Floating notions of selfhood: interrogating cultural displacement across generations in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper, based on an argumentative essay, without involving any human-participation, is focusing on how the diasporic identity remains rooted in fixed cultural templates despite enduring shifts and transformations as depicted in two contemporary South Asian American novels, namely, The Namesake (2004. The Namesake. New Delhi: HarperCollins Publishers, 40–289.) by Jhumpa Lahiri and Jasmine (1989. Jasmine. New York: Virago Press, 26–185.) by Bharati Mukherjee from an intergenerational lens. The sociocultural dynamics of name change reveal the nuanced interface between belonging and non-belonging, acceptance, and alienation. The second-generation occupies an ambiguous space, the very polysemic ambiguity that Lacan’s ((1956) 1977. “The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious.” In Écrits: A Selection. London: Tavistock.) letter manifests as a material object, text, and sign. One of the most potent instruments of defining oneself is the name as it is not merely a proper noun to identify an individual, it is a multifaceted identifier denoting among others, the gender, religion, ethnicity, race, and even the condition of hybridity (Saha, Amit Shankar. 2023. Transitions Indian Diaspora and Four Women Writers. Kolkata: Virasat Art Publications.).