International Journal For Multidisciplinary Research

E-ISSN: 2582-2160   •   Impact Factor: 9.24

A Widely Indexed Open Access Peer Reviewed Multidisciplinary Bi-monthly Scholarly International Journal

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Between Departure and Devotion: Boundary-Making in Lahiri’s ‘Hell-Heaven’

Author(s) Dr. Ritu Rani
Country India
Abstract Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Hell-Heaven” offers a nuanced exploration of the visible and invisible boundaries that shape the immigrant experience, revealing how cultural memory, emotional longing, and social expectation intersect to define the lives of her characters. Set against the backdrop of Bengali immigrant life in Boston, the story unfolds through the eyes of Usha, whose family becomes entwined with Pranab Kaku, a young graduate student seeking connection in a foreign land. Through the relationships among Aparna, Pranab, and Usha, Lahiri exposes the tension between departure and devotion—between the desire to step beyond inherited norms and the pull of traditional values that continue to guide behavior and identity. The characters navigate boundaries that are geographical yet intimate, cultural yet deeply personal: the limits of marital loyalty, the constraints of immigrant propriety, and the emotional distances that remain unspoken but powerfully felt. This paper argues that Lahiri uses these subtle boundary negotiations to portray the complexity of immigrant belonging, showing that the act of leaving—one’s country, one’s customs, even one’s desires—is never complete. Instead, Lahiri reveals how devotion to cultural roots and emotional bonds continually reinscribes these boundaries, shaping the characters’ sense of self in ways both liberating and confining.
Keywords immigrant, desire, boundaries, alien land, love.
Published In Volume 4, Issue 2, March-April 2022
Published On 2022-03-10
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E-ISSN 2582-2160
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CrossRef DOI prefix of IJFMR is 10.36948/ijfmr

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