Alienation and Assimilation: A Panoptic Foucauldian Study of Jhumpa Lahiri 's "Whereabouts" Analysis?

Abstract

Whereabout (2018) is the masterpiece of an eastern immigrant Jhumpa Lahiri who is living in Italy. She is culturally eastern but has to live under the adopted culture. As the culture is full of forces and it tends towards adoption of certain aspects which could not be matched to the mind of the person. Foucault (2000) presented the theory of “Resistance” in which it is mentioned that life has to be spent under certain forces which cannot be observed by the naked eye. Every person has the force of resistance so that the external factors of the culture could not affect his/her personality. Present study is conducted in this perspective to analyze the text of Whereabout (2018) by Jhumpa Lahiri under Foucauldian perspectives. The study is qualitative in its nature and is based on textual analysis. The text is selected by repeatedly reading and the Foucauldian aspects tend to be found. The analysis is made based on the Foucauldian phases of resistance. The results of the study describe that humans are full of resistance against the cultural forces which tend and attract towards themselves. If the resistance power of the person is high then the external cultural forces cannot be placed in his/her mind. An immigrant tries to assimilate the things with existing culture in mind, if these are not assimilated then the person is prey of alienation. It is also found in study that an eastern immigrant can never be adjusted in western culture by adopting western culture yet present resistance to not adopt the culture. These aspects lead him/her towards alienation and turbulence.