CONFLICTS OF ASSIMILATION IN JHUMPA LAHIRI’S THE NAMESAKE

Abstract

The Namesake, a novel by Jhumpa Lahiri offers a deep insight into the daily life of a family, who come up to the United States of America but always try to settle, detached from the American ethnicity and traditions. While going through the novel, one gets a deep insight into the predicament of immigrants facing multiple repercussions like mental dilemma, impediments, life oppositions and its disagreements.The aim of this article is the presentation of selected conflicts of assimilation processes among Indian immigrants that appeared in the United States of America in the 1960s, as represented in Jhumpa Lahiri’s most practical, work of fiction The Namesake, with a particular attention on the differences between the first and second age group migrants. The existence stories of Lahiri’s characters, American Bengalis, like Gogol, Sonia, Ashima, and Moushumi illustrate several such conflicts of assimilation.