Essay On Jhumpa Lahiri's Work As Diaspora

There is a certain amount of time a person must spend by him or herself to attain adequate self-knowledge, but even then, they are constantly changing. To know and understand your past, including the past of your ancestors is important, but it does not dictate your future. Parshaw and Gogol are unsure of their complete pasts and therefore let it determine their present. They are both consistently on the verge of knowing who they are, while never quite reaching a full understanding of themselves. They balance on a tightrope between America and the country of their ethnicities (Iran and India, respectively). This purgatory is called diaspora and it is a common obstacle for millions of American-born people of other ethnicities. They can neither …show more content…
“In America, you have to explain yourself constantly”. Though both Parshaw and Gogol struggle with diaspora, Parshaw runs toward his religion and Gogol runs away. Parshaw, an American-born Iranian whose family left for America to find prosperity, longs to go back even though his family is better off in America. Both of his parents opened their own successful businesses in America, “Ali is a real-estate developer, Sholeh owns a beauty salon”, but he cannot shake the fact that there is someone and somewhere that he would rather be. (Persia on the Pacific, p. 4) Gogol, on the other hand, was born in America to parents who cling tightly to their Indian roots and make the effort to instill that into their son, but all he wants is to escape, and when he does, it just complicates his life more, so the regret for his past grows as time goes on. This regret forces him deeper within himself and makes human communication harder, causing disconnection between Gogol and his