Reading an Interracial, Cross-Cultural Sisterhood in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Hell-Heaven

Abstract

Emphasizing the sameness of women’s secondary social positions in all societies and the family, representations of ‘First World’ women in the feminist movement with ‘Third World’ women establish the attainability of an interracial, cross-cultural sisterhood between the ‘First World’ and the ‘Third World’ women. The concept of sisterhood has been a binding force in the struggle against male chauvinism and patriarchy. The proposed paper is an attempt to understand the possibilities of an interracial, cross-cultural sisterhood from the points of view of postcolonial feminism in “Hell-Heaven”, a short story written by Jhumpa Lahiri. The story deals with the theme of the broken hearts of women, belonging to different nations and cultures. Despite a generational gap between an American-born daughter and her Bengali mother, and the cultural and racial differences between Aparna and Deborah (and also Mrs. Holcomb), there has been established the notion of sisterhood among their sharing of common painful emotional feelings of isolation and broken heart because of the male patriarchy established by Pranab, Shyamal da, and Matty. It is believed that, through the male characters, Lahiri tries to weave a plot to prove sisterhood as a bond of relationship over and above caste, class, creed, culture, nationhood, and geographical boundaries.