Balancing Dualities and Fusing Opposites: Reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreters of Maladies

Abstract

With a focus on Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies, this research investigates the intricate existence of Indian women caught up in the conventional marginalization at the hands of patriarchy in their home country and repressions of otherness across new borders. By employing Gloria Anzaldua’s concept of “balancing dualities and fusing opposites”, I analyze Lahiri’s text in order to explore how, oscillating between displacement and resettlement, gendered identities are formed in the in-between space of acceptance across borders. Border crossing is mostly embedded in the experiences of displacement, alienation, and longing for belonging. Diasporic experiences are heterogeneous in articulating the loss and pains of dislocation, uprootedness, and struggles of immigrants to territorialize across new borders. This study explores the diverse experiences of diasporic women in the confrontation of the opposite borders of old and new and scrutinizes how they make their lives meaningful in their respective situations. In this paper, I argue that life across borders offers an in-between space for doubly marginalized women by resisting the hierarchical patterns at home and abroad and balancing these dualities in the liminal space between two cultures. Moreover, this cross- border life also strives towards fusing cultural opposites in the space of un/belonging through strategic resistance and resilience.