Hell-Heaven by Jhumpa Lahiri - Article Example

Short fiction story (Hell-Heaven by Jhumpa Lahiri) People in the diaspora face a lot of challenges including, loneliness, jealousy, love and this has been the reason many of them change drastically over time in efforts to establishing private spaces and familiar intimacies. Many of the individuals in diaspora are often having a feeling of homesick as they fight recreate a sense of home in a new or unfamiliar environment. They also try to dealing with postcolonial stories of progress that are seen to undermine personal efforts to reestablish familiar intimacies. This essay looks at this unique aspect of self-belonging or self- identify that these individuals who leave their country faces. In many ways, this adds to the subject of self-identity echoed by other writers as well. The story is written by Jhumpa Lahiri who is an Indian American author. She has been an experience writer from debut short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies and won the 2000 Pulitzer Fiction Prize. Her reputation and experience has not been hidden in her work of Hell-Heaven as a short story. Hell-Heaven talks about the struggles of living in the America with a Bengali culture. The struggle is shown in this short story from the characters Pranab Kaku and Usha. They both make decisions that make them prefer one culture over the other. Jhumpa Lahiri in her book Hell-Heaven explores geographies of intimacy and the manner in which various spaces control intimacies, re-form intergenerational intimacies and disrupt traditional narratives of intimacy. The author specifically focuses on second-generation immigrants of Bengali, detailing the unique challenges or experiences they encounter from a banished sense of the “familiar” intimacy of their motherland and the similar narratives of advances with which their fathers struggled. The woman in this short story is fundamentally responsible for depicting the boundaries of the old and new geographies of intimacy. This is a story that looks at simple human emotions like loneliness, jealousy, love and describes how various individuals change drastically over time due to geographical. The title is taken from this paragraph from the story Hell-Heaven: “He used to be so different. I don’t understand how a person can change so suddenly it’s just hell-heaven” (p, 112). In Hell-Heaven, Pranab Chakraborty, is an MIT graduate student, Boston is considering returning to his motherland in Calcutta because of being homesickness. Through this thought, one can argue that despite the many privileges that these individuals in the Diaspora may have, more often than not they always are faced with feelings of not belonging. While on Boston streets, Pranab Chakraborty notices her traditional Bengali mother Aparna and a young girl and. While following them, and he ends up befriending them but only to be shocked that they too are likewise homesick. Pranab Kaku (uncle) now is a regular visitor at Ushas house. He referred to Aparna as "Boudi" (boudi implies elder brothers wife). Over time Aparna anticipating to Pranabs visits and develops a unique kind of love towards him. Later Aparnas love for Pranab apparently turns into jealousy. This was seen when he brings an American woman called Deborah home, whom he eventually marries. The Aparna keeps criticizing and blaming Deborah and continuously reiterating that it the love Deborah has for Pranabis of pretense and funny enough the two later divorced. The entire plot of the short story is built on the foundation of the loneliness in a foreign land even years after settlement. For instance, despite the unacknowledged and unsaid feelings that Aparna developed for Pranab, the story lacks something to make the readers uncomfortable or judgmental of the new land. One can find Hell-Heaven to be an excellent character-focused short story, with Aparna being the primary focal point. There is little in the way of a plot. However, there is enough to move the short story along and leave the reader feeling for the characters. The plot also helps build on the subject of Identity which is presently a common area struggle for various immigrants and their families. These are individuals who must quickly learn adapt to one kind of living, irrespective of belonging to a different country or culture. One can further argue that identity is more than it seems. Generational differences additionally fuel the fire whenever there are disputes between children growing up familiarized to a unique culture around them while having parents and relatives who maintain on clinging to the motherland culture. These disputes can today explain the reason many marriages or contracts between different cultures still face resistance despite the advancements in the society. In “Hell or Heaven,” the Jhumpa Lahiri explores these differences in cultures between two generations and the resistances. The author examines how extremism can tear apart or bring together a family. The short story is told through a second-generation Bengali, girl in focus whose mother is trying to cope with living in the United States with her family and various events unfold through these cultural differences. In Hell-Heaven the author clarifies this cultural and generational obstacle when she talks about other American kids and states, “they did not have parents who were clinging to another way of life and exhorting their children to do the same”. Through analysis of the short story, an argument can be made those parents compelling children out their comfort zone and into a dissimilar culture to which they are familiarized account for some of the disputes and problems that occasionally arise. The speaker is only trying to create her personal identity while living in “new land” and going to school, but, the mother prevents her from doing so since she is so adamant in clinging to her previous native culture. Despite the mother’s views on Americans and the culture transformation, by the end of the reading many can still fault her change of views. She begins to accept the fact that her child is “a child of America” (p, 82). This is far and large what many individuals face while attempting to fit into various societies and the book builds a lot into the understanding of such situations. It helps readers understand these concerns and try to relate to the concerns through the characters in the book. For a fact, settlement into a new nation is a long journey and always an endless process that involves both adaptation and acceptance. It normally takes others years to adapt to the new living environment and conform to the cultures they find in those lands. Through the analysis of the book Hell-Heaven the aspect of self -identity is clearly portrayed. Today, some immigrants slowly rebuild their life and turn out to be very successful in the new country. Many of them, specifically the older people, keep struggling for a good part of their lives since they do cling to the cultures of their initial home and fail to cope with major changes. It is important to note that to be fully accepted into the “new home”, newcomers are expected to assimilate fast. By doing so, they will quickly find a sense of identity. As a conclusion, there are various portions in Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story, Hell-Heaven, which seem quite thought provoking, specifically for what they leave unarticulated or unsaid. More often than not, the author chooses to pen the bare minimum in respect to incredibly multifaceted emotions, seemingly conveying these feeling merely for the sake of developing the plot. Hell Heaven is a short story about the experience of Bengali immigrants who moved to America. The book is a story about the challenges that all immigrant families’ go through as their young generation becomes more Americanized and the older guards are incapable to stop it. These clearly have help developed the concept of self-identity. It has also helped understand the struggle for identity that many immigrate or those who move to “new land” go through. For instance, Prenab and Usha both portray the assimilated generation, but Boudi signifies the older generation still trying to preserve their old cultural values. References Lahiri, Jhumpa.(May 24, 2004). Hell-Heaven, The New Yorker. available online at : http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/05/24/hell-heaven Read More