Diasporic Dilemma in Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake

Abstract

Jhumpa Lahiri's second literary contribution, The Namesake, published in 2003, is a novel on the Indian diaspora. Indian history of diaspora is a long one, but after independence, it has caught the attention of creative writers. The novel records the everyday life of the Indian immigrants who went to America after independence. It can be assumed that as an immigrant's daughter, the novelist is familiar with the problems of immigrants living in America concerning their norms and values, their culture, religion, language, and above all, their identity. This paper is an analysis of the effects of the diaspora faced by the characters in The Namesake.