Jhampa Lahiri Temporary Matter Summary

A famous 2000 Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri portrays the lives of the Indians who have immigrant to America, and the second-generation Indian American protagonists searching for the different to fit into a community. As their lives seems to be treed between the Indian-American traditions. Jhumpa Lahiri writes clearly about failed relationships, who weirdly spending their lives together are either doubtful about their love for each other or have an unvoiced love or is there any love that takes their relation too far?

In her essay “My Two Lives,” Jhumpa Lahiri, an Indian American, explains the balance between the identities of the two countries inside her heart, as well as her psychological struggle between her bicultural identities. She describes herself as an Indian-American because she moved with her family from India to the United States when she was very young. However, confused with her identity through her growth, she feels that she doesn’t belong to either of the two countries because of its completely different cultures. When she is at home, she deals with her parents in an Indian way, which is strange compared to the American way that she come across outside. She says that she has a distinctive identity in spite of her Indian appearance

Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth is comprised of eight short stories about different Indian families’ struggles in America, many of them going through the immigrant experience. The conflicts are with friends and family, and also with themselves, as each of them attempt to find their own identity along with fitting in with the rest of society. One of the causes of these struggles that because the families in the stories are mixed in terms of generation. Many of the adults in the stories were first generation immigrants from India, while many of the children were raised in the United States, which is the second generation. This led to blending of culture and at the same time, clashes between the immigrant mentality of living and the American mentality of living. In Unaccustomed Earth, Lahiri demonstrates to the reader the important influence of environment, specifically culture and how it impacts parental teachings, on the personality and development of an individuals’ identity, and how the actions and development of characters can affect one’s family and friends; the impact of environment and culture is shown especially by the characters and stories “Hell-Heaven” and “Hema and Kaushik”.

This book depicts the national and cultural status of the immigrant mother, who is able to preserve the traditions of her Indian heritage that connect her to her homeland. Ensuring a successful future for her American-born children is coordinated with the privilege of being an American citizen. Ashima yearns for her homeland and her family that she left behind when

Moving to a new town can be hard, adjusting to a new house and meeting new people. Moving to a new country, however, can be far more difficult. Not only are there new people to meet, immigrants must adjust to an entirely different culture and language. Many find it hard to assimulate into the new culture, while still maintaining they customs and traditions of their old country. One author who writes about immigrants' struggles is Jhumpa Lahiri. She heard stories first hand of the struggle to adjust from her parents, immigrants from India. Some of her short stories are based on her parents' experiences. In the stories "This Blessed House," "The Third and Final Continent," and "Mrs. Sen's," Lahiri shows how the struggle of immigrants to

Being subjected through sets of dramatic circumstances, both Shukumar and Lee attempt to strive forward to keep what is left of their relationships close, yet their unforgiving fates drive their determination toward their very limits. Throughout my readings in “A temporary Matter” by Jhumpa Lahiri and “Coming Home Again” by Chang-Rae Lee, the authors of both novels foretell that unresolved conflicts and despondent settings are very detrimental to the development of human character.

In “The State of Marriage of the 90s” the author, Sally Macdonald states that marriage has majorly changed from the sixties    . The stereotypical gender roles in marriage have been blurred and instead of the the man being the “breadwinner”, women are also becoming the breadwinner to make this a team effort.  This article connects to Jhumpa Lahiri’s “A Temporary Matter” because Shoba is a business woman and is just as much the breadwinner as Shukumar is. This author writes about how marriage has changed so much and some people get married for forever or just for a temporary time, Shoba and Shukumar are the ones that were married for a temporary time and fell apart over something they could’ve worked through. Divorce rates ranged from six to

She explains her thesis by stating “Others who write stories of migration often talk of arrival at a new place as a loss of communal memory and the erosion of an original culture. I want to talk of arrival as a gain,” (360). The key points of the text include Mukherjee describing her transition between Calcutta and the United States, and what it means to be and American and how culture influences that aspect. The information in the text is significant; the people of America are a part of a melting pot, sometimes it is hard for them to find the distinction between American culture and their own. The information in Mukherjee’s story is clear and specific, unbiased, and is relevant to the purpose of the story. I believe Mukherjee has achieved her purpose of informing her audience about cultural differences; she presents certain strengths and weaknesses within the text.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni highlights the differences between Indian and American culture in her collection of short stories, Arranged Marriage. Each tale utilizes a different narrator, whether it is first or third person narration, to highlight the struggles women face in all arranged marriages. Many of these women live in America, yet India’s strict moral code still burdens them. In “Doors”, Preeti struggles to balance her American beliefs with the Indian beliefs of her husband, similarly to Anju, who wonders if her life and pregnancy would be different if she lived in India throughout “The Ultrasound”. In “The Word Love”, a woman must confront her situation and push her boundaries. Divakaruni shows the highs and lows of arranged marriages, proving that I would not thrive in a commitment made without my input.

In the short story collection, Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri, immigrants and memories have a very particular relationship because their memories surrounding a large part of their identities are derivative of diaspora. Somehow they are able to have this double consciousnesses, the memories and thoughts as immigrants, and the memories and thoughts as Americans. The time spent in their native country or in their host country cannot be replaced, even if the experiences immigrants encounter are negative. Even if the immigrant misses what they have lost migrating to another country, what is lost cannot come back. There is a constant battle between how much and how little memories do the Indian-American characters in the book have of being either Indian or American to be “Indian-American.”

The short story "Hell-Heaven" written by Jhumpa Lahiri, is about the clashing of the cultures of a Bengali family settling in the west. While story is told in the child's point of view as she matures to a young woman, we're also given the experiences of the people around her through her eyes. These people include her mother, father and a family friend. They each have a different experience as an immigrant migrating and living in America, which leaves us to wonder what message is the author trying to convey with this piece of literature. However, the message to come from "Hell-Heaven" Jhumpa Lahiri is that immigrant families face struggles and tribulations living in unfamiliar territory and having to choose one culture over another.

A person’s heritage and cultural identity may be lost when moving to a new country where the culture is different and other cultures are not easily accepted. In the short story “Hindus”, Bharati Mukherjee uses setting, characters and the plot to discuss what it is like to lose your cultural identity while being a visible minority in America. Mukherjee uses the plot to describe the events that take place in the main characters life that lead her to realize how different the culture and life is in the America’s. She also uses the characters as a way of demonstrating how moving away from one’s culture and heritage can change a person’s perspective and ways of thinking. Mukerjee also uses setting in her story to identity the physical differences in culture between living in India and America. Alike the setting and characters, the plot helps describe the loss of culture with a sequence of events.

When adapting to a new culture, many find it hard to assimilate into their new world while still holding on to their past life. Finding yourself in a new place with a new language and unfamiliar faces is challenging for immigrants. Jhumpa Lahiri, an immigrant herself, sheds some light on the Indian culture in her book, Interpreter of Maladies. She conveys many challenges that immigrants face when moving away from their homeland in a myriad of short stories. These short stories introduce similar themes of immigration and adaptation through different experiences. Two of Lahiri’s short stories, “A Temporary Matter” and “Mrs. Sens”, do a great job in showing similar challenges of cultural differences in two different ways. They introduce characters

One way Lahiri shows difficulties that immigrants and refugees experience, is with the theme of displacement. To illustrate the idea of displacement, Lahiri uses Mrs. Sens to show the what immigrants have trouble adjusting to in a new environment. Mrs. Sens is a middle-aged, Indian woman, who is having difficulty adjusting to the differences between India and America. Lahiri emphasizes the awkward attitude that Mrs. Sens has towards driving. When asked about her driver’s licence, Mrs. Sens points out “Yes, I am learning, but I am a slow student. At home, you know we have a driver” (113). To put it differently, Mrs. Sens finds it odd and difficult that she has to learn driving because back in India, she had a chauffeur. Furthermore, when she says she is a slow

You immediately catch on that this is a big part in why they are having marital problems; they are both extremely overwhelmed with grief. Shukumar is so overwhelmed that he seldom leaves the house whereas Shoba is so overwhelmed but stays away from the house as much as she can. The house reminds her of her loss. Shukumar even says that she treats the house as if it’s a “hotel” and that she “began putting in extra hours at work”. Shukumar and Shoba’s grief have led them to withdrawing from one another. Until the nightly power outages, they avoided each other as much as possible. Shukumar even stays in the room he knows Shoba doesn’t want anywhere near because the baby’s crib was once there.