IMPLICATING THE POSTMEMORY IN THE LITERARY TEXT: TRAUMATIC DIASPORIC EXPERIENCE IN JHUMPA LAHIRI’S INTERPRETER OF MALADIES

Abstract

The research delves into the individual, inter, and transgenerational transmission of experiences in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies through the lens of postmemory. It analyzes the selected four stories of the short story collection Interpreter of Maladies are "When Mr Prizzada came to Dine”, “Miss. Sen”, “A Real Durwan” and “The Third and Final Continent”. These stories explore the history of the 1947 partitioning of the Indian Subcontinent and the suffering of the diaspora in the host country. Moreover, selected stories represent the historical incidents in the present. Implicating the Postmemory in the literary text helps to bring historical events in the present discussion. It broadens the new perspectives of understanding historical events and their aftermath. This research argues that Lahiri portrays the world of her lived and inherited experiences that are occupied by the transmission of knowledge through the earlier generation and helps analyse how those incidents continue to affect the second generation who has witnessed the suffering of an earlier generation. This research contributes to the emerging issues on the effect of partition and its aftermath in the life of diaspora that has continued and transmitted to later generations.