A Study Of Memory Writing In Jhumpa Lahiri’s Short Stories

Jhumpa Lahiri(1967-)is a rising star in contemporary American literature circles.As an Indian-American writer,the sense of alienation and pain of immigration is omnipresent in her work.In her short story collections Interpreter of Maladies and Unaccustomed Earth,she records the unique memories of two generations of immigrants as a personal witness.She depicts individual and collective memories in depth,and speaks about the survival plight of the marginalized minority groups.This paper is guided by the memory theory,with the narrative theory and trauma theory combined in it.Meanwhile,the profound connotations of memories are analyzed in Lahiri’s two works from three dimensions including the presentation of memory writing,the strategy of memory writing,and the meaning of memory writing.This paper aims at studying the unique memory of immigrants in two works of Lahiri,and to explore the important connotation and aesthetic value of memory writing in terms of content,form and meaning respectively.The paper is composed of three parts: the introduction,the body and the conclusion.Firstly,the introduction section discusses feasibility of studying memory writing in novels in terms of the writer’s background and tendency to write about memory,the current research status in China and abroad,and the research methods.The paper is divided into three parts:The first chapter discusses the presentation of memory in her works,explained the existential anxiety and identity dilemmas experienced by overseas immigrants from three dimensions: Trauma Memory,Life Memory,and Cultural Memory.The second chapter combines narrative theory and memory theory to analyze the narrative strategies used by Lahiri to write about memory from the perspective of form,to analyze the fragmented,unreliable and irrational memory fragments in her works,and to summarize the role of different narrative strategies in interpreting the theme of memory.The third chapter explores the profound connotation of memory writing from the spiritual value,and interprets the new connotation of memory writing in the era of globalization from three aspects including the reflexivity of memory,the memory and identity,the memory and responsibility respectively.In short,through her memory writing,Lahiri presents the marginalized survival experience of immigrants.The study of Lahiri’s short masterpieces is useful for contemporary people to empathize with the situation of the times and has profoundly enlightening implications for the nature of life.