One of Jhumpa Lahiri’s many short tales, “Hell-Heaven,” depicts the life of a young Bengali girl who was born in Berlin, Germany, and raised in the United States. Usha, the narrator of this tale, focuses on her Indian mother, Aparna, most of the time. Since of the narrative’s easy flow, most readers can identify with the characters and how things play out because they are humans just like other regular people, and the events depicted in the novel actually happened to a lot of individuals. The narrative essentially describes the many experiences of people who arrive in America from other civilizations. “Hell-Heaven” is mainly focused on the experiences of Bengalis who immigrate to the United States from Bengal. Aparna’s identity is based on her culture, identity, and traditions. She is seen as someone who is prepared to follow traditions, especially those relating to cuisine and attire. The cultural transformation of Aparna manifests the experience of many immigrants who are coming to America in search of a brighter future for themselves and their families. Being unable to cope with the family problems, her transformation ended with authoritative and coercive personality change.
The mother, Aparna (or Bodie), in the story “Hell-Heaven,” is essentially resistant to change. For instance, when moving to Natick to continue to live there as tenants, she shut the curtains at night and never repainted the walls. By refusing to let the sun enter her house, Aparna is symbolically rejecting American society as being vastly different from that of her Bengali background. Additionally, she opposes everything American in her family and in her life since she views herself as a housewife who maintains control and stays in the home sphere. She tries to impose her ideals on Usha as she approaches puberty and is exposed to the comparatively permissive American sexual culture. Usha narrates that “I was not permitted to date, my mother prevented me from going to the dance” (Lahiri, 2015, p. 7). Aparna is constantly transposing her own relationship traumas on the daughter, cautioning her “not to believe you can get away with marrying an American as Pranab Kaku did” (Lahiri, 2015, p. 9). These developments indicate her shift to authoritarian control over her family and the cultural values that have to be upheld inside the family.
Another aspect of the cultural transformation is the tension between her Bengali heritage and her upbringing in America. As Usha ages and rebels against the idealized picture of whom her parents want her to be, Aparna clearly develops an identity problem. The idea of a Bengali American is two opposites separated by a hyphen, much like the title is. The hyphen serves as a representation of the cultural and generational divide between immigrants and their offspring in America. Pranab Kaku’s abrupt metamorphosis from a defenseless Bengali immigrant to an Americanized married man, as stark a difference as that between heaven and hell, apparently inspired the title of the narrative (Pushkala & Mangayarkarasi, 2019). Aparna believes that America corrupts individuals by letting them stray from their Bengali identity. Later, much to her mother’s dismay, Usha falls in love with American college student. In this episode, his green eyes represent ” the notion of American identity” (Lahiri, 2015, p. 16). It is a vivid metaphor since green is the color of money, as well as the green card that many immigrants strive for and may be acquired by marrying an American citizen.
Aparna, like many other female protagonists in Lahiri’s works, has a strong devotion to her home country, her heritage, and customs, demonstrating that male and female experiences of diaspora, immigration, and displacement are distinct, at least in some respects. Men are more likely than women to adapt to a foreign environment and resist assimilation into Western norms when they relocate to a new nation (Pushkala & Mangayarkarasi, 2019). The narrator, Aparna’s kid, conforms to her American social surroundings despite her mother’s advice. She hides many aspects of her life from her mother, namely her experiences with partners and other issues, in order to escape her wrath or disputes. This leads to situations when Aparna feels so alone and irritated. Usha also started avoiding Aparna by using her father’s strategy, which made her estrangement worse. Aparna lacks a true caregiver and mentor who can truly help her and shape her cultural transformation in a positive way. It eventually becomes evident that she has no significance to her husband, and views Usha, whom she thoroughly and covertly captivated in addition to her own blood, as a betrayer (Pushkala & Mangayarkarasi, 2019). This became a prime example of a victim of the complex web of connections and economics that exists among the diasporas. Disconnected from her cultural heritage and her family, Aparna’s transformation took a radical turn and ended up in malice and intolerance.
In fiction, women’s representation and their cultural and social transformations play a crucial role. In addition to aiding of the global essence of female image, fiction plays a significant role in illustrating history, culture, social interactions, and other difficulties faced by them. Eventually, Aparna remains alone and because she adheres to her home customs but does not flee the present, the lady seeks solace in the past. As a result, she is trapped in the cage of her American apartment. In this narrative, like in nearly all of Lahiri’s works, the author addresses the family issue and demonstrates that the primary female vocation of being a model wife and mother is equal to social good. Since the family is so crucial in a Bengali woman’s life, Lahiri’s female characters, such as Aparna, are typical women who work to find their place in the world and happiness in the home. At the same time, it is hard for them to maintain all these roles and, at the same time, adapt to an alien culture without guidance and support. Aparna’s transformation ended up with an authoritarian head of the house, avoided by her daughter and viewed by her as a relic.
References
Lahiri, J. (2015). Hell-Heaven. Knopf Canada.
Pushkala, J., & Mangayarkarasi, K. (2019). Alienation and displacement in Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘Hell-Heaven’ and ‘Unaccustomed Earth’. Infokara Research, 8(10), 790-793. Web.