Jhumpa Lahiri:the Outsider as Storyteller

Abstract

The following dissertation aims to analyse the contemporary author Jhumpa Lahiri. I will introduce a discussion to define an appropriate framework to place the author in the literary field. The first chapter opens the study moving through postcolonial narrative key concepts. The analysis moves to the South Asian Diaspora movement in its relevant historical facts, in its social assimilation in the United States and Canada, and in its effect as a literary trend. In the second chapter, supported by her biography, by articles and interviews, I analyse Lahiri’s memories and moments that influenced her perspective and career as a writer. I will focus the attention on her first novel The Namesake (2003), in comparison with its film adaptation by Mira Nahir. In the third chapter, I examine Bharati Mukherjee and her novel Desirable Daughters; the author’s personal events and her social role through her writings will be the centre of the comparison with Jhumpa Lahiri. Literary debate between the two women will be employed to analyse the protagonists’ introspection, the space of female characters in the “other” society and in the family context. A conclusive reflection of the thesis will try to prove how modalities of social codes adopted in the novels could have affect readers, specifically in Western and in South Asian worlds.