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Huda, Dravida

University of British Columbia

The study of memory and affect has gained importance in the critical examination of intergenerationality since the advent of memory theory relating to the Holocaust. While in recent times, scholarly attention tends to view memory and affect in their fluid as well as multidirectional capacities, the two interconnected concepts also offer substantial insight in contexts where the acts and repercussions of memory and affect’s transmission from one generation to the next are conditioned by specific circumstances such as that of diaspora. Diaspora studies offer a broad spectrum of situations related to migratory movement, such as generational conflict, cultural assimilation, hybrid identity, multiculturalism, and transnationalism. These concepts are consistently raised in the extant criticism of prominent Indo-American author, Jhumpa Lahiri, and her nuanced rendition of the Bengali diaspora in the US. However, research on Lahiri’s fiction focuses on postcolonialism while generally overlooking the issues of memory and affect, and their capacity to provide new and important perspectives on intergenerational conflict and diasporic identity. My MA thesis addresses this significant gap in Lahiri studies and investigates two of the author’s novels, The Namesake and The Lowland. My study proposes that the migratory quality of memory and the affect associated with it instigate intergenerational conflicts in a diasporic situation, and eventually impact the formation of second generation diasporic identity specifically. I consider purposefully withheld memories of migration by first generation members of diaspora, the resultant “absent-presence” of affect in the second generation of diaspora, and finally the repercussions of such affect as it materializes in different forms of struggle for the second generation. Ultimately, my work contributes to an understanding of Lahiri’s representations of the fluidity of diasporic identity, as it is strongly connected to the movement of memory and affect between generations.

Text

2024-04-04

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/87677

English

University of British Columbia

UBCO

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/