The theme of alienation, of being a stranger in a foreign land, is prominent throughout the novel. Throughout her pregnancy, which was difficult, Ashima was afraid about raising a child in " a country where she is related to on one, where she knows so little, where life seems so tentative and spare." Her son, Gogal, will feel at home in the United States in a way that she never does. When Gogal is born, Ashima mourns the fact that he is not surrounded by her close family. It means that his birth , " like most everything else in America, feels somehow haphazard, only half true." When she arrives home from the hospital , Ashima say to Ashoke in a moment of angst, " I don't want to raise Gogal alone in this country . It's not right. I want to go back."
Ashima feels alienation in the suburbs; this alienation of being a foreigner is compared to " a sort of lifelong pregnancy, " because it is " a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts... something that elicits the same curiosity from staggers, the same combination of pity and respect."
When Ashima is living alone in the house on Pemberton Road and she does not like it at all. She " feels too old to learn such a skill. She hates returning in the evening to a dark, empty house, going to sleep on one side of the bed and waking up on another."
Ashima feels alienated and alone after showering before the last Christmas party she throws at the house on Pemberton Road. She " feels lonely suddenly, horribly , permanently alone, and briefly , turned away from the mirror , she sobs for her husband." She feels " both impatience and indifference for all the days she still must live." She does not feel motivated to be in Calcutta with her family she left over thirty years before, nor does she feel excited about being in the United States with her children and potential grandchildren. She just feels exhausted and overwhelmed without her husband.
