Comparing Management Of Grief And Lahiri's Short Stories

Losing a parent is presumably an unthinkable concept for those lucky to have them alive, but sometimes the title of “parent” dies long before a body is placed in the ground. Toi Derricotte author of “Beginning Dialogues” unfortunately had to experience both the death of her mother’s title of “parent”, as well as her literal death. Derricotte’s parents had divorced when she was eighteen, and her father did not seem to play much of a role in her life; she was left to be raised by her mentally abusive mother. Her mother also had a tough road to walk growing up, having to face and deal with brutal issues like racism and bulling. Persevering through those tough times may be the underlining reason behind Derricotte’s mother’s negativity and abuse towards her daughter. Perhaps she just grew a thick skin at a very young age and had never learned how to feel, accept, or administer love. Derricotte’s had said: “She told me all my life she loved me, as if she completely forgot the hundred slights, humiliations, threats, and insinuations. Of course she loved me;

Jhumpa Lahiri is an author who has been dubbed as a completely unique writer with her own style, as her collection of short stories in her novel Interpreter of Maladies, allows readers to feel sympathetic for the characters in her complex yet relatable storylines. The overarching theme behind her stories is how people experience the twists and turns of life, as they are faced with countless hardships, whether it is immigration issues, spouse issues, or people just trying to search for happiness. However, each character in the different storylines all have such diverse backgrounds that readers may feel sympathetic to a variety of Jhumpa Lahiri’s characters. One character that stands out from the rest is Boori Ma, written in the story of “A Real

When Aanakwad brought the new baby out of the trees that autumn, the older girl was like a second mother, even waking in the night to clean the baby and nudge it to her mother's breast. Aanakwad slept through its cries, hardly woke. It wasn't that she didn't love her baby; no, it was the opposite—she loved it too much, the way she loved its father, and not her husband. This passion ate away at her, and her feelings were unbearable. If she could have thrown off that wronghearted love, she would have, but the thought of the other man, who lived across the lake, was with her always. She became a gray sky, stared monotonously at the walls, sometimes wept into her hands for hours at a time. Soon, she couldn't rise to cook or keep the cabin neat, and it was too much for the girl, who curled up each night exhausted in her red-and-brown plaid shawl, and slept and slept, until

The short story, “Interpreter of Maladies,” written by Jhumpa Lahiri, is about an Indian tour guide who has an epiphany once he realizes that one of his clients finds his side job, an interpreter for the doctor, romantic. Mrs. Das, the one who appears to show interest in the tour guide’s occupation, struggles throughout her married life to remain loyal and loving to her husband. This characteristic of Mrs. Das’ is highlighted through the author’s use of tone, which is defined as the way the author feels about a certain character. As well, the use of tone, seen specifically in the diction, syntax, and detail of this story, helps to identify and support various themes. Lahiri’s use of a condescending tone towards Mrs. Das bolsters the theme that unfaithfulness causes someone to become alienated from their family.

In the book “The Memory Keeper's Daughter” by Kim Edwards a doctor and his wife have twins and the first child is a healthy boy but then the second child that comes out is a little girl with the signs of down syndrome and he asks his Nurse to take the baby away to an institution while he tells his wife the baby girl died. Through out the entire book it is a struggle for Dr. Henry's wife Norah to have closure with the fact that her baby girl is said to be dead and she never saw her, held her, or cared for her. Kim Edwards shows through the whole book that we are only human, the themes that life is beyond our control and through the connection between suffering and joy.

Many of the stories in Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri include a fundamental composition of literary elements, such as conflict which readers see in both “Interpreter of Maladies” and “A Temporary Matter”. Lahiri shows the difficulty of communication which overtime turn into the destruction of the entire relationship. For instance, readers see difficulty in communication when Shukumar and Shoba become distant shortly after she has a stillborn child. The death of their baby has severe effects their entire relationship, and adds to their lack of communication. Similarly in “Interpreter of Maladies” when Mrs. Das hides information about Raj and

“The Treatment of Bibi Haldar”, by Jhumpa Lahiri, describes the unfortunate illness of Bibi Haldar and the numerous, painful, and fruitless attempts her community has gone to in order to cure her. Such an account offers a profound insight about the human condition. “The Treatment of Bibi Haldar” suggests that in the pursuit to completely heal those that are sick, we lose ourselves and neglect the pain and immediate need for love of the very people we are trying to help. Lahiri is able to smoothly communicate this through her eloquent use of a detached yet sympathetic overall tone, and the perspective from which is originates. Setting and its defining role towards Lahiri’s specific type of plot also plays a key role in the development of her theme. Finally Bibi Haldar herself and what she symbolizes is essential to communicating the lack of affection those that are severely ill or handicapped receive

Her unforeseen actions are due to the rest care tradition, which has progressively worsened her mental state and caused her to overlook her role as a caring wife in desperation to escape the imprisonment of the tradition. As witnessed from the two short stories, conflicts arise amidst families due to the events of old traditions, establishing a divide between family members that is difficult to overcome once constructed.

“Creative Writing” by Etgar Keret, shows the struggles of the couple grieving a miscarriage, though their stories that they wrote in creative writing class. Maya the wife write three different stories, the first one showing how a loss of an unborn child can make someone feel like they have died, or lost a part of themselves. The second is about how a women a may go through a period where she feels detached from her husband. The third is about the journey of accepting a miscarriage and ready try again. Aviad’s story is about continuously adapting to change and always remembering where you came from.

There is something in the human condition that draws people to empathy. People may feel a need to amend or correct a wrong they see in the world due in part to lack of love in their own lives; they reflect their own deprivation through the issues they seek to resolve in the world. Many of the characters in Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost highlight the relationship between the traumas people face and their inclination towards human intimacy or empathy. Gamini, Anil, and Ananda encounter deep traumas and must choose to either burrow beneath the pain and fear or rise above them. Whether they burrow in the pain, or they rise above the challenge, a deep longing for love and simple human intimacy is present in all their actions.

In Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘Interpreter of Maladies’ Mr. Kapasi , the main character, seems to be a person with mixed feelings. He does not seem to have fixed stand neither in his job nor on his thoughts. His thoughts and experience are structured by the strict cultural society of India. His hidden wants and desires suppressed by the community rules are looking for way to come out. The consequence is his changing thoughts and desires which at different parts of the story appear differently and brings

Shaila Bhave is an Indian Hindu living in Canada when a plane bombing tears apart her world and the world around her. She along with many people suffer through the grief of the traumatic accident in losing family and friends, Where she lost her husband and two sons. The entire story is set around her learning how to deal with her grief because of the accident. It shows how she thinks and processes all of the emotions one experiences in a hardship. This story works through the main steps of facing grief Shock, Guilt anger, depression and acceptance

“Knitting” by Amy Olson-Binder and “Abortion” by Anne Sexton are two poems about the idea of loosing baby. The two narrators present the character of both of poems through the mother’s point of view, which making the poems seem more of authentic experience. The symbolism of the Knitting poem emerges into the title of its – “Knitting” and the abortion poem emerges into “a crayoned cat, its green hair”. In these poems, Amy and Anne use the simple symbolism but the images are strong. They provide the readers the depth of emotion, a deep sadness and sense of loss.

Interpreter of Maladies is just one of the many short stories written by Jhumpa Lahiri. Interpreter of Maladies is the story of an American family and an Indian tour guide, Mr. Kapasi. Driving from location to location, Mr. Kapasi revealed his second job as a translator of symptoms of patients who speak a different language than the doctor. Mrs. Das declared his job romantic. Mr. Kapasi became smitten with the woman because he himself suffered from a broken marriage. Seeking help from Mr.Kapasi, Mrs. Das wanted a remedy for her malady; therefore, Mrs. Das admitted that her middle child wasn’t conceived by her husband. However, Mr. Kapasi could not find a solution to her problem. He could only diagnose her with the feeling of guilt. There

The present study is based on the idea of displacement as the major theme of the selected short stories of Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Interpreter of maladies”. The book contains nine short stories and each one of them deals with the question of identity, alienation, and plight of those who are physically and psychologically displaced. But I would like to limit my studies to the three short stories from the collection viz. “When Mr. Pirzada came to dine”, Interpreter of Maladies”, and “Mrs. Sen’s”. The migration has become one of the most important issues of the contemporary world. Jhumpa Lahiri is also a diasporic writer like Salman Rushdie, V.S Naipaul and Bharati Mukherjee. The characters in the prescribed stories are citizens of more than one country