The Self-Actualization of Indian Diaspora in the Select Novels of Bharati Mukherjee and Jhumpa Lahiri

Abstract

The migration of human beings into the various countries of the world, has been in the search of betterment of chances for their literary as well as the social contributions in the present era of the diasporic world for the second and the third generation of migrants communities. It has been a journey for establishing a new identity of self-actualization of any individuality in the context of Diaspora. The term self-actualization is coined and developed as the psychological term by Abraham Maslow to describe the growth of an individual towards the fulfillment of their highest social as well as the emotional requirements. Bharati Mukherjee and Jhumpa Lahiri are the Indian Diasporic writers of novels as well as short stories, who write about the problems of Indian Immigrants, especially with the perspectives of feminine immigrant sensibilities. Very skillfully, both of them portray the struggle of Indian women for self- actualization and establishing new identity of Indianness with the self-fascination of foreignness through their novels as well as short stories. Their feminine characters are the representations of contemporary women who strive to live their life on their owns with the portrayal of full potential and capabilities and become an individual, they want to be. Most of their writings seem autobiographical to the extent that they reflect the diasporic experiences of the migrants as they writers are. This paper aims to bring out the journey of the migration to self-actualization of the some portrayals of Bharati Mukherjee and Jhumpa Lahiri in their works, Jasmine and The Lowlands, respectively that leads them to fluid identities of a diasporic life. Jyoti, the protagonist of Jasmine, is an Indian Immigrant who faces the problems of acculturation and alienation in the United States of America while the self actualization of Gauri in The Lowland seems to be destroyed in the hands of destiny in self-fascination of the diasporic lowlands. Both of these protagonists try to assimilate themselves into the foreign country as well as culture but Jasmine of Mukherjee seems to gain an independent identity towards the end of the novel while Gauri seems to be erased her Indian identity of motherhood in the self-fascination of Americanization. The readers can find in Mukherje and Lahiri, very successful presentation of the predicaments of The Third World women with all their frustrations, longings, hopes and aspirations in an alien land of migration.