Two Worlds and the Eventual Tensions: An Analysis of Jhumpa Lahiri's The Lowland

Abstract

This article is an attempt to explore the two worlds experienced by the major characters in Jhumpa Lahiri’s (2013) The Lowland. The fiction depicts two paradoxical worlds and the characters cannot help embracing them for social, cultural, political, and ideological reasons. Subhash and Gauri are the major characters in the novel who experience the paradoxicalities in their lives because of their existence in two different countries: India and America. The paradoxicalities are portrayed in terms of geography, culture, personal relationships, and diaspora. Hence, what results is an unavoidable tension that springs from the oppositional experiences lived by them. Moreover, the third major character, Udayan, also attributes a substantial degree of tension to the making up of the plot. This article focuses on the nature of these two worlds and the tensions they create in Subhash, Gauri and Udayan in The Lowland.