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Title Immigrant Experience and the Emerging Self: A Study of Unhomeliness in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake and Whereabouts

Author(s) AAMIR RAZA

Abstract Thesis Title: Immigrant Experience and the Emerging Self: A Study of Unhomeliness in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake and Whereabouts This study analyses Jhumpa Lahiri’s novels: The Namesake (2003) and Whereabouts (2021), utilizing the theoretical postulates of Homi K. Bhabha (1992), Bruce Robbins (1992) in combination with Robert Shoemaker (2006) to examine emergence and transformation of the fictional immigrant characters. A triangulation of the concept of unhomeliness from Bhabha, Bruce Robbins’s idea of cosmopolitanism, and Robert Shoemaker’s notion of identity is utilized to devise the theoretical framework for analysing the fictional immigrant characters. Syllogizing these concepts, the study has delved into the lives of the characters, where the characters are found to be in compliance with the theoretical perspective of unhomeliness. The relocation of home occurs for almost all of the immigrant characters throughout the selected texts. Cosmopolitanism too plays a vital role and the study has explored successfully that in both the novels some characters experience unhomeliness that leads to identity crisis, however few characters seek and attain the privileged status of cosmopolites. Besides, as Bhabha and Robbins claim these notions to be postcolonial and post-cultural spaces, transformation among the immigrant characters is evident although the first generation of the immigrants try to preserve their identities. The immigrant characters are found to be in a state of unhomeliness where their ambivalence is apparent. As a result of unhomely feelings where they are unable to feel at home, the characters go through identity-related issues, and thus to escape them, they turn towards cosmopolitanism as a refuge, resulting into a major transformation in their self- identities. These unhomely fictional characters then evolve into cosmopolitan figures with new identities and thus multiple places to associate with.

Type Thesis/Dissertation MS

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Department English

Language English

Publication Date 2024-01-15

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