Symbols In Mr. Sen, By Mrs. C. Lahiri

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 Namesake, author Jhumpa Lahiri makes it is easy to see how absurdly different American culture is from that in India along with the gradual adaptation to American culture within this Bangladesh family. Every contrasting part of their culture is purposefully made apparent by the author to truly help bring understanding to the reader. It is my goal not only to list many of these differences, but to also sum up the events of this book.

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”.

There are many notable moments in Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. The Indian cultural faces many obstacles and are constantly discriminated against because of who they are. The Indian culture is looked at as poor and because of this are not given the same opportunities as others who are white. In one of the most notable moments of this novel Arnold reflects on this idea that Indians are just poor. This moment gives insight to the reader of how people in society look at those who are not the same as them.

The different aspects of life in a different world she experienced had created more than a life times of suffering, and she had managed with the help of Ashoke and many new friends she had made in her new life. Friends that came together to celebrate the birthdays of her children, with eatings and old practices such as deciding the future through plates of dirt, money, and writing utensils. How she passed time with writing christmas cards to her family in Calcutta, and how she sent more parts of her life to them through letters about how different life was. Lahiri pictures the dramatic life adventures of immigrants how they feel all around the world. These immigrants are distraught because they recognize that they do not gain anything even through their sufferings that have plagued them for so many

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.

Bharati married an American-Canadian fellow that would live in every part of North America with her over a span of thirty-three years. She became “opting to fluidity, self-invention, blue jeans, and T-shirts, and renouncing three thousand years of caste-observant, ‘pure culture’ marriage in the Mukherjee family.” Despite their differences, the sisters knew they were the only blood relatives they had on the continent, so they had regular Sunday morning calls where they were carelessly affectionate. During these conversations the sisters would have small talk rather than speak what was truly on their mind, yet they pity one another: Mira “for the lack of structure in [Bharati’s] life, the erasure of Indianness, the absence of an unvarying daily core.” Bharati “for the narrowness of [Mira’s] perspective, her uninvolvement with the mythic depths or the superficial pop culture of the American society.” It is clear that the two differ, however, in the ways in which they hope to interact with the country

Mukherjee sets up this juxtaposition of her and her sister’s contrasting experience to show the hopelessness of being welcomed into America and the constant racism regardless of citizenship status. This dilemma of not being able to be apart of the community regardless of the method used shows the point that Mukherjee was trying to make, which is that for an immigrant, being accepted in a new country is almost impossible.

In the story “Mrs. Sen’s”, Lahiri presents the struggles of assimilating into a new country and portrays how lonely and restricted immigrants can feel. She is able to do this through her use of the character, Mrs. Sen, a woman who is originally from India. Throughout the story we see how difficult it is for Mrs. Sen to assimilate to the lifestyle in America. Her days, usually consist of staying in an apartment while her husband teaches at a nearby university. Mrs. Sen’s Indian lifestyle still seems very prominent, all her furniture is still wrapped in plastic, the shoes are all lined in a bookcase by the front door, she refuses to purchase fish from the supermarket and she uses an abnormal blade to do her cooking. All of this illustrating how perhaps she is not ready to let go of her Indian lifestyle and assimilate. Mrs. Sen is representative of the struggles of assimilation, which often include feeling lonely and restriceted. She always relies on Mr. Sen, she barely knows anybody, she often misses her family and she cannot seem to make America feel like home.

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

As an Indian housewife, there were certain limitations for women in society. These limitations were primarily found in the upbringing of the children. Gauri, after coming to America, sees her duty as a mother to Bela limiting her to all the freedom she could have in society.This restriction on freedom is made apparent when Gauri contemplates, “When she was with Bela, even if they were not interacting, it was as if they were one person, bound fast by a dependence that restricted her mentally, physically” (Lahiri 163). Lahiri characterizes Gauri as a person who sees her dutiful actions as a negative aspect of life, as she describes her motherly actions as a physical and mental restriction. Lahiri is able to harness this type of characterization of Gauri to generalize that American society instills a new mindset in individuals such as Gauri. These individuals see the lack of restrictions America offers and as a result become transformed. Later on, the transformation goes as far as to show the incapability of Gauri to fulfill her duty when said, “ With her own hand she’d painted herself into a corner, and then out of the picture altogether” (Lahiri 232). The withdrawal that Gauri feels from her family as a result of the new options she now has in America shows the influence society’s freedom has in shaping a character. The abundance of freedom is what causes the inevitability of transformation in Gauri. This is shown when Gauri considers her option in the free country, “requesting an application for one of the doctoral programs...Without Bela or Subash, her life might be a different thing...Disorientated by the sense of freedom, devouring the sensation as a beggar devours food.” (Lahiri 174). Despite of the new options Gauri now gets to choose from, she welcomes the opportunity, comparing her desire to a beggar for food.

While most of the stories show how assimilated to western standards can be difficult, Mrs. Sen’s is the most important out of the stories because Mrs. Sen’s is reluctant to settle in America, and upholds the traditions of her life back in Calcutta. When Mrs. Sen came to America, she was astonished by the lack of care given by everyone else. She asked Elliot that if she “began to scream at the top of her lungs. Would someone come?”(6). All she had to do back in India was “raise your voice a bit, or express grief or joy of any kind, and one whole neighborhood and half of another [would] come to share the news”. This shows how Mrs. Sen missed the fact that in India, she was upper class and in America, she is treated like everyone else. Another

In this chapter, the author discusses how symbols can hold multiple meanings and interpretations, in which they are displayed in the novel through characters’ actions as well as objects and images. With not only the associations readers have but also the emotional reactions they experience, the audience can engage in symbolic imagination while questioning the text in order to expose a greater purpose. This is shown through Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, The Namesake. In Gogol Ganguli’s account of depicting the life he led as a son of an immigrant, he illustrates the challenges he faces as he betrays his old identity for a new one. Throughout his journey and the journey

Although there is castes in which everyone is separated there is some quality which is necessary in all societies. The repetition of lies is told to everyone to make it look like a functioning society instead of the corrupt reality.This illustrates the power of the rules and beliefs embedded in their minds since birth. This leads to the message of the use of human conditioning and how although

Through her tasteful selection of contemporary Indian influenced prose pieces, Jhumpa Lahiri traces the unique journey of Indian families established in America. Focusing on the intergenerational aspect of traditional households, Lahiri conveys the emotional rollercoaster that accompanies a person who is branded as a foreigner. In America, there exists a common misconception that immigrants who arrive in this country fully assimilate or seek to assimilate as time progresses. The category I chose was "The Dot of true Happiness." The dot which signifies the bindi, a traditional red mark worn by Indian people, is the source of true happiness among these immigrants.