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Situational Irony
Style
Explanation and Analysis:
In The Namesake, Lahiri utilizes relatively straightforward prose, refraining from employing overly flowery or figuratively dense descriptions. She presents immigrant family life in an honest manner, speaking frankly about most of the Ganguli family's experiences. When Lahiri does choose to use figurative language, she does so at moments of high emotion, distress, or when a character contemplates a complicated feeling or problem.
This stylistic choice may be a form of meta-textual commentary on language and the American immigrant experience. The Namesake is written in English, a language many immigrants (and even non-native English speakers in other countries) must either learn or contend with when they arrive in America. While Ashoke and Ashima speak English well, they are not native speakers. The straightforward prose Lahiri uses in The Namesake likely parallels the way Ashoke or Ashima would communicate themselves: direct, to the point, not overly figurative.
English itself is a site of alienation for many American immigrants; as immigrants from Bengal to America, Ashoke and Ashima experience this alienation with the additional backdrop of British colonial violence. Many people indigenous to the Indian subcontinent were forced to learn English by their British occupiers. Lahiri's style of writing, in response, does not succumb to traditional elitist Western attitudes that correlate literary merit with a high volume of figurative language.
Related Themes:
