Abstract
This paper attempts to offer an original insight into Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel The Namesake by exploring it in the light of Re-Orientalism which has arisen out of the outlooks of the South Asian writers. If Orientalism discussed by Edward Said means that there are negative stereotypical images in the Oriental nations and sharply determined lines between the West and the Orient, Re-Orientalism points to the perception that the diasporic South Asian writers seek to reflect backward, patriarchal and negative stereotypes about the South Asian culture and conventions in their literary texts. Lahiri’s work needs to be analyzed through this perspective since she could be said to draw upon patriarchal tendencies that place Indian women within the frontiers of ignorance and minor status, Indian parents’ lack of empathy for children’s desires and generation gap due to the parents’ obsession with clinging to unnecessarily rigid rules of Indian traditions. While the second generation Indian immigrants display manners that symbolize the signs of the Western ideals such as freedom of speech, gender equality and individual autonomy, their parents as the first generation Indian immigrants in America represent the backwardness, the fact of silencing women in the family as well as the construction of insurmountable barriers between themselves and modern thoughts.
Highlights
Orientalism is often counted as among the most noted subjects which focus on the relationship between the West and the Orient in many respects
CALESS 2019, 1 (2), 144-155 pioneered the outset of arguments concerned with postcolonialism
Highlighting the Western nations’ attitude to the Oriental people which sets out to generate stereotypes in Orientalism, Said claims that “this doctrine was fashioned out of the experiences of many Europeans, all of them converging upon such essential aspects of the Orient as the Oriental character, Oriental despotism, Oriental sensuality, and the like” (1979: 203)
Summary
Orientalism is often counted as among the most noted subjects which focus on the relationship between the West and the Orient in many respects. Highlighting the Western nations’ attitude to the Oriental people which sets out to generate stereotypes in Orientalism, Said claims that “this doctrine was fashioned out of the experiences of many Europeans, all of them converging upon such essential aspects of the Orient as the Oriental character, Oriental despotism, Oriental sensuality, and the like” (1979: 203) These fixed depictions of the Oriental peoples were produced by the Western nations and based on subjective interpretations and observations instead of any objective and sustainable evidence. One of the faulty approaches being observed in the writings of these literary figures is their “inclination to generalise with totalizations, sweeping statements appearing more the norm than the exception” (Lau 2009: 584) The handling of these oversimplified assumptions on the cultural structures of South Asian societies may amount to reaching erroneous conclusions which allow the Western reader to adopt falsified facts about South Asian nations. Lahiri’s work will be examined in the light of re-orientalism by referring to the ways it dominates the text
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