Interpreter Of Maladies Symbols

Symbols are a particularly effective way to make a story more interesting and can add to the different themes in a story. Symbols in the short story, “Interpreter of Maladies” by Jhumpa Lahiri, help to add to the main theme of communication. Some of the symbols that add to the theme of communication in the story are the environment, Mrs. Das’s puffed rice, and Mr. Das’s camera. Each one of the symbols brings up issues with how the Das family communicates or issues with the lack of communication within the Das family.

One of the symbols in the short story is the environment. The environment helps to add to the theme of communication. The first instant where the environment adds to the theme is right before the Das family is starting their tour.

Das’s puffed rice is a symbol that helps to show the theme of communication. The puffed rice shows how private Mrs. Das is and how she is hiding so much from Mr. Das. This is shown when they are in the car and Mrs. Das does not offer her puffed rice to anyone (Lahiri 448). After Mrs. Das shares her secret, she offers Mr. Kapasi some of her puffed rice after she tells him about her secret, even though she does not offer any of it to her husband or children throughout the story. This symbolizes and shows how her communication is much better with Mr. Kapasi than her own husband and children. When she was finished telling Mr. Kapasi her secret, she walks up to where her family is. On her way up, she leaves a trail of puffed rice which caused her to be “...followed by about half a dozen of...” (Lahiri 459) monkeys. Mrs. Das leaving a trail of puffed rice shows her carelessness and how little she listened to Mr. Kapasi when he said that the monkeys will not bother them if they do not entice them with food (Lahiri 456). When she got to Mr. Das, they can not find Bobby so they all start looking for him. Then they find him surrounded by monkeys that are beating him with a stick and, at Bobby’s feet, is a pile of the puffed rice that Mrs. Das dropped. The whole situation is caused by Mrs. Das’s carelessness. Her carelessness of her actions hurts Bobby the most. It is not only Mrs. Das’s carelessness of the puffed rice, but also her carelessness of having an affair and not talking