UNHEARD VOICES: AN EXPLORATION OF SUBALTERN EXPERIENCES IN JHUMPA LAHIRI’S SHORT FICTION

Abstract

The human urge to move beyond the geographical limitations of his own nation seeking financial, political or intellectual enhancement of the self or the society is not a recent development. In fact, since time immemorial history is replete with such prospective voyages. The process of setting up colonies thereby dividing the colonizer and the colonized into two distinct sets of marks of individual identity is the outcome of the pioneering spirit of man to look beyond “home”. With the European powers voyaging round the globe to enhance their supremacy, all the other continents became their property- divided and subdivided amongst themselves. The rise of the concept of the ‘ruler; and the; ruled’ gave way to the creation of what we call as ‘other’. The subdued, dominated, under-privileged were coined under the term “subaltern” by Antonio Gramsci, to encapsulate into its ambit all those who have been denied their due as human beings on the basis of certain notions like race, colour, gender ,nationality. The subject of the subaltern is the agenda of almost all diasporic writers including Jhumpa Lahiri. This paper ensues to explore the subalterns in the select short stores of Jhumpa Lahiri from her collection The Interpreter of Maladies.