Peopling an Unaccustomed Earth with a New Generation: Jhumpa Lahiri's Supreme Fictional Journey into Human Conditions
Peopling an Unaccustomed Earth with a New Generation: Jhumpa Lahiri's Supreme Fictional Journey into Human Conditions
Author(s): Neela Bhattacharya SAXENASubject(s): Gender Studies
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Komisji Edukacji Narodowej w Krakowie
Keywords: Bengali literature; diasporic writing; feminism; generation; Jhumpa Lahiri; postcolonial studies; Gynocentric matrix
Summary/Abstract: Using a theoretical framework derived from my ongoing engagement with what I have called a 'Gynocentric matrix' of Indic sensibility, along with James Hillman's polytheistic psychology and Wallace Stevens' notion of a Supreme Fiction, this paper offers a reading of Jhumpa Lahiri's (b. 1967) short stories beyond postcolonial criticism. Stemming from a depth consciousness where life, living and feath, joy, indifference and sorrow, generation, de/re-generation, and transformation are intricately interwinged, Lahiri's fictional multiverse is peopled by a new generation of characters who speak to the soul of the reader; in the process, she sculpts a reality that doeas not tolerate any homogenizing impulse in the name of an abstract unity.
Journal: ARGUMENT: Biannual Philosophical Journal
- Issue Year: II/2012
- Issue No: 1
- Page Range: 129-150
- Page Count: 21
- Language: English