The Pain Of Cultural Alienation In Mrs. Sen, By Boori Me

Mr. Kapasi found a growing affection for Mrs. Das when she expressed that his job translating for patients, which he thought of as a sign of his failings, was actually romantic to her. Mrs. Das began as an inattentive passenger in his tour to the Sun Temple who paid little attention to her kids, husband, and sights around her. She and Mr. Kapasi warmed up to each other while discussing Mr. Kapasi’s other job and tourist attractions. Mr. Kapasi was flattered by this woman who he deemed attractive and in an ill-suited marriage. Because of the new-found intoxication with this women who showed genuine interest in him, he even began to doubt his own marriage with his thoughts, “He wondered if Mr. and Mrs. Das were a bad match, just as he and his wife were,” (Lahiri 53). Both Mr. Kapasi and Miranda began to enter into controversy with their new relationships with partners who made them feel cherished while staying oblivious to other concerning factors in the growing relationships.

In this paper, the main motive is to portray the Diaspora in the novel of Jhumpa Lahiri Interpreter of Maladies, who is a well known for her writings of diasporic sensibility. There are many other writers other than Jhumpa Lahiri such as Amitav Ghosh, Anita Desai, Salman Rushdie, V.S.Naipaul who have concentrated on Indian diaspora.

Chapter three of Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri, when first read, confusion will start to seep through because of the concepts and writing style within the story making it unique in it’s own ways. More time processing the little details can lead to a different perspective of viewing the story in a more indepth way. Chapter three is a short story about Mrs.Das, who is miserable with her marriage and her life, as she starts revealing her secrets to Mr.Kapasi who also identical to Mrs.Das, is miserable with his marriage and life. In this chapter, Jhumpa Lahiri applies symbolism to affect the meaning of the story and to exhibit more concepts with ordinary objects you might not see as an alternative meaning.

Jhumpa Lahiri, used simple and plain language and she narrate her stories in simple prose format with very sensitive way of writing. That would be always the method of self- exploration. Throughout the works, she lights on the issues of immigrants by her fictional characters. While she starts to write, she never bothers about the critics in her minds. She simply writes according to herself. Mostly, her works address with the sensitive dilemmas of lives of Indian immigrants in America. In her works, she used about some common themes, such as, the immigrant experience, cultural crisis, partition, communication barriers and alienation. Thus, she analysed some psychologically disorder of the

The present paper attempts to assess the consequences ensued due to the cultural hybridity of two generation of characters in Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel The Namesake. The first immigrants - Ashoke and Ashima transmit the Bengali culture to their US born children Gogol and Sonia who in turn, transmit the American cultural patterns to their parents. The psychological writhe of the Indian mother Ashima trying to adjust herself in the American culture and endeavoring to inculcate the moral values archetype of India into her children, is the primary focus of the novel. The paper centers on the reflection of Jhumpa Lahiri’s own inclination for Bengali culture and cultural hybridity through a variety of characters painted by her in the novel The Namesake.

When she throws her final festivity at her house on Pemberton Road, she takes on this new attitude towards the Bengali croquettes she prepares for the event. “Normally cooking for parties leaves her without an appetite, but tonight she looks forward to serving herself, sitting among her guests” (Lahiri 277). During Ashima’s first years in America, she attempts to host perfect Indian celebrations for her immigrant friends, spending days slaving over the preparations. She is too focused on cooking food to the exact standard of authentic Indian cuisine, an impossible goal to fulfill, leaving her unsatisfied and too preoccupied to worry about feeding herself. However, by the time Gogol and Sonia have graduated from college and Ashoke has been dead for many years, Ashima’s old life in Calcutta is far behind her, and she becomes comfortable with her new one in Boston.

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

Being in a situation where one has no choice but to change their entire lifestyle around is never a desired experience. This normally occurs as the aftermath of immigrating into a new country that one may not have too many familiarities with. In the award winning novel, The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri has successfully captured and portrayed the reality of the struggles and difficulties one would face through immigration. This was done so through the use of emotions and challenges that the character,

Immigrating to a new country drastically expands one’s cultural background. This culture change can be positive or negative and greatly affects the lives of many. The author uses her characters to tell the story of what it’s like moving into a new country and experiencing a whole new lifestyle. Jumpha Lahiri uses characterization of the characters to express to the audience the cultural changes people experienced when immigrating to a new country.

In Lahiri's "a temporary matter" the author presents a couple’s failing marriage after the early death of a baby. Along with this, in Lahiri's "interpreter of maladies" the author describes a family that is disconnected from each other as they take a trip to India. Overall, the author, Jhumpa Lahiri, presents the necessity of communication in relationships, through the presentation of two failing marriages.

“Communication is the key to a healthy relationship”. It is a pillar on which every relationship is balanced. Relationships are never stable, but communication has the ability heal every wound. Majority of Jhumpa Lahiri’s work is based on the importance of communication and relationships. Her stories are influenced by relationship problems, and the ups and downs one faces in maintaining relationships. Most of the characters, in her stories have been facing a difficulty in communicating their feelings to the opposite character. Jhumpa Lahiri is an American Indian,

Mrs. Das mentions that it has been a long time ago when she lost her love for her husband. After they got married and graduated in college, Mr. and Mrs. Das spent a lot of time with each other and have forgotten their close friends. Then, the Indian but Americanized couple was gifted with their first baby and causes Mrs. Das to decline her friends invitations so she could take care of her child. “ After marrying so young she was overwhelmed by it all, having a child so quickly, and nursing, and warming up bottles of milk …” (p.65). After their first baby, Mr. Das became uninterested in his wife and rarely spends time with

The audience is provided with minimal facts about her, and learn the most about her through the dialogue in which she rejects her husband’s suggestion. Around 2 A.M., the newlyweds woke up ravenous. With no food in the refrigerator, the narrator proposes that they eat out. The wife immediately rejects the suggestion, stating that “you’re not supposed to go out to eat after midnight.” Due to her unambiguous response, the audience is inclined to perceive the narrator’s wife as a timid and simple woman who accepts certain social codes. The description of his wife does not expand from their exchange, painting her as a truly ordinary character. The audience quickly learns that she is not as the story progresses. After learning about her husband’s first attack on a bakery, she declares that he had been cursed and they must reverse it. The narrator and the wife drive around Tokyo with a gun and ski masks that the wife surprisingly owned. He writes, “Why my wife owned a shotgun, I had no idea. Or ski masks. Neither of us had ever skied. But she didn’t explain and I didn’t ask.” Her appearance in the story in very deceptive in that she unexpectedly has some expertise in theft. As more about her character is revealed, the audience’s perception of her escalates. Contrary to what she seems, she asserts her dominance in their relationship and destroys the readers’ assumption that the married couple

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

As strangers who know that they are never going to see each other again, and who have nothing to lose by baring their souls out, they tell each other about their lives. Once locked in together all six share their life stories, quite like the pilgrims do in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and discover that they have never been living for themselves, but for others, governed by societal pressures. In a sense each story is separate but “their being together in one compartment provides the framework and holds the story together like a ribbon holding a bouquet of different kinds of flowers of different shapes, colours and fragrances.” (Khushwant Singh; Travelling in a women’s compartment) Somewhere towards the end each story illuminates the story of Akhila who listens to all other women and tries to apply their views and justifications in comparison to her own life.