CULTURAL HYBRIDITY IN ZADIE SMITH'S WHITE TEETH AND JHUMPA LAHIRI'S THE NAMESAKE

Abstract

This paper offers a comparative analysis of Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake and Zadie Smith's White Teeth through the lens of cultural hybridity. It examines how first- and second-generation immigrant characters negotiate tension between their inherited mother culture and the foreign culture of their host societies, focusing on Ashoke, Ashima, and Gogol in Lahiri's novel, and Samad, Alsana, Magid, Millat, and Irie in Smith's. The importance of this paper lies in its examination of the hybrid space that emerges from blending these two cultural poles and the strategies immigrants adopt to reconcile dual identities. This study is grounded in Homi Bhabha's conceptualization of the "Third Space" and Stuart Hall's theory of "Becoming" and "Being," which illuminate the unfixed nature of cultural identity and immigrants' simultaneous adherence to their original heritage and adoption of the diaspora's culture. Through textual analysis supported by quotations from both novels, the paper shows how first-generation characters largely resist assimilation while their children pursue divergent paths of assimilation, reassertion of origin, or hybrid negotiation. The comparative approach highlights parallel patterns of alienation, displacement, and identity crisis across the two texts, revealing how each author envisions hybridity as a productive space of negotiation, underscoring the fluid, evolving nature of postcolonial immigrant identity.