Spatial Reading of Jhumpa Lahiri's Whereabouts

Abstract

Jhumpa Lahiri’s Whereabouts (2021) projects place that evokes both the senses of connection
and loss for its unnamed narrator who, in her search of finding out her space in the world, fluctuates
between what is immediate and distant. Her engagements with the surroundings and people at, in, and
on various spaces/locations, and in different seasons seem to have become her own strategy of existence
as she tries to negotiate with her loneliness in an unnamed city. My study problematises the narrative
space of the novel. Should the narrative locations projected in the novel be considered as just physical
settings in which the author is unfolding the plot, or do these, with the protagonist's movement through
them, expose the most crucial fundamental question of existence? The place becomes the most complex
entity at which the author situates her character, as at various contexts those places take different
significant meanings adding to the shifting meanings of contemporary life and purpose in the present
age of global movement. The space in the contemporary global world of movement is slippery and both
enticing and restrictive for human beings, causing dilemmas that result in man’s disappointment and
loneliness. The paper explores how Lahiri’s text through its narrative space, produces socio-cultural and
political place, and that further focuses on the psychic space delineating life enriched with varieties. My
study attempts to overcome the rigid disciplinary boundary of English Literature without the theoretical
constraints of several other academic disciplines, which would both make us critical of contemporary
life yet sustain us with its varied resources.