Cosmopolitan Outlook of the Characters in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland

Abstract

Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland (2013) presents a compelling narrative of transnational identities, displacement, and the negotiation between rootedness and global citizenship. Through interwoven personal histories spanning India and the United States, Lahiri articulates how her central characters embody cosmopolitan outlooks shaped by political upheaval, migration and cultural hybridity. This paper examines how Udayan, Subhash, Gauri, and other characters negotiate cosmopolitan orientations in relation to national belonging, ethical responsibility, affective ties, and cross-cultural encounters. By positioning cosmopolitanism as both a philosophical stance and lived practice, this study argues that Lahiri’s novel traverses the limits of nationalist paradigms, foregrounding a cosmopolitan ethos grounded in empathy, ethical pluralism and transnational mobility.