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After Melancholia
A Reappraisal of Second-Generation Diasporic Subjectivity in the Work of Jhumpa Lahiri
Series: - Cross/Cultures, Volume: 169
Author:
Mindful of the tunnel vision sometimes created by the privileging of âhybridity talkâ and matters of culture in discussions of texts by minority writers, Delphine Munos in After Melancholia reads the work of the Bengali-American celebrity author Jhumpa Lahiri against the grain, by shifting the ground of analysis from the cultural to the literary. With the help of psychoanalytic theories ranging from Sigmund Freud through André Green and Nicolas Abraham to Jean Laplanche, this study re-evaluates the complexity of Lahiriâs craft and offers major insights into the authorâs representation of second-generation diasporic subjectivity â an angle hitherto neglected by critics working from the narrower theoretical boundaries of transnationalism, diaspora studies, postcolonial theory, and Asian-American studies alike. Via interdisciplinary incursions into the domains of literary and psychoanalytic criticism, as well as into those of trauma and diaspora studies, Munos takes up âHema and Kaushik,â the triptych of short stories included in Unaccustomed Earth (2008), as exemplary texts in which Lahiri redefines notions of belonging and arrival regarding the Bengali-American second generation, not in terms of cultural assimilation â which would hardly make sense for characters born in the USA in the first place â but in terms of a resymbolization of the gaps in the parentsâ migrant narratives. Munosâ in-depth reading of Lahiriâs trilogy is concerned with exploring how âHema and Kaushikâ signifies on the absent presences haunting transgenerational relationships within the US diasporic family of Bengali descent. Bringing to the forefront such ânegativeâ categories as the gap, the absent, the unsaid, the melancholically absented mother, After Melancholia reveals that the second-generation âMother Diasporaâ is no less haunting than her first-generation counterpart, âMother Indiaâ. Calling for a re-assessment of Lahiriâs work in terms of a dialectical relationship between (transgenerational) mourning and melancholia, Munos provides a compelling reading grid by means of which underrepresented aspects of the rest of Lahiriâs work, especially her novel The Namesake (2003), gain new visibility.
Delphine Munos is a F.R.S.-FNRS postdoctoral researcher in the Department of English and American Literatures at the University of Liège (Belgium). She has published in the fields of American and postcolonial literature, diaspora studies, and South Asian studies.
"Undoubtedly, the main strengths of After Melancholia is, on the one hand, Delphine Munosâs scrupulous psychoanalytical close reading of Jhumpa Lahiriâs work and, on the other hand, a new examination of the predicament of haunted diasporic identities. As the title of her book indicates, Munos explores how Lahiri uses melancholy to represent second-generation subjectivities haunted by impossible mourning and unclaimed legacies. According to Munos, the idea of a âreturnâ is therefore understood as a process of accommodating diasporaâs spectral presences." - Jocelyn Martin in Recherche littéraire/Literary Research, vol. 33 (Summer 2017)
Acknowledgements
Illustrations
Introduction
Diasporaâs Hereafters
Speaking from the End of the Line
Imagining Entangled Genealogies
Reaching Out Beyond Diaspora
Performing the Phantom Loss of the Motherland
Revenant Melancholy
Firing the Loaded Gun
Unassimilable Death: A History of Transgenerational Entanglement
Home Is Where the Haunt Is
The Return of the Dead Buried Within the Other
Kaushikâs Melancholic Crime
Kaushikâs Exile of Self
Kaushikâs Impossible Memory, or the Unreliable Narrator
Dead Mothers and Hauntings
Gothicized Repetitions and Haunted Beginnings
The Phantom, or Hemaâs Intention
The Other Dead Mother
The Future of Diaspora
Afterwardsness, or the Possibility of Translating Oneself into the Future
Rome: The Postal Effect
Hemaâs Failed Translations
Kaushikâs Failed Repression
Claiming the Motherâs Luggage
Into the Maternal Necropolis: A History of Guilt
The Ending as True Beginning
Conclusion
Works Cited
Index
Illustrations
Introduction
Diasporaâs Hereafters
Speaking from the End of the Line
Imagining Entangled Genealogies
Reaching Out Beyond Diaspora
Performing the Phantom Loss of the Motherland
Revenant Melancholy
Firing the Loaded Gun
Unassimilable Death: A History of Transgenerational Entanglement
Home Is Where the Haunt Is
The Return of the Dead Buried Within the Other
Kaushikâs Melancholic Crime
Kaushikâs Exile of Self
Kaushikâs Impossible Memory, or the Unreliable Narrator
Dead Mothers and Hauntings
Gothicized Repetitions and Haunted Beginnings
The Phantom, or Hemaâs Intention
The Other Dead Mother
The Future of Diaspora
Afterwardsness, or the Possibility of Translating Oneself into the Future
Rome: The Postal Effect
Hemaâs Failed Translations
Kaushikâs Failed Repression
Claiming the Motherâs Luggage
Into the Maternal Necropolis: A History of Guilt
The Ending as True Beginning
Conclusion
Works Cited
Index