The present research seeks to critically address Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake (2003) and The Lowland (2013) concerning the postcolonial concepts of unhomeliness, liminality, and hybridity. The Namesake demonstrates the struggles of a Bengali family migrated to America. Gogol, their son, is embarrassed by his name and his parents’ culture and traditional practices. As the story continues, his conflicts become stronger and he hates his culture more and more. The Lowland narrates the story of two brothers, Udayan and Subhash, with two different worldviews. Udayan is interested in political movements and it leads to his death. On the other hand, Subhash marries Gauri, Udayan’s wife, and they raise Bela, Udayan and Gauri’s daughter, together. Additionally, each of them has different inner conflicts to tackle. These two postcolonial novels by Lahiri can be studied through the lens of Bhabha’s concepts. Unhomeliness, one of the key terms of this thesis, highlights the way a colonial subject identifies the world as split between two cultures and furthermore, that subject does not have the experience of having a home culture. The other key concept, hybridity, is a term used by Homi Bhabha to describe what happens when two cultures commingle. The nature and the characteristics of the newly created culture change each of the two cultures in a process called hybridity. Also, liminality means to be at the threshold. In a liminal state, the colonial subject is stuck between two cultures. This research attempts to shed light on how these concepts are represented in the novels and how each of those processes are different and yet related to each other. In this study, the hybridization of identities of the major characters are explored as well.
