Journal of African Development

The research examines how diaspora, trauma and nostalgia connect with each other in The Namesake written by Jhumpa Lahiri. The research shows how migration affects people from one generation to another. The novel depicts the Ganguli family who abandoned their Indian home to settle in the United States because they had to face psychological and cultural difficulties arising from existing in two different cultural environments. The research investigates how people experience trauma because they face physical dislocation,  cultural alienation, loss of familiarity causing a broken identity.

The research focuses on how Ashima develops her feeling of loneliness, her desire for connection which shows how first-generation immigrants find it hard to fit in with others and adjust to new situations. Gogol’s journey shows how second-generation immigrants deal with their identity crisis through name symbolism and their inherited family memory. Nostalgia functions as a main theme that operates as both a way for characters to handle their emotions and a reason for their emotional distress because it keeps characters connected to their homeland yet making it hard for them to adjust to their new society.

The research paper shows through detailed textual analysis that Lahiri uses diaspora as a space where people face ongoing battles between their traumatic experiences and their nostalgic memories which create their personal and group identities. The novel shows that people who belong to the diaspora, experience their identity through transnational spaces because they use memory and loss to form their personal identity