Intercultural Aspect of Immigrant Adaptation in Jhumpa Lahiri’s This Blessed House

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.210525.022How to use a DOI?

Keywords

multiculturality, interculturality, transculturality, multicultural literary discourse, culture-specific items, cultural artefacts

Abstract

Globalization processes and active international contacts caused the need for effective social politics aimed at promoting global stability. The latest decades saw the transition from traditional multiculturality to transculturality. Transcultural approach brings to light what is common notwithstanding the existing cultural differences. Thus cultures are viewed as related entities and communication as the most important dimension of transculturality. Modern literature also acquired transcultural features. The works created by migrant writers function as a means of communication between different cultural communities. The study aims to analyse the features of immigrant cultural adaptation in Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel “This Blessed House”. The difference between the author’s native culture and the culture she lives in provides the possibility to describe the society from both insider’s and outsider’s perspective. The multicultural trends influence the author’s personality resulting in the variety of images, associations and beliefs applied in the literary text. Intercultural relationship is the most vividly presented when it comes to the perception of cultural units. In the story “This Blessed House” they comprise culture-specific items, traditions, cultural values and artefacts. Their contextual setting contains characters’ attitudes, judgements and opinions expressing cultural, social and religious beliefs. The main characters, a young Indian couple, illustrate totally different ways of cultural adaptation. The discovery of some Christian artefacts left by the previous owners in the house provokes their specific feelings and behaviour. As a result, Sanjeev and Twinkle demonstrate completely different attitudes towards religious beliefs, their native culture and traditions. Having lived in America for quite a long period, Sanjeev stays faithful to Indian culture and highly appreciates the rules of patriarchal society. He refuses to let the “other” culture into his life notwithstanding the desire to fit in. Twinkle, on the contrary, possesses “chameleonic” ability to adapt. Her unwillingness to obey patriarchal rules, passion for Christian artefacts and respect for other religion are harmoniously combined with the faithfulness to her native Indian culture. The girl respects her parents and their will, she wears traditional clothes, learns to cook traditional dishes and is able to live up to current moment without focusing on the otherness of American society and her personal distinctions. Twinkle acts as a cultural broker mediating the relationship between the cultures encountering and demonstrates gradual shifting to transculturality.

Copyright

© 2021, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Maryna Bryk
AU  - Maryna Kaminska
AU  - Nataliia Malashchuk-Vyshnevska
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021/05/27
TI  - Intercultural Aspect of Immigrant Adaptation in Jhumpa Lahiri’s This Blessed House
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on New Trends in Languages, Literature and Social Communications (ICNTLLSC 2021)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 175
EP  - 181
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.210525.022
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.210525.022
ID  - Bryk2021
ER  -