaspora has connected to the world, very easily.In the post-colonial literature, as readers we can find the major themes of the well-known post-colonial writers who have embraced the major themes of their literature to the diaspora. The themes such as- identity crisis, alienation, displacement, predicament of displacement, etc. The novel A House for Mr Biswas by VS Naipaul is the supreme example of the diaspora literature.The paper critically analyzes the characters within the broader context of immigration, the diasporic tensions they encounter, particularly the conflicts between memory, identity, and cultural displacement. The work selected for the study is the novel The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri.