Freedom of Choice and Crisis of Existence in Jhumpa Lahiri’s

Abstract

The present research on Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake (2003) explores the existential predicament experienced by the Indian immigrants and their American born children in America, the land where they feel more alienated and estranged in spite of their freedom of choice. In the novel, the major characters like Ashima and Gogol makes the essence of their life through the freedom of choice, but they are doomed to suffer once their choice turns out to be curse. However, they are responsible for the universal sense of alienation and the estrangement and the anxiety in their life. Lahiri has depicted the power in the name, the problem which brings the crisis in the individual identity of the protagonist throughout his life. Torn apart between two selves of Gogol and Nikhil i.e. the private and public, he is doomed to be an alienated and fragmented being in the state of dilemma and crisis. At last, after his father’s death and breaking up his marriage, his understanding of the futility and the absurdity of life makes him more determined to confront with his tragic situation he is living with.