A Critical Study of Cultural Ethnicity and th...

A Critical Study of Cultural Ethnicity and the Search for Identity in Diasporic Literature of Jhumpa Lahiri

Author Name : Manas Saha

ABSTRACT

Literature is a social mirror that reflects the nature of age in which it is produced. With the help of his creative imagination, the writer highlights various thoughts, feelings and cultural aspects of society he lives. So, literature deals with a number of psychological, sociological, historical concepts and theories in its different genres. One of the sociological and historical concepts of today’s literature is diaspora and diasporic literature focuses the immigrant’s cultural values of homeland and the search for identity in an alien background. The writers of such literature produce their literary works which are identified with the native culture of the ethnic and racial minorities. Jhumpa Lahiri, a postcolonial, Indian-American diasporic writer critically analyses the issues of culture, society, immigrant’s psychology and identity crisis in her works. In this paper, I have attempted to find out the issues of cultural ethnicity, racial minority and the search for identity in Jhumpa Lahiri’s literary works.   

Key words: Diaspora, Cultural ethnicity, Immigrant Psychology, Identity Crisis