Third and Final Continent
The journey of an ambitious and an ordinary man in Jumpa Lahiri’s
“The Third and Final Continent”
By Mausami Fadia
Professor : Rob Blain English 1301 CNR : 65550 2 October 2010
Mausami Fadia
Professor Rob Blain
English 1302
2 October 2010
The journey of an ambitious and ordinary man in Jumpa Lahiri’s
“The Third and Final Continent” Jumpa lahiri’s “The Third and Final Continent” is the life story about the narrator’s voyage; not only the physical voyage in the three different continents but his journey of the emotional voyage in finding his own unique identity among different cultures he had encountered with. Each country represents his emotional situation of life. India: His own birthplace; his own roots; London: Away from home, but still living with the Bengali boys, still firmly attached to the culture; and the third and the final country : United States : where he learned to adopt the American culture to such an extent that, in the beginning, he had to try to adjust with his Indian wife, in which he eventually succeeds. Actually Lahiri takes the readers on a voyage in the life of an ordinary but an ambitious man. At first the readers may not sound the narrator ambitious, but on looking deep in to the story, one can easily find the ambition of the narrator in establishing himself on the foreign ground, constantly struggling to ascertain himself between the eastern and western cultures. In fact, looking at the last paragraph of the story, the narrator himself admits his ambitiousness in the following lines, “In my son's eyes I see the ambition that had first hurled me across the world.” (Lahiri 663) In spite of being ambitious, the narrator is an ordinary man, coming from a middle class Indian family. His father’s death had left his mother insane and forced his brother to leave the school in order to run the house. As a result, the narrator does not having the luxuries of having a
“The Third and Final Continent”
By Mausami Fadia
Professor : Rob Blain English 1301 CNR : 65550 2 October 2010
Mausami Fadia
Professor Rob Blain
English 1302
2 October 2010
The journey of an ambitious and ordinary man in Jumpa Lahiri’s
“The Third and Final Continent” Jumpa lahiri’s “The Third and Final Continent” is the life story about the narrator’s voyage; not only the physical voyage in the three different continents but his journey of the emotional voyage in finding his own unique identity among different cultures he had encountered with. Each country represents his emotional situation of life. India: His own birthplace; his own roots; London: Away from home, but still living with the Bengali boys, still firmly attached to the culture; and the third and the final country : United States : where he learned to adopt the American culture to such an extent that, in the beginning, he had to try to adjust with his Indian wife, in which he eventually succeeds. Actually Lahiri takes the readers on a voyage in the life of an ordinary but an ambitious man. At first the readers may not sound the narrator ambitious, but on looking deep in to the story, one can easily find the ambition of the narrator in establishing himself on the foreign ground, constantly struggling to ascertain himself between the eastern and western cultures. In fact, looking at the last paragraph of the story, the narrator himself admits his ambitiousness in the following lines, “In my son's eyes I see the ambition that had first hurled me across the world.” (Lahiri 663) In spite of being ambitious, the narrator is an ordinary man, coming from a middle class Indian family. His father’s death had left his mother insane and forced his brother to leave the school in order to run the house. As a result, the narrator does not having the luxuries of having a