The experience in exile in Jhumpa Lahiri`s Mrs Sen`s, This Blessed House And The Third And Final Continent - USD Repository
THE EXPERIENCE IN EXILE IN JHUMPA LAHIRI’S MRS. SEN’S, THIS BLESSED HOUSE AND THE THIRD AND FINAL CONTINENT A THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree in English Language Education
By Invani Lela Herliana
Student Number: 051214047
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2011
THE EXPERIENCE IN EXILE IN JHUMPA LAHIRI’S MRS. SEN’S, THIS BLESSED HOUSE AND THE THIRD AND FINAL CONTINENT A THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements to Obtain the Sarjana Pendidikan Degree in English Language Education
By Invani Lela Herliana
Student Number: 051214047
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS EDUCATION FACULTY OF TEACHERS TRAINING AND EDUCATION SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY YOGYAKARTA 2011
STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY
I honestly declare that this thesis, which I have written, does not contain the work or parts of the work of other people, except those cited in the quotations and the references, as a scientific paper should.
Yogyakarta, January 19, 2011 The Writer,
Invani Lela Herliana 051214047
LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN
PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH UNTUK KEPENTINGAN AKADEMIS
Yang bertandatangan di bawah ini, saya mahasiswi Universitas Sanata Dharma: Nama : Invani Lela Herliana Nomor mahasiswa : 051214047
Demi pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan, saya memberikan kepada perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma karya ilmiah saya yang berjudul:
The Experience in Exile in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Mrs. Sen’s, This Blessed House
and The Third and Final ContinentBeserta perangkat yang diperlukan (bila ada). Dengan demikian saya memberikan kepada perpustakaan Universitas Sanata Dharma hak untuk menyimpan, mengalihkan dalam bentuk media lain, mengelolanya dalam bentuk pangkalan data, mendistribusikan secara terbatas, dan mempublikasikannya di internet atau media lain untuk kepentingan akademis tanpa perlu meminta ijin dari saya maupun memberikan loyalti kepada saya selama tetap mencantumkan nama saya sebagai penulis. Demikian pernyataan ini saya buat dengan sebenarnya.
Dibuat di Yogyakarta
Pada tanggal 19 Januari 2011 Yang menyatakan Invani Lela Herliana
Teachers are those who build a bridge, students are invited to cross over. When all of students are in the other side, teachers are pleased to back off, then encourage students to build their own bridges.
(Nikos Kazantzakis) The thesis is dedicated to My Grandmother and My Mother
Two beautiful women who assist me for ‘being a woman’
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my gratitude to the Supreme Being who enlightens my way through these challenging years.
I also would thank my grandmother in Mojokerto, East Java who tolerates my laziness despite the fact that I spent too much sitting and typing in her living room for a week rather than helping her to clean the backyard. My gratitude is also given to my mother and my father who always pray for me every time they pray five times a day, as well as all my siblings who cherish me up every day in our crowded house, Wisnu, Dea, Rizky and Bagus.
Next, I never forget to thank Drs. Antonius Herujiyanto, M. A., Ph.D. for giving smart remarks and supportive guidance during writing this thesis.
I also thank Delfi Chinnappan, a beautiful friend from Mumbay, India for sending me Jhumpa Lahiri’s book via air mail since I found it difficult to find a piece here. My gratitude also pours to Virgil Sequiera, Samy AREDS, Sally
Rousset and all friends meeting in Karur, Tamil Nadu, South India for giving me
a slice of spiritual journey in India, the personal reason why I chose Indian author to be the subject matter of my thesis.
Still, I owe big thanks to Yayasan Pondok Rakyat (People’s Shelter
Foundation) and all staff to allow me to take home some precious books from its
library shelves and let me write my thesis while I am at the office.Yet, my adventure in Sanata Dharma University would not be happened without a great help of my dear aunty, Riana Puspasari, whose kindness has opened thousand doors for me and now I begin to open other thousand doors for those who are staying too long outside and left behind.
Other special thanks go to Mr. Edi and his family in Mojokerto, East Java who allow me to spend overnight in their fancy bedroom to finish my chapter 2 and 3. Also, I thank so much for their kindness to pay my tuition for three years so that I was not worried anymore about being unschooled girl.
I thank my best friends who always support me both in laughs and tears:
Arnovy Putty Febriani, Ifa Hadi Subardan, Anna Elfira Prabandari, Lusiana
Sari, Hananto Kusumo, Muhamad Nur Hidayat, Natan Arya, all friends in
Orong-Orong as well as those great people who support ketjil.bergerak.I thank Zanny Begg and Keg de Souza for being my proofreader, and of course, I owe big thanks to all lectures and secretary staff in PBI that I cannot mention one by one. For sure, their names are beautifully carved in my heart.
Last, I thank Greg Sindana, who always lights my fire whenever my furnace is getting cold and dry, and loves me without border.
Yogyakarta, January 19, 2011 Invani Lela Herliana
TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE PAGE ................................................................................................... i PAGE OF APPROVAL .................................................................................... ii STATEMENT OF WORK’S ORIGINALITY ............................................... iv LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI ............................. v PAGE OF DEDICATION ................................................................................ vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................. viii ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................... x ABSTRAK ........................................................................................................... xiii
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION A. Background of the Study ............................................................... 1 B. Aim of the Study ............................................................................ 5 C. Problem Formulation .....................................................................
5 D. Benefits of the Study ..................................................................... 5
E. Definition of Terms ........................................................................ 6
1. Exile ........................................................................................... 6
2. Postcolonial literature ................................................................ 7
3. Cultural Identity ......................................................................... 7
CHAPTER II. THEORETICAL REVIEW A. Review of Related Theories........................................................... 8
1. Postcolonial Literature ............................................................... 8
2. Theory of Place and Displacement ............................................ 10
3. Theory of Cultural Identity ....................................................... 12
B. Critical Approach ...........................................................................
13
1. The Beginning of the Emerging of Postcolonial Approach .............................................................. 13
2. The Characteristics of Postcolonial Criticism .......................... 14
3. The Stages in Seeing Postcolonial Criticism ............................ 15
a. Adopt ................................................................................... 15
b. Adapt ................................................................................... 16
c. Adept .................................................................................... 16
4. Key Points in Postcolonial Criticism ........................................ 16
C. Theoretical Framework .................................................................. 17
D. Criticism ........................................................................................ 17
CHAPTER III. METHODOLOGY A. Object of the Study ........................................................................ 21 B. Approach of the Study ................................................................... 23 C. Procedure ....................................................................................... 24 CHAPTER IV. ANALYSIS A. The Main Characters Portrayed in the Short Stories ..................... 26
1. Mrs. Sen’s ................................................................................ 26
2. This Blessed House ................................................................. 30
3. The Third and Final Continent ................................................ 34
B. The Experience in Exile ................................................................. 36
a. Mrs. Sen’s ....................................................................... 37
b. This Blessed House ........................................................ 38
c. The Third and Final Continent ....................................... 39
CHAPTER V. CONCLUSION, SUGGESTION AND RECOMMENDATION A. Conclusion ..................................................................................... 42 B. Suggestion for Teaching Implementation ...................................... 42 C. Recommendation for Future Researchers ...................................... 43
REFERENCES .................................................................................................. 44
APPENDICES ................................................................................................... 46
A. Summary of the Short Stories ..................................................... 471. Mrs. Sen’s ............................................................................... 47
2. This Blessed House ................................................................. 48
3. The Third and Final Continent ............................................... 49
B. Biography of the Author .............................................................. 50
C. Lesson Plan for Teaching Intensive Reading I ............................ 51
D. Materials ....................................................................................... 53
ABSTRACT
Herliana, Invani Lela. (2011). The Experience in Exile in Jhumpa Lahiri’s
Mrs. Sen’s, This Blessed House, and The Third and Final Continent.
Yogyakarta: English Education Study Program, Faculty of Teaching Training and Education, Sanata Dharma University.This study analyses the experience in exile experienced by the main characters in three short stories written by Jhumpa Lahiri, namely Mrs. Sen’s, This Blessed House and The Third and Final Continent. The three short stories above mainly discuss about the lives of Indian immigrants in exile, when they are striving for better opportunities in the New World. It includes the experience of displacement, the different understanding in defining ‘home’ and the crisis of cultural identity.
The aim of the study is to see one’s life experiences in exile as in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Mrs. Sen’s, This Blessed House and The Third and Final Continent. There are two problems discussed in this study. First, it is “how the main characters are portrayed in the short stories” and second, it is “how the main characters’ experienced in exile is analyzed.”
There are two kinds of sources used in this study, namely the primary source, which is the three short stories mentioned above, and secondary sources from references, books and internet sources which include explanation on Postcolonial Literatures, theory of Place and Displacement, theory of Cultural Identity and Postcolonial Criticism. Thus, this study employs Postcolonial Approach as a tool to analyze the subject matter.
Based on the analysis, it can be concluded that the experiences in exile experienced by people who seek new life in the new continent are always faced into three stages of post colonialism which are adopt, adapt and adept. Thus, people who can survive with those three stages will physically and spiritually accept the place they live as a ‘home’.
It is recommended that the future researchers analyze deeper on the crisis of cultural identity faced by all characters in Mrs. Sen’s, This Blessed House and The Third and Final Continent. Thus, the topic on how the characters face the crisis of cultural identity and how they react toward the new cultures using socio- historical cultural approach and several theories in cultural identity and diaspora are interesting to be analyzed.
Moreover, this study is completed with the lesson plan and materials for English teachers to teach Intensive Reading II using some selected parts of those three short stories.
ABSTRAK
Herliana, Invani Lela. (2011). The Experience in Exile in Jhumpa Lahiri’s
Mrs. Sen’s, This Blessed House and The Third and Final Continent.
Yogyakarta: Program Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Fakultas Keguruan dan Ilmu Pendidikan, Universitas Sanata Dharma.Kajian literatur ini menganalisa pengalaman hidup para imigran sebagai ‘orang yang terasing’ dalam tiga cerita pendek karya Jhumpa Lahiri yang berjudul Mrs. Sen’s, This Blessed House dan The Third and Final Continent yang bercerita tentang kehidupan para imigran India dalam ‘pengasingan’, saat mereka berjuang untuk kehidupan yang lebih baik di negara baru. Pengalaman akan ketidaknyamanan tempat, pemahaman yang berbeda dalam mendefinisikan ‘rumah’ dan krisis identitas budaya juga turut diceritakan dalam ketiga cerpen ini.
Tujuan studi ini adalah untuk melihat pengalaman hidup orang-orang di ‘pengasingan’. Ada dua permasalahan pokok dalam kajian ini. Pertama, “bagaimana para karakter utama digambarkan dalam dalam ketiga cerita pendek tersebut”. Kedua, “bagaimana pengalaman-pengalaman para imigran tersebut sebagai ‘orang yang terasing’ dianalisa.”
Ada dua data yang digunakan dalam kajian ini, yaitu data utama yang berupa tiga cerpen di atas dan data pendukung yang dikumpulkan dari buku-buku dan sumber internet, termasuk penjelasan tentang Sastra Poskolonial, teori tentang Lokasi dan Dislokasi, teori Identitas Budaya dan Pendekatan Poskolonial yang digunakan untuk menelaah ketiga cerita pendek di atas.
Dapat disimpulkan bahwa pengalaman-pengalaman manusia dalam ‘pengasingan’ yang mencari kehidupan baru di benua baru tak dapat lepas dari tiga tahap dalam teori poskolonial, yaitu mengambil budaya baru secara langsung tanpa disaring (adopt), beradaptasi dengan budaya baru (adapt) dan berhasil menyesuaikan budaya baru tersebut sesuai dengan budayanya sendiri tanpa menhilangkan budaya asli (adept). Oleh karena itu, yang bisa melampaui ketiga tahapan tersebut dapat menerima tempat baru sebagai ‘rumah’, baik secara fisik maupun spiritual.
Bagi para peneliti lain, kajian yang lebih mendalam tentang krisis identitas budaya yang dialami oleh seluruh karakter dalam Mrs. Sen’s, This Blessed House dan The Third and Final Continent, terutama tentang bagaimana mereka menghadapi krisis identitas budaya dan reaksi mereka atas budaya baru menggunakan pendekatan sosio-historis dan beberapa teori tentang identitas budaya dan diaspora sangat menarik untuk dianalisa dalam penelitian-penelitian selanjutnya. Materi ajar bagi guru Bahasa Inggris untuk mengajar Intensive Reading II juga disertakan dengan menggunakan satu cerita pendek dari ketiga cerpen tersebut.
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION This chapter is structured in five parts, namely Background of the Study, Aim of the Study, Problem Formulation, Benefits of the Study and Definition of Terms. Background of the Study represents the description of the topic of the
study and explains the personal reasons in selecting the topic of this study. Aim of the Study presents the aims of conducting this study. Problem Formulation states the problems to limit the scope of study. Benefits of the Study elaborates the advantages that the reader may gain from reading this study. Last, the Definition of Terms presents definitions of key terms used in this study.
A. Background of the Study
Enjoying literature is sometimes not enough if we only catch the surface meaning without trying to find the deeper meaning of the work. When probing for this deeper meaning, literature can provide a tool for analyzing culture and society or even learning about the meaning of life itself.
Literature has varied genres. One of them is called postcolonial literature. According to Ashcroft, postcolonial literature is literature which covers all the culture affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonization to the present day. Therefore, the literatures of African countries, Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Caribbean countries, India, Malaysia, Malta, New Zealand, Pakistan,
2 Singapore, South Pacific Island countries and Sri Lanka are all postcolonial literatures (2). He also said,
More than three-quarters of the people living in the world today have had their lives shaped by the experience of colonialism …Literature offers one
of the most important ways in which these new perceptions are expressed and it is in their writing, and through other arts such as painting, sculpture, music, and dance that the day-to-day realities experienced by colonized peoples have been most powerfully encoded and so profoundly influential (1; emphasis added). One of the books categorized as postcolonial literature is Interpreter of
Maladies written by Jhumpa Lahiri. This book is compilation of nine short stories published in 1999 and was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2000.
Jhumpa Lahiri, born on July 11, 1967, is an Indian American author. She was born in London, the daughter of Bengali Indian immigrants. She then moved to US when she was three. Being Indian, born and raised in two different continents and away from her motherland, has inspired her to write stories about the first-generation Indian American immigrants and their struggle to raise a family in a country very different from their own. She also wrote a novel, The Namesake (2003) and a short story collection titled Unaccustomed Earth (2008).
This study particularly focuses mainly on three short stories, namely Mrs. Sen’s, This Blessed House and The Third and Final Continent. The writer has chosen those three short stories because they portray the life of Indian American immigrants living in New Land with all their emotional confusion of the outsider and attempts to survive in the new continent. Yet, these immigrants living in exile usually face problems in finding their own cultural identity as they live between the cultural values of their origin and their adopted home.
3 Mrs. Sen’s tells about an Indian woman who takes a job as a babysitter for eleven-year old boy named Eliot since her husband is too busy working. She defines herself as a ‘professor’s wife, responsible and kind, I will care for your child in my home (111)’. She has a warm apartment and kindly serves Eliot when he is at her place. Only one problem she has, she cannot drive. Mr. Sen, her husband who teaches mathematics at the university, urges her to sit for her driving license soon. In fact, Mrs. Sen hates driving. The ‘driving-matter’ then triggers new problems.
As an Indian living in America, Mrs. Sen feels she lives in exile. Only two things make her happy, when she receives a letter from India and finds fresh fish.
However, she is a bit depressed with his new life in the new land.
“’Send pictures,’ they write. ‘Send pictures of your new life.’ What picture can I send?” She sat, exhausted, on the edge of the bed, where there was now barely room for her. “They think I live the life of queen, Eliot.” She looked around the blank walls of the room. “They think I press buttons and the house is clean. They think I live in a palace.” (125) The matter of being a stranger in a new continent and failure to adapt to the new surroundings is seen clearly through Eliot’s eyes.
This Blessed House depicts a story about the Indian couple named Twinkle and Sanjeev who have just bought a new house in Connecticut, US.
When they begin arranging their house surprisingly they find ‘treasures’ hidden in every corner of their house in a form of Christian effigies and its paraphernalia, such as a white porcelain effigy of Christ, a 3-D postcard of Saint Francis done in four colors, a wooden cross key chain, a plaster Virgin Mary and others.
4 The ‘treasures’ findings somehow surprise them since they are good Hindus and still hold the Indian tradition even though they live and work in US.
The problem arises when the two big religion meets in one house belong to Indian immigrants.
Behind an overgrown forsythia bush was a plaster of Virgin Mary as tall as their waists, with a blue painted hood draped over her head in the manner of an Indian bride… “No, silly Sanj. This is meant for outside. For the lawn.” “Oh God, no. Twinkle, no.” “But we must. It would be bad luck not to.” “All the neighbors will see. They’ll think we’re insane.” “Why, for having a statue of the Virgin Mary on our lawn?”… “We’re not Christian.” (146) The suspicious feeling of being the part of religion-converting effort and mix feeling of excitement, denial and rejection-and-acceptance the belief color this young couple’s life.
The Third and Final Continent tells about an Indian man who leaves his homeland and seeks for better life in Europe, then in America. He begins his life in the New Land and tries to adapt with his new surroundings, even when he decides to rent a room in a house belong to an old woman named Mrs. Croft. The old woman always demands him, even in their first encounter, to commend about the America’s greatest leap: the first moon landing by Apollo 11.
The women bellowed, “A flag on the moon, boy! I heard it on the radio! Isn’t that splendid?” “Yes, madame.” But she was not satisfied with my reply. Instead she commanded, “Say, ‘splendid’!”…I said nothing.
“Say splendid!” the woman bellowed once again. “Splendid,” I murmured. I had to repeat the word a second time at the top of my lungs, so she could hear (179-180).
5 The attempt to survive in three continents, while not forgetting the roots of one’s cultural identity, becomes the central issue in this short story.
Regarding the fact that those three short stories have shared the same problems faced by Indian immigrants in America, the writer intends to conduct a study to identify their experience in exile using postcolonial approach.
The personal reason for selecting this topic is because the writer has experienced living in India, precisely in Tamil Nadu, South India for about a month. The passion in experiencing new cultures has blended with the feeling of being a completely stranger in a new land. The precious experiences such as how to adapt in the new surroundings, how to communicate with the natives without knowing the language and how to learn new habits and customs have triggered the writer to conduct a library study in literatures written by Indian authors.
B. Aim of the Study
The aim of the study is to see one’s life experiences in exile as seen in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Mrs. Sen’s, This Blessed House and The Third and Final Continent. However, due to the limitation of problem, this study then has two problems to analyze. The first is to describe the main characters as portrayed in those three short stories, while the second is to examine the experience in exile, experienced by the main characters using postcolonial approach.
C. Problem Formulation
Considering the explanation above, the problems are formulated as:
6
1. How the main characters are portrayed in the short stories?
2. How the main characters’ experienced in exile is analyzed?
D. Benefits of the Study
The study of literary works has several advantages. For the writer, this study is an attempt to look deeper in understanding life and its values. Related to the world of literature, this study is also expected to enrich the literary exploration on the works of Jhumpa Lahiri in particular, and other Indian American authors in general. For English Education Study Program students, the writer designs a lesson plan for Intensive Reading II that uses some selected parts from those three short stories as the implementation of this study.
E. Definition of Terms In analyzing those three short stories, it is necessary for the writer to
highlight certain terms to provide an accurate analysis and a clearer explanation in answering the problems formulated. There are three terms to define, which are exile, postcolonial literature and cultural identity.
1. Exile
According to Maxwell’s theory of place and displacement stated in The Empire Writes Back, exile is the problem of findings and defining ‘home’, physical and emotional confrontations with the ‘new’ land and its ancient and established meanings (27).
7
2. Postcolonial Literature
Postcolonial literature points the way toward a possible study of the effects of colonialism in and between writing in English and writing in indigenous languages in such contexts as Africa and India (24). It emerged in their present form out of the experience of colonization and asserted themselves by foregrounding the tension with the imperial power, and by emphasizing their differences from the assumptions of the imperial centre. It is this which makes them distinctively postcolonial (2). Postcolonial literary theory, then, has begun to deal with the problems of transmuting time into space, with the present struggling out of the past, and like-much recent postcolonial literature, it attempts to construct a future (36).
3. Cultural Identity
According to Hall, there are at least two different ways of thinking about cultural identity. The first position defines ‘cultural identity’ in terms of one, shared culture, a sort of collective ‘one-true self’. It reflects the common historical experiences and shared cultural codes which provide us, as ‘one people’ (223). In the second sense, it is a matter of ‘becoming’ as well as of ‘being’. It belongs to the future as much as to the past. It is not something which already exists, transcending place, time, history and culture. Cultural identities come from somewhere; have histories (225), since identity is a ‘production’, which is never complete, always in process and always constituted within, not outside (222).
CHAPTER II THEORETICAL REVIEW This chapter consists of four parts. They are: Review of Related Theories, Critical Approach, Theoretical Framework and Criticism. Review of Related Theories involves the explanation on Postcolonial Literature, theory of Place and Displacement and theory of Cultural Identity. Critical Approach will describe Postcolonial Approach. Theoretical Framework explains the contribution of
theories in analyzing the study. Criticism presents some criticism on the short stories and the author.
A. Review of Related Theories
In this part, the writer discusses the Postcolonial Literature, theory of Place and Displacement and theory of Cultural Identity.
1. Postcolonial Literatures
Theory on postcolonial literatures in this part is mainly derived from The Empire Writes Back written by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin.
The term of postcolonial is used to cover all the culture affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonization to the present day. This is because there is a continuity of preoccupations throughout the historical process initiated by European imperial aggression. Therefore, the literatures of African countries, Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Caribbean countries, India, Malaysia,
9 Malta, New Zealand, Pakistan, Singapore, South Pacific Island countries, and Sri Lanka are all postcolonial literatures (2).
Literatures from those countries above share the same distinct spirit. They emerged in their present form out of the experience of colonization and asserted themselves by foregrounding the tension with the imperial power, and by emphasizing their differences from the assumptions of the imperial centre. It is this which makes them distinctively postcolonial (2).
In The Empire Writes Back, it is also stated that there are four major critical models in postcolonial literatures. First, it is called ‘national’ or regional
models, which emphasize the distinctive features of the particular national or
regional culture. Second, it is called race-based models which identify certain shared characteristics across various national literatures, such as the common racial inheritance in literatures of the African diaspora addressed by the ‘Black writing’ model. Third, it is called comparative models of varying complexity which seek to account for particular linguistic, historical and cultural features across two or more postcolonial literatures. Fourth, more comprehensive comparative models which argue for feature such as hybridity and syncreticity as constitutive elements of all post colonial literatures (15).
Postcolonial literatures points the way toward a possible study of the effects of colonialism in and between writing in English and writing in indigenous languages in such contexts as Africa and India (24). It emerged in their present form out of the experience of colonization and asserted themselves by foregrounding the tension with the imperial power, and by emphasizing their
10 differences from the assumptions of the imperial centre. It is this which makes them distinctively postcolonial (2).
2. Theory of Place and Displacement
Theory of Place and Displacement can be found in several books talking about Postcolonial Literatures and its Criticism. Here, the writer will explain on theory of Place and Displacement according two main sources which are entitled The Empire Writes Back and The Postcolonial Studies Reader. Those two books are written and edited by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin.
According to The Empire Writes Back, the disjunction between place and language is once proposed by D.E.S. Maxwell (1965). Place and displacement are major concerns of all postcolonial peoples (24). Maxwell said,
There are two broad categories. In the first, the writer brings his own
language – English – to an alien environment and a fresh set of
experiences: Australia, Canada, New Zealand. In the other, the writer
brings an alien language – English – to his own social and cultural inheritance : India, West Africa. Yet the categories have a fundamental
kinship…The ‘intolerable wrestle with words and meanings’ has as its aim to subdue the experience to the language, the exotic life to the imported tongue (25; emphasis added). In this field, the term ‘exile’ appears. ‘Exile’ is defined as the problem of findings and defining ‘home’, physical and emotional confrontations with the
‘new’ land and its ancient and established meanings (27). The theme of ‘exile’ is one manifestation of the ubiquitous concern with place and displacement in these societies, as well as with the complex material circumstances implicit in the
11 transportation of language from its place of origin and its imposed and imposing relationship on and with the new environment (29).
Furthermore, in The Postcolonial Studies Reader, ‘Place’ has its own section and is considered as one of four fundamental postcolonial issues besides ‘Language’, ‘History’ and ‘Ethnicity’.
Place and Displacement are crucial features of postcolonial discourse. ‘Place’ here does not simply mean ‘landscape’. The idea of ‘landscape’ is predicated upon a particular philosophic tradition in which the objective world is
separated from the viewing subject
, while ‘place’ in postcolonial societies is a complex interaction of language, history and environment (391; emphasis added).
Moreover, the character of ‘place’ is firstly seen by what so-called as ‘a sense of displacement’ and secondly by ‘a sense of the immense investment of culture in the construction of place’.
A sense of displacement, of the lack of ‘fit’ between language and place, may be experienced by both those who possess English as a mother tongue and those who speak it as a second language. In both cases, the sense of dislocation from an historical ‘homeland’ and that created by the dissonance between languages, the experience of ‘displacement’ generates a creative tension within the language. Place is thus the concomitant of difference, the continual reminder of the separation, and yet of the hybrid interpenetration of the colonizer and colonized (391).
The theory of place does not simply propose a binary separation between the ‘place’ named and described in language, and some ‘real’ place inaccessible to it, but rather indicates that in some sense place is language, something in constant flux, a discourse in process (391).
12 Place therefore, the ‘place’ of the ‘subject’. Thus a major feature of postcolonial literatures is the concern with either developing or recovering an appropriate identifying relationship between self and place because it is precisely within the parameters of place and its separateness that the process of subjectivity can be conducted (392).
3. Theory of Cultural Identity
During their experience in exile, the immigrants are questioning about their cultural identity. The condition then is mixed, trying to define what is ‘home’ while struggling to adapt to the new environment where sometimes they feel that they are ‘lost’ in the crossroads of cultures.
Thus, in this part, the writer chooses two main sources which best described the cultural identity. First, it is taken from Cultural Identity and Global Process written by Jonathan Friedman, and another is called Cultural Identity and Diaspora written by Stuart Hall.
In this part, Friedman focuses on the fragmentation of the world system and the formation of cultural identity. He explains that the crisis of identity in the center is expressive of a more general global crisis. This crisis consists in the weakening of former national identities and the emergence of new identities (86).
While Hall emphasizes that ‘identity’ is seen as a ‘production’ which is never complete, always in process and always constituted within, not outside (222).
In addition, Hall describes two different ways of thinking about ‘cultural identity’. He formulates,
13 The first position defines cultural identity in terms of ‘one, shared culture, a sort of collective one true self’…It reflects the common historical experiences and shared cultural codes which provide us, as ‘one people’. The second sense, it is a matter of ‘becoming’ as well as of ‘being’. It belongs to the future as much as to the past. It is not something which already exists, transcending place, time, history and culture. Cultural identities come from somewhere, have histories (223).
B. Critical Approaches
The writer employs postcolonial approach as a tool to analyze the three short stories written by Jhumpa Lahiri. However, postcolonial approach is relatively new approach and emerged as a distinct category in 1990s. Thus, it is not mentioned in several contemporary literary theory books. This chapter enlightens the beginning of the emerging postcolonial criticism, the characteristics of postcolonial criticism as well as explains on three stages in seeing postcolonial criticism. The source is mainly taken from Peter Barry’s Beginning Theory.
1. The Beginning of the Emerging of Postcolonial Criticism
Postcolonial criticism appears to criticize the universal standard of literature claimed by the liberal humanist critics which stated that the great literature has a timeless and universal significance. As a result, it disregards cultural, social, regional and national differences.
This universalism is rejected by postcolonial criticism. Barry said that whenever a universal signification is claimed for a work, then, white, Eurocentric norms and practices are being promoted by a sleight of hand to this elevated status, and all others correspondingly relegated to subsidiary, marginalized roles
14 (193). Barry also emphasizes on what Frantz Fanon remarked on what he called as ‘cultural resistance’ in his book, The Wretched of the Earth (published in France in 1961). Fanon argued that the first step for 'colonialized' people in finding a voice and an identity is to reclaim their own past, and continued to erode the
colonialist ideology by which that past had been devalued (193; emphasis added).
A major book which inaugurates postcolonial criticism is written by Edward Said, entitled Orientalism (published in 1978), which is a specific expose of the Eurocentric universalism which takes for granted both the superiority of what is European or Western, and the inferiority of what is not (193).
Said identifies a European cultural tradition of 'Orientalism', which is a particular and long-standing way of identifying the East as 'Other' and
inferior to the West . The Orient, he says, features in the Western mind 'as a
sort of surrogate and even underground self’. This means that the East
becomes the repository or projection of those aspects of themselves which Westerners do not choose to acknowledge (cruelty, sensuality, decadence,
laziness, and so on). At the same time, and paradoxically, the East is seen
as a fascinating realm of the exotic, the mystical and the seductive. It also
tends to be seen as homogenous, the people there being anonymous
masses, rather than individuals, their actions determined by instinctive emotions (lust, terror, fury, etc.) rather than by conscious choices or decisions . Their emotions and reactions are always determined by racial
considerations (they are like this because they are asiatics or blacks or orientals) rather than by aspects of individual status or circumstance (193- 194; emphasis added).
2. The Characteristics of Postcolonial Criticism
The writer finds four characteristics of postcolonial criticism in Barry’s book. The first characteristic of postcolonial criticism is an awareness of
representations of the non-European as exotic or immoral 'Other' . It evokes or
15 creates a pre-colonial version of their own nation, rejecting the modern and the contemporary, which is tainted with the colonial status of their countries (194).
Language is a second area of concern in postcolonial criticism (195),
while the third characteristic is the emphasis on identity as doubled, or hybrid, or
unstable (196). The fourth characteristic is the stress on ‘cross-cultural’
interactions (196) characterized by the three stages in seeing postcolonial
.
criticism called Adopt, Adapt, and Adept
3. The Stages in Seeing Postcolonial Criticism
There was a shifting attitude towards postcolonial writers in 1980s and 1990s which seeing themselves as using primarily African or Asian forms, supplemented with European-derived influences, rather than as working primarily within European genres like the novel and merely adding to them a degree of exotic Africanisation. All postcolonial literatures seem to make this transition (196). Therefore, there are three stages in seeing postcolonial criticism. They are called Adopt, Adapt, and Adept.
a. Adopt
The postcolonial literatures begin with an unquestioning acceptance of the authority of European models (especially in the novel) and with the ambition of writing works that will be masterpieces entirely in this tradition. This can be called the ‘Adopt’ phase of colonial literature, since the writer’s ambition is to adopt the form as it stands, the assumption being that it has universal validity (196).
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b. Adapt
The second stage can be called the ‘Adapt’ phase, since it aims to adapt the European form to African or Asian subject matter, thus assuming partial rights of intervention in the genre (196).
c. Adept
In the final phase, there is a declaration of cultural independence whereby African or Asian writers remake the form to their own specification, without reference to European norms. This is called the ‘Adept’ phase, since its characteristic is the assumption that the colonial writer is an independent ‘adept’ in the form, as in the first phase, or as in the second (196).
4. Key Points in Postcolonial Criticism
To sum up the postcolonial approach and its criticism, there are six key points in postcolonial criticism as stated in Beginning Theory, (1) They reject the claims to universalism made on behalf of canonical Western literature and seek to show its limitations of outlook, especially its general inability to empathize across boundaries of cultural and ethnic difference; (2) They examine the representation of other cultures in literature as a way of achieving this end; (3) They show how such literature is often evasively and crucially silent on matters concerned with colonization and imperialism; (4) They foreground questions of cultural difference and diversity and examine their treatment in relevant literary works; (5) They celebrate hybridity and 'cultural poly valency', that is, the situation whereby individuals and groups belong simultaneously to more than one culture (for instance, that of the colonizer, through a colonial school system, and that of the colonized, through local and oral traditions); (6) They develop a perspective, not just applicable to postcolonial literatures, whereby states of marginality, plurality and perceived 'Otherness' are seen as sources of energy and potential change (199).
17 C. Theoretical Framework This part explains briefly the contribution of the theories in analyzing and solving the problems of the study.
This study involves the explanation on Postcolonial Literature, theory of Place and Displacement and theory of Cultural Identity to answer both the first and second research questions. Using these theories, the writer will be able to describe the main characters’ portrayed in those three short stories (the first research question) and to analyze the experience in exile, experienced by the main characters in those three short stories (the second research question).
The explanation on Postcolonial Literature provides important background to comprehend the text, while the theory of Place and Displacement offers great help to identify the ‘exile’ experiences, experienced by those main characters since it tells about the reason why the ‘dislocation’ feeling appears in those main characters in three short stories analyzed.
In addition, the theory of Cultural Identity presents the way to analyze the main characters’ difficulties in facing the new environments and their struggle whether to maintain their cultural identity, or even resist against it.