Abstract
By presenting the way unfilled love impacts a person, Jhumpa Lahiri makes an attempt to show how important it is to make an alliance between people based on mutual feelings. Through the character Aparna, the author shows how a woman who finds herself in an arranged marriage experiences a constant feeling of dissatisfaction and longing for strong mutual feelings, which also leads to the fact that she cannot fully live her life. It can be assumed that Lahiri criticizes arranged marriages and advocates for the freedom to divorce since, in the first case, this circumstance negatively affects both the spouses and their children.
Annotated Bibliography
Allendorf, Keera, and Roshan K. Pandian. “The Decline of Arranged Marriage? Marital Change and Continuity in India.” Population and Development Review, vol. 42, no.3, 2016, pp. 435–464.
The first source to be used in future research work is an article by Allendorf and Pandian, which examines the problem of arranged marriage in Indian culture. The central thesis is that with the development of society, many people will adopt the traditions of Western nuclear families under the influence of urbanization and industrialization (Allendorf and Pandian 435). The authors point out that this trend is also manifested in a decrease in the importance of religion, ethnicity, and race as critical characteristics of a future partner. This source may be useful for future research as it provides justification for why arranged marriages are losing their relevance in modern society and what theoretical underpinning this conclusion has. The quote “the articulated rules of partner selection have become muddied with the espousal of new ‘modern’ values of ‘love’ and ‘choice’ is planned to be used in the work (Allendorf and Pandian 437). This article meets the criteria of reliability and credibility as it is based on previously conducted research.
Flicker, Sharon M., et al. “Marital Quality in Arranged and Couple‐initiated Marriages: The Role of Perceived Influence over Partner Selection.” International Journal of Psychology, vol. 55, no. 4, 2020, pp. 629–37.
The article by Flicker et al. provides valuable insight into the quality of arranged and couple‐initiated marriages, drawing upon the fact that a small number of research studies are concerned with this topic. The main idea of the authors is that “women with greater influence over their partner selection reported higher levels of intimacy, passion, commitment, and positive capital quality” (Flicker et al. 629). This quote will be used in a future research paper to substantiate the fact that the main character in the story of Hell-Heaven began to have feelings of love for another man and not for her husband. This source has an academic basis as it provides data from third-party scientific papers and provides a theoretical basis, such as Sternberg’s triangular theory of love. Therefore, it can be used to further explore the issue of arranged marriage raised in the story of Jhumpa Lahiri and how it affects individuals and their environment.
Lahiri, Jhumpa. Unaccustomed Earth. Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.
This source is a literary work on which future research work will be based. This book includes the story Hell-Heaven, which tells the story of an arranged marriage Bengali-an American woman who was married against her will. As an adult woman, she falls in love with a man, but she cannot do anything with her feelings. Because of this circumstance, she is experiencing deep emotions, which are expressed in constant longing and a desire to be in a loving relationship, which she never managed to survive. With the help of this story, the author focuses on the experienced nature and the negative effect of arranged marriages both directly for spouses and their children. Moreover, Lahiri criticizes this tradition and draws the reader’s attention to the fact that, at the moment, everyone should have the right to choose whom to love and with whom to take such a responsible step as creating a family.
Parkin, Robert. “Arranged Marriages: Whose Choice and Why? Reflections on the Principles Underlying Spouse Selection Worldwide.” History and Anthropology, vol. 32, no. 2, 2021, pp. 271–87.
The article by Parkin provides a unique comparison between arranged marriages and so-called love marriages. This source is valuable because it provides detailed information about the nature of arranged marriages in Indian culture, focusing on the traditions and cultural characteristics of these people. The author states that “there are suspicions, or at least allegations, of in-marrying women injuring themselves as a means of escaping unsatisfying marriages” (Parkin 275). This quote can be used as proof that with arranged marriages, there is a high probability of critical negative consequences for the well-being of one of the spouses. The given instance in The Hell-Heaven is just one example of how this kind of agreement between parents regarding marriage can affect the relationship between spouses. This source is credible and reliable for future work as it is based on evidence-based research.
Roy, Dibyadyuti. “Illicit Motherhood: Recrafting Postcolonial Feminist Resistance in Edna O’Brien’s The Love Object and Jhumpa Lahiri’s Hell-Heaven.” Humanities (Basel), vol. 8, no. 29, 2019, pp. 1–16.
This source is reliable for future work as it is engaged in the study of the history that will underlie it. Therefore, the author provides valuable insight into the topic of feminism in the work of Jhumpa Lahiri. The author emphasizes that Aparna is “made to suffer due to the complications inherent in the male-biased public and private spaces they inhabit” (Roy 2). This quote can be given when providing an explanation of why the character cannot get out of the circumstances that have developed around her. In other words, a woman understands that being in an arranged marriage and following the traditions of her people, she cannot get out of this situation despite the fact that she does not have deep feelings for her own husband. The feasibility and usefulness of this source are based on the academic underlining of the information provided.