In the mists of immigration many face similar struggles just by having to a new environment. Although through the idealisms presented in Lahiri’s short stories, “A Temporary Matter” and the “Interpreter of Maladies” convey the common controversies through miscommunication and the obstacles faced over maintaining sustainanilty within one’s everyday relationships. Thus, from these principles presented throughout the novel, conveys how one can undergo these conflicts no matter what their circumstances are. In the first short story, “A Temporary Matter,” Lahiri conveys the value of honesty and maintaining proper communication with others. The conflicts arise when the protagonist, Shukumar is compelled to save his marriage with his wife, …show more content…
As Mr. and Mrs.’s Das go on vacation with their three young children, they higher Mr. Kapasi as their tour guide to take them to the Sun Temple. It is later revealed in the story that Soba had an affair with one of Mr. Das’s friends several years ago. As a result, she faces the guilt of knowing that her youngest son, Bobby is the result of her affair with Mr. Das’s close friend. She confides in Mr. Kapasi this secret that partially holds back her consciousness and marriage. Nevertheless, this partially attributes to the reason she feels like her marriage with Mr. Das is dull and not the same. As the narrator concludes the short story, it is mentioned that when Mrs. Das lost the paper with Mr. Kapasi's address, he “observed it too, knowing that this was the picture of the Das family he would preserve forever in his mind.” In the quote, the forbidden secrecy behind Mrs. Das’s past affair will only be known to him since after she accidentally lost the paper with his address they will never be able to maintain communication between each other. Thus, preserving her secret and also reassuring that the unity of the Das family will remain the same like in his photo of
This poem captures the immigrant experience between the two worlds, leaving the homeland and towards the new world. The poet has deliberately structured the poem in five sections each with a number of stanzas to divide the different stages of the physical voyage. Section one describes the refugees, two briefly deals with their reason for the exodus, three emphasises their former oppression, fourth section is about the healing effect of the voyage and the concluding section deals with the awakening of hope. This restructuring allows the poet to focus on the emotional and physical impact of the journey.
In “My Two Lives”, Jhumpa Lahiri tells of her complicated upbringing in Rhode Island with her Calcutta born-and-raised parents, in which she continually sought a balance between both her Indian and American sides. She explains how she differs from her parents due to immigration, the existent connections to India, and her development as a writer of Indian-American stories. “The Freedom of the Inbetween” written by Sally Dalton-Brown explores the state of limbo, or “being between cultures”, which can make second-generation immigrants feel liberated, or vice versa, trapped within the two (333). This work also discusses how Lahiri writes about her life experiences through her own characters in her books. Charles Hirschman’s “Immigration and the American Century” states that immigrants are shaped by the combination of an adaptation to American...
In the short story “The Cheater’s Guide to Love” by Junot Diaz, the author pinpoints on the Yunior’s life as a writer and college professor who is also struggling with his romantic relationships. The short story is filled with his experiences of using women for his beneficial needs and how it negatively affects him. It focuses on Yunior’s downfall through life after the destruction of his relationship with his fiance. The diction includes the narrator’s hateful consideration of women and a paradox of his own endeavors which prevent him from pursuing a meaningful relationship, but he grows to realize that he treats women awfully and his ex did the right thing by leaving him due to his untruthfulness.
For many Mexican immigrants, crossing the border into the land of freedom and the American dream is no easy task. Some immigrants come over illegally by means of hiding in cars to cross borders, using visitor visas to stay longer, marrying to become citizens, and having babies as ‘anchors’ to grant automatic citizenship. Other immigrants gain green cards and work visas and work their way into becoming US citizens legally and subsequently gaining citizenship through paperwork for their families back home. After escaping harsh living and working conditions in Mexico, immigrants come to America prepared to gain education, opportunity, and work. This American dream unfortunately does not come to pass for most.
...de effects of ‘nontraditional’ immigration, the government officially turned against its immigrant communities…” In this line, Mukherjee is showing that she had also been a victim of the new immigration laws, and that was the reason she had conformed to the country, in order to feel a sense of belonging. In this instance, exemplification is used to develop her argument in an effective manner that causes the audience to feel a sense of guilt and even listen to her argument.
America is often known as the land of opportunity, a place where you can be free. Many Immigrants came to America so that they could have a greater possibility at succeeding in life. Immigrants took a leap of faith when coming to America, for some it worked out well but for others they had a difficult time here. Despite the struggles that the immigrants encountered such as; standing out from others, being separated from their families, and breaking their culture, the immigrants are still grateful to be in America because they were in better conditions than they were in their home land. When viewing interviews or looking at an immigrant’s perspective you get many responses to being in America, some major things that stood out were the amount of freedom the immigrant had, and the age of the immigrant. These two things had a huge impact on the opinion of America from an Immigrants point of view.
The main character is Mrs. Das whom is flirtatious, careless, and needy. She and her husband take their family to see the country India for the first time. The tour guide Mr.Kapsi whom is curious, understanding, and quite aware. He sees something unusual at the beginning of the trip, but does not say anything. As the children continue their site seeing, the husband takes picture with his camera as if he lost in his own world. Meanwhile the wife gets to know the driver instead of site seeing. Mr.Kapsi is aware that the family is not like most Indians which lead him to be attracted to Mrs.Das. It states, “The family looked Indian but dressed as foreigners did, the children in stiff, brightly colored clothing and caps with translucent visors (29). This quote shows the difference in cultural clash as well the difficulty of communication. Mr.Kapsi tells Mrs. Das that he is an interpreter for a doctor which makes her believe she can discuss her personal business without him telling anyone. It states, “He decided to begin with the most obvious question, to get to the heart of the matter, and so he asked, “Is it really pain you feel, Mrs. Das, or is it guilt?”(39) Made the wife realized what she was truly feeling about her mistakes. After the conversation Mr.Kapsi did not look at the Mrs.Das the same way. The unusual
The fact that the fictional mothers and daughters of the story have unhappy marriages creates a common ground on which they can relate. However, marriage has different meanings for each generation in this book. In the mothers’ perspective, marriage is permanent and not always based on love. Especially with their marriages in China, which was a social necessity that they must secretly endure in order to be happ...
Sociology professor Morrie Schwartz once said, "Rules I know to be true about love and marriage: If you don't respect the other person, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you don't know how to compromise, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you can't talk openly about what goes on between you, you're gonna have a lot of trouble…” (Albom 149). Although not stated as clearly or concisely, the vast majority of Jhumpa Lahiri’s stories retell the truths told above. Three stories in particular; "A Temporary Matter," "When Mr. Pirzada Comes to Dine," and "The Third and Final Continent," especially exemplify the quote above. Throughout these stories Jhumpa Lahiri writes of the struggles Indians have building new relationships while trying to assimilate to American culture; Lahiri illustrates that in order to strengthen any relationship, one must display compassion, respect, and honesty.
Immigration has been a topic that has caused multiple discussions on why people migrate from one country to another, also how it affects both the migraters and the lands they go. Immigration is the movement from one location to another to live there permanently. This topic has been usually been associated with sociology to better explain how it affects people, cultures and societies. Sociology has three forms of thinking that are used to describe and analyze this topic. There are three forms of thinking that are used to tell and describe immigration to society; structural functionalist, symbolic interactionist, and conflict theory. Each of these theories uses different forms of thinking and rationality to describe and explain socio topics.
From a young age, writing become a big part of who she is, since it was the only way she could express her feelings without really speaking. Lahiri expresses when she says, “My reading was my mirror, and my material; I saw no other part of myself” (4). She is describing how writing really made her feel like a different person, did not have to worry about the two cultures she had to switch around, follow a certain tradition of which to write, and could write express her thoughts without a problem. Her tools, desk, everything she used to do here writing became a part of who she was because she had never made any other connections with anything else. She is now showing what it meant, “When I became a writer my desk became home; there was no need for another” (Lahiri 6). While Lahiri had trouble identifying her identity, she did not know what was really her home. She struggled to find a place that she could be happy to call “home,” and was able to find that when she started to explore and expand her writing. When Lahiri said “I belonged to my work” (6), she was describing the passion she had found within the work she was achieving. Even though, her parents did not think she could make a living from her writing, which she did by publishing her book back in 1999. The different
Jhumpa Lahiri is an Indian American author who likes to write mainly about the experiences of other Indian Americans. She is a very successful author. She won the Pulitzer Prize for her first novel and her fiction appears in The New Yorker often. One of those works from 1998 is a short story, “A Temporary Matter”, about a husband and a wife, Shukumar and Shoba, whose electricity will be temporarily cut off for one hour for five days. This seems simple enough, but as you read the story you find that maybe it’s their marriage that might be the “temporary matter” itself.
Someone once said, “Pleasure may come from illusion but happiness can come only of reality”. Although pleasure through illusion may be effective temporarily, a relationship will not flourish without the assistance of reality. Similarly, in the short stories “A Temporary Matter” and “Interpreter of Maladies” from the book Interpreter of Maladies there are constant battles to escape the effects of illusion. Characteristics of a careless or indifferent feeling will cause a couple to stray from reality and separate themselves from mere happiness. In these stories, alliteration and symbolism are literary devices that emphasize the failing relationships of Shukumar and Shoba and the two marriages of Mrs. Das and Mr. Kapasi as the common theme of
The short stories “Souls Belated” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” have in common ‘Marriage’ as main theme. However, the marriage is treated quite differently in both short stories. In "Souls Belated", Lydia chooses to take control of her destiny, to deviate from conventions and to choose what is good for her. She is the strongest character of the couple. Whereas, in "The Yellow Wallpaper", the name of the main character who is also the narrator of the story is not known. She is identified as being John’s wife. This woman, contrary to Lydia in "Souls Belated" is completely locked up in her marriage. This essay will first describe and compare the characters of Lydia and John's wife in the context of marriage, and then it will look at how marriage is described, treated and experienced by couples in these two short stories.
The word ‘Diaspora’ is derived from the Greek word ‘Diasperio’ which means to scatter or to distribute. The term originally associated with the Jewish historical experience but today the term has got a more expanded meaning it refers to common ancestral homeland, voluntary or involuntary migration and a sense of marginality in the country of residence. This term cuts of various disciplines such as Political Science, Cultural Studies and Sociology, etc. On the history of globalization, the term ‘Diaspora’ raises the question of acculturation, assimilation, the loss of identity, etc. Diaspora has been a favorite topic in the transnational world of literature for innovative literary outputs in recent years. People who have flown and tried to settle over the distant territories of the world for various reasons have always settled assurance of home and they cannot allow their roots being blown over into fragments of uncertain insecurities on a foreign land. The intellectuals and authors have tried to represent these feelings in diverse ways in diverse writings all over the world. Having been born of educated middle class Bengali parents in London and grown up in Rhodes Island, Lahiri truly portrays her diasporic experiences in her first novel The Namesake.