Cultural Labyrinth in the Novels of Jumba Lahiri’ “the Namesake” and Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart”

Cultural Labyrinth in the novels of Jumba Lahiri’ “The Namesake” and Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart”
Literature has been found over the centuries to have certain important kinds of value for human beings. It is an image of life in which is crystallized the climate of thoughts, feelings and aspiration of peoples. Literature reflects society and its culture. It not only highlights external appearance, but hints at the peculiar tendencies, instincts, and customs of the society. In this process of transfer from generation to generation, culture continually changes. No live culture is static. When two societies come in constant contact with each other, their mutual response leads to cultural interaction between the two. Comparative literature is the one which deals with the study of literature and other cultural expressions across linguistic and cultural boundaries. The cultural context, the life styles of the people, their immediate predicament, their hopes and despairs are mediated in the fictional images. This paper gives the clear picture of the ideals Indian as well as African culture. It tries to investigate the cultural labyrinth in Jumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake and Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, where the main characters are being caught between two conflicting cultures with their highly distinct religious, social, and ideological differences. In The Namesake, Lahiri presents the cultural dilemmas and dislocations experienced by an Indian Bengali family from Calcutta and their American born children in different ways. Whereas the novel, Things Fall Apart depicts the life of a great man, Okonkwo inhabited by the Igbo tribe. It describes his family and personal history, the customs and society of the Igbo, and the influence of British colonialism and Christian missionaries on the Igbo community.
Jhumpa Lahiri is an Indian by ancestry, British by birth and American by immigration. Her first novel, The Namesake(2003) has been both loved and ignored for its portrayal of the trauma of the culturally displaced. Lahiri stresses culture and its importance in immigrant experience with a humanist outlook. In this novel, The Namesake, Lahiri depicts the cultural problems faced by the Bengali immigrants Ashoke and Ashima in the foreign systems. Ashima and Ashoke try hard to hold on to their Indians-ness, their culture despite surrounded by the American culture all around. The novel examines the nuances involved with being caught between two conflicting cultures with their distinct religious, social and ideological differences. Also the novel describes the struggle between first-generation and their children, particularly their son, Gogol. For Ashima, motherhood in a foreign land is India and so she continuously longs for them. She is reluctant to learn to drive and she insists on wearing Indian clothes and eating Indian food. Her life is consumed by recreating Indian culture in America. As a University professor, Ashoke is accepted into the academic community, but at home he continues to be the traditional Indian male, fastidious about his clothing and food. For Ashoke, memories of life in India are less peaceful. But, his son Gogol attempting to eradicate his heritage. The novel clearly depicts the cross-cultural issues of not getting assimilated with the culture of America. For Ashima and Ashoke, of the same time for their children could not adjust themselves during their visits to India. Gogol does not want to go to kinder garden as his parents told him that at school instead of being called Gogol, he will be called by a new name, Nikhil, a good name. As a successful and good looking Indian American in New York, he awakens swiftly to the variety of pleasures he is entitled to: friends, wine, cinema and love affairs. His unhappy relation with Ruth and Maxine leave him utterly disappointed. The sudden demise of his father is an eye opener that makes him interpret the age-old cultural values of India, when Gogol decides to marry Moushumi with the blessings of his family and their Indian friends, their conjugal life ends when Moushumi decides to live with a foreigner, Dimitri.
Lahiri, in this novel presents that it is not only the Indian migrants, who feel dislocated in other countries and face cultures feel the same in the other dominant cultures. . This should enable the people to analyses the tensions and dilemmas arising from its protracted encounter with western modernity in its new grab. This becomes evident when Lahiri describes how Gogol and his sister Sonia resent childhood trips to India during which they are forced to interact with family and give up the material comforts of American life. Gogol is living in the in-between space and struggling to balance the two different world, he still longs to balance the two different world, he still longs to escape from his cultural roots and venture into his US girlfriend’s life. He wants to fit in his American world and at the same line to fit to the expectations of his parents. He does not hate his parents, but he is unable to understand the Indian world of his parents because of his American upbringing. Gogol and his parents, both fail to understand each other. Gogol is turned between the two cultures.
Chinua Achebe is the considered as the father of modern African literature. His novel Things Fall Apart (1958) is widely read and shaped world literature. Achebe presents the colonial experience from the African stand point and he does so without sliding into the labyrinth of romanticizing the African past. Although he was the child of protestant missionary and received his early education in English, his upbringing was multicultural and still he lived according to many aspects of traditional Igbo culture. His education in English and exposure to European customs, have allowed him to capture both the European and the African perspective on colonial expansion, religion, race, and culture. His achievements are most concretely reflected by his prominence in Nigeria’s academic culture and in its literary and political institutions. Ideals of both Indian and African culture should be helpful to capture its inherently different orientation, its world view and values as compared with the values of the consumerist culture. The paper presents the effects of the “dominant culture” from the immigrant and colonial perspective. In these two novels, the elders are strong in their customs and beliefs whereas the children are easily adopting the changes made by the westerns
The novel, Things Fall Apart is a faithful record of the African people whose cultural identity with direct attack till things in the culture falls apart. This novel tells the story of an Ibo village and one of its great men Okonkwo, who has achieved much in his life. He is a champion, a wealthy farmer and a husband for three wives. He is a self-willed, self-made man with firm determination. He tries to stand as a role against invasion. The main theme is the clash between the Nigerian white colonial government and the traditional culture of the indigenous Igbo people. When the English men come they wipe out one of the village, Abame this greatly angers Okonkwo, but the native tribes do not wish to fight. The white men then setup a Christian Church to begin converting the natives. These two cultures have very different values and each culture believes they are correct, the Christian believe that all men should be accepted into the Church and society and that worshiping multiple Gods is incorrect and savage. The Ibo culture however is entirely different. In this culture it is common to worship several different Gods and spirits. The Ibo culture also kills twins, outcasts many people for various crimes, dismembers bodies and has a designed evil burial ground.
Things Fall Apart portrays the clash between Nigeria is white colonial government and the traditional culture of the in indigenous Igbo people. This novel deals with how the prospect and reality of change affect various characters. Here, Okonkwo resist the new political and religious orders because he feels that they are not manly and that he himself will not be manly of he consents to join or even tolerate them. To some extent, Okonkwo’s resistance of cultural change is also due to his fear of losing societal status. Okonkwo believes that his eldest son Nwoye is weak and lazy. He continually beats Nwoye hoping to faults that he perceives in him. Influnced by Ikemefuna,Nwoye begins to exhibit more masculine behaviour which pleases Okonkwo. However he maintains doubts about some of the laws and rules of his tribe and eventually converts Christian. The offence Okonkwo commits is the killing of Ikemefuna, an innocent boy who calls him father. This has badly affected the psyche of his culture and his own mental disturbance. This novel is a mouthpiece of Achebe’s culture. One of the significant aspects of the culture used very adroitly in Things Fall Apart is folk song. Folk songs are a vigorous expression of the Nigerian culture. The culture he reproduces not only firsthand but, also an exquisite representation of the complex ramifications of the Nigerian culture.
Both this novels have a universal appeal cutting across barriers of culture and time. In The Namesake Gogol hates his name and he is attempts to change his culture and heritage. Where as in, Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo is unable to adopt to the changes that accompany colonialism. Atlast in frustration, he kills an African employed by the British and then commits suicide. Achebe achieves a balance in recreating the tragic consequences of the clash of two cultures. This paper mainly focuses on the readers with different paradigms of life among people representing distinct cultures and world views.