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The study and analysis of literature
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Interpreter of Maladies is a book collection of nine short stories by Indian American author Jhumpa Lahiri published in 1999. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award in the year 2000 and has sold over 15 million copies worldwide. One of her short stories, "When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine", is set against the background of the civil war in Pakistan in 1971 leading to the birth of Bangladesh. It marks birth of a nation. As Jhumpa Lahiri is a second generation immigrant, she does not deal with the political issues directly. Though she describes the political situation of India and Pakistan but her basic concern is to combine the social life along with political happenings. The partition of India left the subcontinent divided and devastated. Homes were dislocated as boundaries between the two countries were drawn. Scores of people were uprooted they had to leave behind all their material possessions and move on to be relocated. A couple of decades passed before the subcontinent could accept the reality of the two countries-one of them in two parts and separated by more than two thousand miles. From the late sixties differences between East and West Pakistan got aggravated and the burning cauldron finally exploded in 1971. …show more content…
Sen" deals with the problem of displacement, rootlessness and marginalization that an immigrant faces abroad. Mrs. Sen is the wife of a Bengali professor who teaches Mathematics at the university. She becomes an after-school caretaker of an eleven year old boy Eliot,the child of a single mother who is struggling with her own adjustments. Mrs. Sen is constantly questioned about her origin and background by Eliot's mother Mrs. Sen's mannerisms, cooked dishes which she serves to Eliot's mother as a mark of Indian hospitality are despised by Eliot's mother. She feels insulted and uneasy by her remarks. Though she knows that her relative in India think that she is living the life of a
In her short stories, Lahiri presents the condition as a ramification of the degree to which characters adapt to society (Bhardwaj 12-13). This is to say that immigrants experience this crisis differently, depending on how much they have integrated into their new surroundings. Mrs. Sen cannot seem adapt to American culture as she continues to embrace her Indian upbringing. Her traditions cannot be fulfilled at her house or in her community as she yearns to return to India. However, she realizes that she should try to adjust and becomes a babysitter for a short while until she gets into a car accident. Because Sen barely accepts her environment, her challenge is embracing Western
...d and left with little cultural influence of their ancestors (Hirschman 613). When the children inadvertently but naturally adapting to the world around them, such as Lahiri in Rhode Island, the two-part identity begins to raise an issue when she increasingly fits in more both the Indian and American culture. She explains she “felt an intense pressure to be two things, loyal to the old world and fluent in the new”, in which she evidently doing well at both tasks (Lahiri 612). The expectations for her to maintain her Indian customs while also succeeding in learning in the American culture put her in a position in which she is “sandwiched between the country of [her] parents and the country of [her] birth”, stuck in limbo, unable to pick one identity over the other.
Pirzada is from East Pakistan and Lilia’s family is from India where both cultures are fighting on the other side of the world while these two cultures are able to have peace in America. The theme is the overall message of the story and the overall message in this story is that in America cultural differences can be put aside, and people can come together without fighting over issues that are going on the other side of the world. Lahiri writes, “He seemed concerned that Mr. Pirzada might take offense if I accidentally referred to him as an Indian, though I could not really imagine Mr. Pirzada being offended by much of anything. ‘Mr. Pirzada is Bengali, but he is a Muslim’… ‘Therefore he lives in East Pakistan, not India’ (Lahiri 26). This shows readers that Mr. Pirzada and Lilia’s family are opposites because Mr. Pirzada is a Muslim, which Lilia’s family is not. These were the two cultures at war on the other side of the world. Lilia’s father didn’t want Lilia to accidently refer Mr. Pirzada as an Indian because he was afraid that he might take offense. This is because Mr. Pirzada is not an Indian, he is a Muslim. Mr. Pirzada is Bengali because East Pakistan
...is an American by virtue but Indian due to her parent’s upbringing. That is the reason why she is referred to being an Indian-American author which she has embraced. Due to the fact Bengali marries within their caste, Lahiri married a Latin American Journalist Alberto Vourvoulias and have two sons, Octivian and Noor. After getting married, Lahiri does not feel the need to be shy about speaking in Bengali or any other language. Currently residing in Rome with her family to feel how immigrants adapt to change and to go experience what her characters and parents do in her short stories. Through writing, Lahiri has discovered the fact she belongs to both the worlds and the generations of Indian-American immigrants will change and bring intense joy. "It has been liberating and brought me some peace to just confront that truth, if not to be able to solve it or answer it.”
In “Mrs. Sen’s”, Lahiri portrayed Mrs. Sen as a cultural outsider to the American society and a cultural insider in her microcosm, that apartment she decorated to resemble India. Interestingly, Lahiri portrayed Eliot as a cultural outsider to Mrs. Sen version of “little” India and a cultural insider of the American society. In other words, both Mrs. Sen and Eliot are mirror images of each other as they were going through a very similar transformation process from a cultural outsider to a cultural insider. While Eliot did a pretty great job in learning, discovering and assimilating himself in Mrs. Sen’s world of “little” India, Mrs. Sen, on the contrary, was in a state of denial and was having difficulty trying to assimilate, accept and even fit into the
First, she explains how her family’s maid, Mehri, fell in love with their neighbor and wrote to him every week. When Marji’s father finds out, he talks to the boy and ends this relationship. Despite having shown quite progressive ideals featuring equality and having many communist friends, he now cites Mehri’s status as a maid to justify the incompatibility. Young Marji then establishes the hypocrisy in this by shouting, “Dad, are you for or against social classes?” (Satrapi 37). The irony of one so seemingly in favor of social homogeneity suddenly upholding categorization by wealth shows how inequality is such a major part of society that even those who disagree often revert and continue to conform with it. A further example of irony can be seen when the Satrapi family gets pulled over after a party, and Marji and her grandmother must throw out all of the alcohol before the men can search the house and find it. However, her father enters , explaining that “Their faith has nothing to do with ideology! A few bills were all he needed to forget the whole thing!!” (Satrapi 110) Those with authority seem only to believe in the laws of their religion when they want it to and can thus be bribed to ignore them. The irony of this intermittent and immoral belief draws attention to the fact that the opportunity to escape punishment would only be available to those who had the extra money to give away. Poorer people would not be able to afford to bribe the police and would have to either follow the laws completely or face punishment, while those who are wealthier can get away with doing neither. Satrapi’s occasional ideological contradictions manage to effectively point out the flaws in her society, especially as they pertain to class
She starts the essay with a detailed description of her life that led up to her and Mira’s immigration, “ When we left India, we were almost identical in appearance and attitude. We dressed alike, in saris; we expressed identical views on politics, social issues, love, and marriage in the same calcutta convent-school accent.” This detail compares how similar the siblings were and prepares the audience to the split of paths and consequences that lead to two contrasting lives.This pattern of a personal story continues though more details such as their education to even their marriages, “ Instead, Mira married an Indian student in 1962” which sets up dispersity as Mukherjee states, “I married a fellow student, an American of Canadian parentage.” Her decision to narrate the events in both of their lives from their childhood to marriages is an example of how she gained a citizenship through her husband who just happened to be an American. In contrast, Mukherjee presents that Mira married an Indian student, which points to the idea that because Mira decided to marry into her culture, she gets backlash from Congress which causes only her to get her benefits taken away, but Mukherjee doesn't get affected. Mukherjee builds this reputation of how similar they both are only to imbalance it
Morace, Robert A. “Interpreter of Maladies: Stories.” Magill’s Literary Annual 2000 1999: 198. Literary Reference Center. Web. 6 Apr. 2010. .
Lahiri, Jhumpa. "Interpreter Of Maladies." The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction. Vol. 8. Boston [etc.: Bedford-St. Martin's, 2003]. 1024-1028. Print.
During the Cold War, many regional conflicts occurred and were noted as the significant battles which later led to decolonization. One of the regional conflicts were India and Pakistan fighting for their independence. In 1947, India was released under Great Britain’s control and gained its independence. However, the country was divided between Muslims and Hindus, which share different religions. Muslims wanted church and state to become unified while Hindus wanted a separation of these two establishments. Since these two ethnic groups disagreed, it was difficult to create a new government. Therefore, India was divided into two nations: India for the Hindus and Pakistan for the Muslims. Hindus and Muslims were racing to the border in order to get to their nation state which led to killing 500,000 people due to rioting. Although, Mohandas Gandhi, an Indian National Congressman, wanted to obtain peace between these two religions. Pakistan refused the H...
In “My Two Lives” Jhumpa Lahiri talks about her hardship growing up in America coming from two different cultures. At home she spoke Bengali with her parents, ate with her hands. According to Jhumpa’s parents she was not American and would never be. This led her to become ashamed of her background. She felt like she did not have to hide her culture anymore. When Jhumpa got married in Calcutta she invited her American friends that never visited India. Jhumpa thought her friends would judge from being part of the Indian culture and isolate her.However her friends were intrigued by her culture and fascinated. She felt like her culture should not be hidden from her friends anymore, and that coming from an Indian-American culture is unique. Jhumpa believes that her upbringing is the reason why she is still involved with her Bengali culture. Jhumpa says“While I am American by virtue of the fact that I was raised in this country, I am Indian thanks to the efforts of two individuals.” Jhumpa means that she is Indian, because she lived most of her life and was raised here. In the story Lahiri explains that her parents shaped her into the person she is. Growing up coming from two different cultures can be difficult, but it can also be beneficial.
Jhumpa Lahiri was born as NalanjanaSudeshana. But as Jhumpa was found easier to pronounce, the teacher at her pre-school started addressing her Jhumpa. In the course of time it became her official name. Jhumpa Lahiri tries to focus on the issue of identity what she had faced in her childhood. Nikhil replaces Gogol when he enters Yale as a freshman. Here nobody knows his earlier name. He feels relief and confident. No one knows him as Gogol but Nikhil. His life with new name also gets changed. His transformation starts here. He starts doing many activities which he could not dare to do as Gogol. He dates American girls. He shares live in relationship. His way of life, food everything changes. But a new dilemma clutches him. He changes his name but “he does not feel like Nikhil” (Lahiri, 105). Gogol is not completely cut off from his roots and identity. He tries to reject his past but it makes him stranger to himself. He fears to be discovered. With the rejection of Gogol’s name, Lahiri rejects the immigrant identity maintained by his parents. But this outward change fails to give him inner satisfaction. “After eighteen years of Gogol, two months of Nikhil feels scant, inconsequential.” (Lahiri, 105) He hates everything that reminds him of his past and heritage. The loss of the old name was not so easy to forget and when alternate weekends, he visits his home “Nikhil evaporates and Gogol claims him again.” (Lahiri,
Mrs. Sen fills that position in. Throughout his time with Mrs. Sen, Eliot learns about how India and how much Mrs. Sen misses her family, all while comforting her and talking to her. The whole book is full of complicated characters who get to know each other and their differences; When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine and Mrs. Sen’s are great examples of
Lawrence Auster wrote an eye-opening blog excerpt titled India and Pakistan: Why the Mass Killing Occurred. The content of this excerpt explore the fundamental issues of identity and religion that led to the violence in 1947. The author makes his point by utilizing current event such as the train massacre in 2002, in which 50 Hindu women and children were burned alive. The blog is for an audience with some prior knowledge on the topic and continues to expand upon that knowledge. The blog is a secondary source because it introduces its own unique ideas regarding the issue and was written after the time of the event. It was very helpful to my research because it simplifies the wordy information often found on scholarly sites and condenses it into something comprehensible and relatable to the reader.
As the Hindu’s in northwest India moved south, the Muslims moved north into Pakistan; millions were displaced, thousands were slaughtered as a result of the riots and the birth of both countries was met with death and destruction. Many believe that Muslims went along with the partition and moved to Pakistan “not because they viewed it, as official Pakistani narrative suggests, as the lan...