Cultural Inheritance and the Manner of Acceptance: A Psychological Perspective in the selected Novels of Jhumpa Lahiri

Abstract

The critics of Diasporic writings have majorly focused on understanding the alienated feelings of characters with reference to their native land. However, there has been very limited analysis made on the psyche of these characters living in a foreign land while cherishing their rich cultural inheritance and their struggle in making the mainstream accept their culture. It is amidst this adoption and assimilation to the new culture, ‘Hybrid identity’ comes into existence. This paper attempts to trace the development of a new identity in hybridity through the periscope of Psychology. The differences between the first and the second-generation diasporic communities in establishing their identities in the foreign land is studied by analyzing the selected works of Jhumpa Lahiri and Kiran Desai. Many a times, when the first generation of diasporic community returns to India they struggle to find or re-establish their lost identity in their native land and feel like the ‘Other’. Acculturation and Deculturation can be studied as modes of establishing one’s identity and accommodating to the culture of a foreign land.