THE DICHOTOMY OF ACCULTURATION WITHIN FIRST AND SECOND GENERATION IN YIYUNG LI AND JHUMPA LAHIRI’S SELECTED SHORT STORIES A THOUSAND YEARS OF GOOD PRAYERS AND HELL-HEAVEN: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Abstract

The tension between preferring and resisting use of the Imperial language in contemporary writing has been widely engrossed. Language barriers and cultural impact are intertwined with each other for the purpose of analyzing the in-between consciousness of colonized inhabitants. The concerned article interrogates the expected contradiction of ambiguous language incarnation between first and second generation in Jhumpa Lahiri and Yiyung Li’s short stories Hell-Heaven and A Thousand Years of Good Prayer, respectively. The comparative study under post-colonial critic Homi K. Bhabha’s model of Hybridity allows the readers to accept the uncanny insurgence of multiculturism in today’s world. The second generation immigrants are most likely to face the “inbetweenness” space while living in superior country alongside holding the traces of colonial influence in the first generation. The paradoxical arrangement of central ideas: such as use of English language as a means of freedom of expression for second generation immigrants living in host country, on the other hand, host language as a strategic entrap in accordance of first generation immigrants, are explored to unveil the active resisting forces against colonial power in any terms