THE BRUTAL COST OF CONVERSIONS: FEMALE AUTONOMY AND SELF-FORMATION IN JHUMPA LAHIRI’S THE LOWLAND

Abstract

Diasporic literary criticism has long privileged themes of loss, dislocation, and fractured identity. Less attended to, however, is how migration could function as a productive space of self-transformation and reconstruction of the migrant’s subjectivity. Drawing on the Foucauldian notions of “power relations” and “technologies of the self,” alongside feminist debates on agency and female subjectivity, this article examines Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland to argue that the protagonist Gauri’s trajectory exemplifies how migrants actively craft new subjectivities within, not beyond, existing power structures. In so doing, this article answers three interconnected questions: How do her intellectual pursuits enable a self-fashioned subjectivity? How does her defiance of traditional gender roles confront patriarchal norms? And how does the moral ambiguity of her choices complicate readings of female empowerment? Through close analysis of Gauri’s philosophical education, her abandonment of maternal duties, and her eventual life in California, this article demonstrates that Gauri is not merely a resistant subject but an active agent who exercises autonomy through, rather than against, productive power. By highlighting the tensions between autonomy, ethical accountability, and self-cultivation, the present study offers a new interpretation of female subjectivity within a transnational context, challenging both diasporic criticism’s emphasis on loss and feminism’s tendency to celebrate resistance.