درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The migration of Indians to various destinations during the past few decades has led to the emergence of a group of writers known as Asian-American authors in literature. These writers, including immigrant women from India spanning the first and second generations, have crafted a substantial collection of short fiction. Jhumpa Lahiri, a Bengali-Indian writer, explores themes of identity, belonging, displacement, and the challenges of straddling different cultural attitudes in Interpreter of Maladies . This article adopts a theoretical approach and utilizes the library research method, drawing on the insights of scholars such as Stuart Hall and Michael Ryan, to explore cultural displacement, identity, and the experiences of immigrants in a new multicultural environment. The central focus is to know how Lahiri addresses displacement and immigration through trans-cultural discourses while challenging cultural diversities in Interpreter of Maladies . By employing such a trans-cultural discourse, this study aims to analyze how Lahiri portrays the complexities of cultural differences, and identity formation in the context of immigration. The narratives in Interpreter of Maladies offer a rich tapestry of characters navigating the challenges of living between cultures, shedding light on the profound impact of displacement on individuals and families. By closely examining Lahiri’s storytelling techniques and character development, this article aims to illuminate how the author captures the nuances of trans-cultural experiences and the facts that ultimately put their impact on the formation of immigrants’ new identities in unfamiliar territories.

The present essay focuses on the witnessing process of the enlisting poets’ effective responsiveness to the devastations they encountered; the two poets to be studied have been directly or indirectly traumatized by wars. The analytical perspective draws on Dominick LaCapra’s theories on historical trauma. It intends to uncover the traumatic effects of circumstances in post-war poems. The methodological procedure is grounded in the qualitative appraisal of the emotive aspect of the poets’ expressionist representation through critical discourse analysis. Trauma theories influence the research approach in historical and structural science, emphasizing witnessing levels, coined by Dori Laub, as the most significant determinant of the gestalt of interpretations. The poems’ demolished vibe exploits an insight into the amalgamation of historical trauma and its steps towards salvation. The authorial intentionality in war poetry aspires to enlighten human sorrow and redemption by restoring the literary application of the historical, structural, and perpetrator trauma hypothesis. The melioristic agenda for edification via physical and critical phases, such as acting out and working through, coined by LaCapra, foci in the varied poems to be scrutinized, enables the poets’ to maintain their readers’ empathetic identification with their characters’ predicaments in a psychoanalytic context.

The American ecopoet, Mary Oliver (1935 – 2019) has never been read in the light of the concepts the French philosopher, George Bataille (1897 – 1962) introduced into the world of philosophy and literature even though the enterprise could be abundantly rewarding. Bataille poses the question of general economy as opposed to particular economy. The latter is narrow, rational, self-centered and pivoting around gathering and storage, while the former takes the whole sphere of life into account and concentrates on excess of energy, expenditure, universal wisdom which is far broader and more inclusive, sacrifice and permanence of the sum total of energy available in the living sphere as well as that of the living matter. Oliver, the poet, uses none of the philosopher’s terms, but the scenes she describes in her own poetic style and the language and discourse she uses concerning death reveal the same position and point of view as those of Bataille. That is the gap the present qualitative, library-based study tries to cover at least partially and in particular with regard to the question of death which with the help of an Oliverian stance and in the light of such Bataillean concepts as general economy, excess and expenditure, can turn into a moment of rebirth, vital to the health and a proper functioning of the whole universal system. This two-fold approach will hopefully contribute to both Oliver studies and to the body of research, done on Bataille.