“(Not)Belongingness” and “(Not)Betweenness” as being “Other” in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake

Abstract

This paper focuses on diaspora-related issues in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake (2003). Furthermore, the paper analyses the characters’ understating of identity and how it reflects through the characters’ ‘(not)belonging’ and a conflict of ‘(not)betweenness.’ This research seeks an answer to the questions: 1. What is the role of culture and memory in Indian American life? And 2. How do Indian Americans struggle for cultural, diasporic, and personal names as an identity? In The Namesake, the characters’ struggles are examined through the works of Bhabha (1994), Chambers and Herbert (2015), and Gowricharn (2022). A textual analysis of this novel is significant to understand diasporic relations with the ‘culture,’ ‘memory,’ ‘dual identity’ and the idea of ‘home’ from the context of twenty-first-century. To conclude, two generations’ stories from India to America bring a sense of ‘(non)belongings’ and ‘(non)betweenness’ as being “other.”