Jhumpa Lahiri's 'Interpreter Of Maladies'

Jhumpa Lahiri inserts numerous ideas hidden behind the words in each story of “Interpreter of Maladies”, containing many fascinating themes throughout the entire thing. Each narrative’s themes correspond in one way or another. It is hard to get a clear understanding of the book unless you are willing to analyze the text and find the common themes. The major things happening are the importance of identity, parent and child relationships, and the many things that take place during marriage. These ideas relating to various situations taking place in each story. When placed together, these topics create a masterpiece.

Marriage and the love that binds two people together aren’t found easily. One’s marriage is the beginning of a new life with another person, when each person needs to contribute something in an effort to make it work. In the stories, marriage is an event of happiness, but additionally of secrecy and questions. The lives of Shukmar and Shoba’s are majorly transformed due to the death of their unborn baby, therefore causing their once happy marriage to change for the worst. No longer are they able to see each other in the way they used to. They

are only able to feel close again when their electricity is cut, providing them with a sort of protection. Adding to the outlooks and qualities of marriage in Lahiri’s collection Twinkle and Sanjeev’s relationship develops throughout the narrative. Even though their marriage was not an arranged event; they appear to be strangers to one another. Due to a separation between the way he thinks and reality, Sanjeev doesn’t understand his love for Twinkle and thinks of it as a business plan rather than what it really is, a committed relationship. It is proved that this can be fixed by an experience shared between them, such as when Mrs. Croft validates the narrator’s marriage to Mala by calling her a “perfect lady!”(195) Love works in mysterious ways as we have found out by looking at these examples.
Just like marriage, they relationship between a child and their parents change as they become closer to adulthood. There is a division between child and parent, like the silent truth that both Eliot and his mother understand. He sees how unhappy his mother feels, knowing he has no power to help, similar to the way Rohin feels in Sexy when sees what his father did to his mother by cheating. On page 135, Eliot’s mother decides to give him a key to the house instead of having a babysitter, because of this Eliot is required to grow up quickly and undertake the role of the grown-up in their relationship. Unlike Eliot and Rohin, Lilia in When Mr.Pirzada Came to Dine, is able to maintain her childlike innocence. We are shown this when she doesn’t recognize the difference between Mr.Pirzada and her parents, thinking that he was an “Indian acquaintance”(24) of theirs. She didn’t understand because they were almost the same, she said “It made no sense to me. Mr.Pirzada and my parents spoke the same language, laughed at the same jokes, looked more or less the same. They ate pickled mangoes with their meals, ate rice every night for supper with their hands.”(25) Lilia’s parents become irritated when she doesn’t seem to care about the things she learns in school regarding what’s happening in their homeland.
For some of the characters, like the narrator of The Third and Final Continent, the shift to a new life is challenging but smooth.

The narrator looks forwards to the opportunity that the new country can afford. He finds that it is where he feels at home, he refers to himself and his family as “American citizens”(196) For Lilia’s parents in Mr.Pirzada Came to Dine, the move to America presents them with many opportunities not open to them in India, however Lilia pays the price in terms of connection to her culture. In Mrs.Sen’s, Mrs.Sen refuses to adjust to American Culture. Her whole life is still in India and she feels that there is no reason to try to enjoy her life in this new culture. Each character in this collection struggles with their identity, whether newly displaced or stemmed from a different

culture.
Themes are wholly the structure of any text, and without them there would be no point and just a bunch of facts. The relationships between the characters prove to be complex but are crucial in order for the stories to make sense.