Diaspora, Emotion, and Memory: A Gastrocritical Perspective on Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth

Abstract

The acts of consumption bear diverse corporeal, socio-cultural, and transcendental implications within the confines of literary discourse and cultural analysis. They are a means for exploration into the complexities of the human psyche by traversing beyond their function as sensory indulgences. This paper employs the lens of gastrocriticism to analyse Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story collection, Unaccustomed Earth (2008), in its entirety to explore how food becomes an actant in the lives of dislocated individuals grappling with diasporic existence. The eight short stories in this collection showcase the significance of taste and consumptive practices in the experiences of diaspora, on which the paper focuses. Furthermore, the paper aims to study the emotions that characterise the diasporic condition and the ways in which they get elicited through the medium of food. The paper also demonstrates the association of food with memory to elucidate its potential to evoke nostalgia and facilitate emotional healing in characters who experience displacement and social integration.