The Rhetoric of Deliberation and the Space of the Hyphen: Identity Politics of the Indian Women Diaspora in the Fictions of Jhumpa Lahiri

Abstract

The political connotation of the hyphen in relation to an ethnic sociocultural identity is to underline divided loyalties towards the nation of origin and the nation of adoption. However, I argue that the hyphen metaphorically signifies an in-between space occupied by a migrant, a space of self-exploration and deliberation. My paper proposes to examine the question of agency and identity politics of women diaspora in the novels of Jhumpa Lahiri—The Namesake and The Lowland through rhetorical lenses. Lahiri in her polyphonic narratives traces the trajectory of the lives of women migrants from physical, cultural displacement and alienation to a celebration of their multicultural, fluid identity politics. The novels begin with the journey of the women entities across national boundaries but soon they embark on another journey of self-exploration and motivated action. Their rhetoric is driven by the memory of the past and a simultaneous desire to appropriate the culture of the ‘other’. The second-generation women diaspora exercise their rhetorical agency to negotiate (with their parents and American peers), to deliberate and to plunge into motivated action. However, Lahiri challenges any singular representation of Indian women diaspora, since the experience of each woman in the alien land is unique. The immigrant woman employs deliberative discourse which provides her the power to persuade, to negotiate and to break free from the stereotypical constraints of passive womanhood. Rhetoric is a negotiated space of deliberation and enunciation for the woman who refuses to be restricted within a stable, homogeneous, ethnic and sociocultural identity.