Diasporic Subjectivity as Intimate Alienation Rereading Jhumpa Lahiris Select Fiction

Abstract

Jhumpa Lahiri s treatment of subject matter has been highly admired by critics and scholars newlineacross the globe (in general) and the nation (in particular). So, dealing with Lahiri s works is newlinea very fascinating job. Her excellent mode of storytelling has constantly been yielding newlinepleasure to the readers and attracting the attention of the scholars in the home and abroad to newlinework on her. The present thesis seeks to touch upon Intimate Alienation and diasporic newlinesubjectivity in the oeuvre of Lahiri. Alienation, a kind of process, can be of various types newlinesuch as social, economic, cultural, linguistic and, also, psychological. The diasporic newlineindividuals are always intent on building up their own individual identity while they interact newlineor encounter with others. But being in difficulty to negotiate with the social as well as newlinefamilial space, they amputate themselves from the other self/selves to create their sole world newlineof utopia. However, encountering a gap between the actual world in which they live and the newlineutopian world in which they aspire to live, individuals souls and minds become a stage of newlinedialogues and a struggle between conflicting emotions and orientations. In the context of newlineLahiri s works, Intimate Alienation becomes a socio-cultural alienation, having intention to newlinecreate her identity as non-existent or nomadic , and also to dismantle the hyphenated newlineidentity in order to place herself within the Postcolonial horizons (as termed by Bill newlineAshcroft) where self and other are assimilated at the end in a dialogic mode, which newlinesignifies no destination, indeed. Walter Benjamin s concept of the Flaneour sets up an identity of the character Flaneour, who drifts from one place to another, having no goal newlineexactly like that of a transient. But Jhumpa Lahiri s departure from one place to another has a newlinespecific purpose to exonerate herself from any kind of socio-cultural and linguistic newlinehegemony. In order to trace such intimacy with alienation, I have critically analysed her newlineentire oeuvre ranging