Interstices as Spaces of Empowerment: A Study of Select Stories in JhumpaLahiri’sInterpreter of Maladies

Abstract

The second generation of immigrant women writers in the first world nations occupies an enhanced position of knowledge and empowerment when in comparison to the first generation of immigrant women writers. The interstices these writers occupy are points of power and knowledge. The project aims to study the lives of second generation of immigrant women in select stories in JhumpaLahiri’sInterpreter of Maladies, namely, “A Temporary Matter” and “The interpreter of Maladies,” how they turn their newly occupied space into a space of opportunity and enhancement. These characters develop hybrid consciousness, a fusion of the past and the present with necessary inclusions and deletions. It is into this newly formed consciousness Lahiri delves to study the working of minds of the new immigrant women. The cultural forces and patriarchy that played significant roles in their homeland are sidelined and almost irrelevant in the lives of these immigrant women. The third world women reclaim agency in their country of adoption and their position at the interstices become enabling spaces of self assertion.