Negotiating identity: Cultural hybridity and diaspora in Jhumpa Lahiri's ‘The Lowland’

Abstract

This study analyses the complex negotiation of identity in the diasporic experience as depicted in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland (2013). This paper examines the Mitra family, specifically the brothers Subhash and Udayan, arguing that the novel transcends straightforward cultural conflict to depict a more complex process of hybrid identity formation. The analysis examines how characters handle the significant dislocation resulting from political trauma and migration, traversing the contrasting cultural landscapes of India and the United States. It examines how their identity is perpetually redefined through memory, bereavement, and the intergenerational transfer of heritage. The study asserts that Lahiri does not offer a dichotomy between an original homeland and a new host nation. The novel illustrates that identity within the diaspora is a dynamic and frequently contested synthesis, as revealed through the characters' fragmented lives and persistent ties to the past. This research contends that The Lowland depicts cultural hybridity not as a degradation of purity but as an essential and innovative, though arduous, strategy for survival and self-definition in a globalised context, where the ‘lowland’ serves as a powerful metaphor for the intermediary spaces occupied by its characters.