Summary Of Hell-Heaven By Jhumpa Lahiri

Both Jhumpa Lahiri in his collection "Unaccustomed earth" and Junto Diaz in his collection "Drown" narrate a story about people from India and Dominican Republic that immigrate to different parts of the United State of America and settle in. However, the characters in these collection face many difficulties during their lives which is considered to be ordinary for almost all the people who think of leaving their country and settle in different countries regardless of their ID. Moreover, both writers also focus on tow ideas. The first idea is about the experiences and problems that the immigrants fictional characters face in the stories "Hell-Heaven" and "Nobody 's Business" by Lahiri , "Drown" and "Ysrael" by Diaz. The second

To clarify more, each state in India has its own business. So, Indians who immigrate to any place outside India, they find it hard to deal with others or other different cultures. Therefore, Indians are strict to their own villages cultures even though their villages are part of a wider community; India as a whole country. Adults are fighting to make their heritage and traditions stay as long as possible. As whoever reads "Hell-Heaven" story, will notice the description of the wife Boudi’s house, food, dress, language and holidays. All are according to the Indian style. It is also clear that Boudi works hard to keep Indian heritage in her house specially with her daughter who finds it hard so speak and dress as Indians, as when the daughter says “ Deborah and I spoke freely in English, a language by which, by that age, I expressed myself more easily than in Bengali, which I were required to speak at home’’ (69). So, here this passage shows the heavy burden that Boudi holds in order to maintain her culture in the west. In comparison to Pranab as in the same mentioned story, when he suddenly decides to engage in the American culture by dating an American woman called Deborah (67). Then about the

My mother was shocked that fewer than thirty people had been invited, and she was more perplexed than honored that, of all the Bengalis Pranab Kaku knew by then, we were the only ones on the list ' '(73). I think that Pranab did this in order to be as far as possible from his culture. As Parrillo stated in his article “Forsaking the lands of their ancestors, these millions gave up old traditions and old dreams to pursue new dreams and new traditions" (P.133). This is exactly what happens with Pranab. For example, he starts reducing his visits to the Bengali 's house and forgetting the Indian traditions in holidays but celebrating the American ones as the Thanksgiving. "I was invited to the Chakrabortys’ home for Thanksgiving ' ' (77). So, Pranab isn’t mistaken in his perspective of the culture and identity because he is struggling with the American and Bengali culture. He 's lost between being in the American culture and his identity, which leads to the idea of tradition versus modernity specially after marrying Deborah, he had a new life with a sense of belonging to something different from what he had raised with;