Diasporic Identity and Politics in Jhumpa Lahiri’s “The Lowland”

The paper aims to analyze the diasporic paradox and sensitivity depicted throughout “The Lowland” by Jhumpa Lahiri, within the three distinguished elements which are sense of belonging and identity, family relations and conflicts, and political perspective. To achieve the objective, this paper is divided into several sections. The next section focuses on a comprehensive explanation on the themes depicted in this short story and past studies that have previously analyzed the story based on the elements stated above. Following that, detailed elaboration on the post-colonial theory that is used as the framework of the analysis of the story is laid out and how this theory is used to analyze the story is justified. Analysis of the correlation between post-colonial theory, and the concept of identity and sense of belonging, family relations and conflicts, and political perspective within the story is laid out in the succeeding section