The Short Stories By Jhumpa Lahiri

From the outside looking in, when knowing someone identifies as a certain culture i notice that it is not only a way of self identification that was passed down from suffering and scrutiny but it is also a way of moving on from a certain struggle that has oppressed them for so many years.

When looking at other people’s culture, we like to compare our traditions to theirs. For example, we can’t really “put ourselves in someone else’s shoes” because they have a different cultural background and a different view of the world. In the story, “Two Ways to Belong in America” by Bharati Mukherjee, she sees herself as a different person when compared to her sister Mira, although they both follow the same Indian culture. Bharati and Mira are both sisters that abandoned their Indian culture later on for the reason that they found the American culture interesting than their own. Mira abandoned her Indian culture at 1962, and her sister Bharati abandoned the culture at in

In the article, “My Two Lives” by Jhumpa Lahiri, Lahiri gives a brief summary of her life growing up as an Indian-American. Lahiri struggled with the idea of not fitting in with the people of America, but also not wanting to leave her own Indian heritage behind. In the very first paragraph of the article Lahiri stated, “Like many immigrant offspring, I felt intense pressure to be two things, loyal to the old world and fluent in the new…” (43). This problem relates to the topic of Assimilation in that Lahiri was afraid to allow her old Indian heritage to be swallowed up by her new, more dominant, American culture. She did want to be included in the American ways, but did not want to erase her family’s Indian heritage entirely.

To think that our culture could eventually determine ourselves in our behavior as a human being makes us say things like "a Chinese is ..." or "a Galician would say ...". This way of talking discover ways of thinking with which we must be careful because we are referring to a stereotype with which mistakenly dangerously-and think about others. We are thinking precisely the Galician--china or culture determines us to the point end up in a unique way possible. The groups are not homogeneous, are different.

Lets look at some of the reasons why we look at another’s culture, or perceived culture sometimes in a negative way, and why this perception could be wrong. We do decide what we perceive others to be by listening to other people talk negatively about another from a culture that is not their own. We then believe it to be true without really finding out for our selves anything about that culture. Cultures can be perceived because of the dogmatic way the media portrays people by pushing their doctorial opinions, to better suit there needs, forming what they think would make for better stories. What they produce is false assumptions in how other people live.

The series of short stories each show how relationships can be hard. The characters have tough relationships that are putting a strain on their lives. In A Temporary Matter the characters find secrets to destroy each other with. In This Blessed House the characters don’t agree and do not try to resolve their issues which creates tension. Jhumpa Lahiri uses the characters in Interpreter of Maladies to reveal how secrets can destroy relationships. In Temporary Matter Shoba and Shukumar started a game of confessing their secrets to each other. “Somehow, without saying anything, it had turned into this. Into an exchange of confessions - the little things they had ways they’d hurt or disappointed each other, and themselves.” (Lahiri pg. 18) This

In her short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri depicts various scenarios of Indian immigrants moving to and living in the United States. A particularly salient theme discussed throughout is the issue of assimilation vs. integration. Though the terms are often considered interchangeable, in this book assimilation argues for adoption of American culture. Conversely, integration advocates for the coexistence of foreign and American customs and allows immigrants to establish a sense of home away from their original countries. The story entitled, “The Third and Final Continent” specifically recounts a young Indian man’s experience trying to establish himself in Cambridge, Massachusetts after living in London. Prior to his immigration, the narrator had his marriage arranged by his family in Calcutta, and much of the story illustrates the narrator’s apprehension for his wife, Mala’s arrival from India. Recognizing that food is a significant aspect of most cultures, Lahiri uses it as a motif to indicate the transformation of the narrator’s cultural status in the United States. Through food, she ultimately asserts the possibility of positive integration, rather than just assimilation, into American society.

I learned the keys to recognizing and working around cultural differences at a very young age and it is this that helps me navigate the myriad differences I encounter among people and nationalities. It is a thin line to walk – to determine where cultural differences bring colour to life and where they limit growth and progress – and that is why my open mindedness matters to me most: it is a constant debate and one that keeps me focused on both people and purpose in every

Different cultures end up having different views about others and the world. People's views and opinions affect their culture and background. Your culture is just a part of your background. Depending on your culture and background, that affects how you view the world and others. Culture is just another part of you and your background. Different people have different cultures and different viewpoints. Nowadays what you see seems to be what you get no matter how you view the world and others. You all still think the same and act the same way. Culture is a part of you and who you are. No matter where you come from or who you are your culture still defines you.

We often see that people try to perceive about themselves in relation to other cultures in order to determine a psychological process. This psychological process is strictly

Often people seem very disoriented when he or she becomes interested in a new culture. According to our book Essentials of Sociology, the definition of ethnocentrism is “the tendency to look at other cultures through the eyes of one’s own culture, and thereby misrepresent them” (Giddens,Duneier,Appelbaum,Carr,2013,p.51). This definition explains that a person tends to judge another culture by comparing them to his or her own

Today more than ever, individuals and societies are built as an integration of different cultures and carry different characteristics that construct their unique identity.

The late 1800's into the 1900's were the most difficult years for Native American Indians, they fought difficult battles to protect their land. Many rules and laws did not support them and focused mainly on kicking them out of their own county, due to that many violent, bloody and crucial fights and wars begun. The Native American Indians were forced to leave their own land. Eventually, many of them accepted and adapted the new cultures of the European-American’s and accepted their religions as well. Assimilation is the ability to process and accept a different culture and become part of it by being loyal and faithful to this new culture. There are many factors that might help individuals in assimilation into a different culture. One is misunderstanding non-verbal signs and symbols, which means lack of understanding of a group of signs and symbols, which the society of that new culture understands, while the other factor is tending to evaluate to the new culture, which means having the ability to accept a new culture and leave their native culture in the past (P16).Knowing and understanding the culture may have a direct influence on the individual in accepting and falling in love with this new culture , whereas the lack of information about this new society may lead in not respecting this new culture. In "The School Days of an Indian Girl" was written by Zitkala-Sa who was a Native American who was forced by the European-Americans to study at a missionary school in

One very famous Indian speaker named Mahatma Gandhi once proclaimed “A nation's culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people.” Culture is a deeply overlooked topic among many individuals who now look towards social media and videogames. The term, culture, has lost significant meaning from the time Jhumpa Lahiri wrote Interpreter of Maladies to current times. Interpreter of Maladies is a book that includes many different stories about Indian culture and presents the difficulties of adapting to American culture. Three chapters/short stories in the book are Mrs. Sen’s, When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine, and A Real Durwan, which are stories Lahiri has created to display the hardships of adapting to an American lifestyle. Lahiri is an immigrant from the United Kingdom who uses her books, such as Interpreter of Maladies, to channel her family’s, friend’s, and own experiences into different stories about their cultural values. Although some may believe change is not a difficult concept to adapt to, Lahiri uses the 3 Indian characters, Boori Ma (A Real Durwan), Mrs. Sen (Mrs. Sen’s), and Mr. Pirzada plus Lilia’s parents (When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine), and their backgrounds to exemplify change is never an easy task to accustom to.

Our identity lies in the heart of our culture. An individual’s uniqueness comes from his/her culture and gives one the potential to fit in communities with different people and their different cultural background. The heirloom of cultures is significant to what makes us who we are today. It gives us the sense of background we belong in and the language, traditions, behavior, symbols we practice. For example, we Tibetans have lost our land; however, we still have our culture which is being inherited down to generations to generations. The inheritance of culture keeps Tibetans alive in the world. We have language, symbols, arts, traditions, values, beliefs, norms and everything an individual needs to survive. If it were not for our culture, then there would not be a possibility of proving that Tibetans are different from Chinese or any other Asian countries. The Tibetan culture has given me an identification of being different from other cultures and having my own cultural background.