Cultural Congruity as a Major Divergence in Jhumpa Lahiri's “Interpreter of Maladies”

Abstract

Diasporic writing deals with issues like loneliness, nostalgia, alienation, identity crisis, racial discrimination, rootlessness, assimilation and acculturation encountered by the immigrants. Writers of the Indian Diaspora like Bharati Mukerjee, Salman Rushdie, Jhumpa Lahiri, V.S. Naipaul, Divakaruni, Rohinton Mistry etc., excel in describing the above mentioned problems faced by Indian immigrants in the foreign countries. Among these writers, Jhumpa lahiri is a notable second generation diasporic writer who has carved a niche for herself in the corpus of Diaspora Literature. She is acclaimed to be the second generation diasporic writer as she was born to immigrant parents from Bengal who settled in the U.S. In addition, her writings focus on the plight and sufferings of the second generation Indian immigrants. Her writing style, selection of themes and choice of characters have received greater attention among the readers worldwide. Interpreter of Maladies is a Pulitzer Prize winning short story collection by Jhumpa lahiri that describe the struggles faced by Indian immigrants in the U.S. Lahiri deals with the plight of the second generation immigrants. This paper aims to highlight the problems of cultural assimilation among the Indian immigrants in America as discussed by Lahiri in Interpreter of maladies.