The Short Story Cycle Interpreter Of Maladies By Jhumpa Lahiri

It is a known fact that every human being communicates through language, but perhaps a little known fact that we communicate even through the food we eat. We communicate through food all the meanings that we assign and attribute to our culture, and consequently to our identity as well. Food is not only nourishment for our bodies, but a symbol of where we come from. In order to understand the basic function of food as a necessity not only for our survival, we must look to politics, power, identity, and culture.

Neither life nor culture can be sustained without food. On a very basic level, food is fundamentally essential for life, not simply to exist, but also to thrive. A means by which carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, nutrients, and calories are introduced into the body, food is a mechanism of survival. However, on a more abstract level, food is also fundamentally essential for culture by establishing its perimeters and dimensions and in shaping its authenticity and character. Food becomes the

Some say food is an exploration of culture, and taste evokes lush memories of the past. “ In An Island Passover” by Ethel G. Hofman, she described her life in the Shetland Islands. Every year, Hofman’s family celebrates Passover- a traditional Jewish holiday where time and effort to prepare a meal is like painting, and it takes months to reveal a masterpiece. While Hofman had a positive recollection of her family’s traditional cuisine, author of “Fish Cheeks”, Amy Tan did not share the same experience. Tan felt ashamed of sharing her traditional cuisine with a pastor's son whom she was in love with. Tan strived for her crush’s approval because she did not want to be deemed strange. Hofman and Tan had striking differences in

When studying food in its entirety: its classification, structure, and the way it’s utilized, it becomes obvious that food is closely tied to food-getting strategies; social, democratic, and political constitution; intimate ties of social relationships; ecological vigor and vitality; and the physical and mental wellness of an individual and group. Besides water, food is the most fundamental element of life that we need for our species to survive and thrive; everybody has an appetite for food. Food is a cultural artifact that is central to human life, identity, and bonds we share with our communities. As an artifact, food plays a significant and meaningful role in our everyday connections with “nature through culture,” that translates

In Jessica Harris’s “The Culinary Season of my Childhood” she peels away at the layers of how food and a food based atmosphere affected her life in a positive way. Food to her represented an extension of culture along with gatherings of family which built the basis for her cultural identity throughout her life. Harris shares various anecdotes that exemplify how certain memories regarding food as well as the varied characteristics of her cultures’ cuisine left a lasting imprint on how she began to view food and continued to proceeding forward. she stats “My family, like many others long separated from the south, raised me in ways that continued their eating traditions, so now I can head south and sop biscuits in gravy, suck chewy bits of fat from a pigs foot spattered with hot sauce, and yes’m and no’m with the best of ‘em,.” (Pg. 109 Para). Similarly, since I am Jamaican, food remains something that holds high importance in my life due to how my family prepared, flavored, and built a food-based atmosphere. They extended the same traditions from their country of origin within the new society they were thrusted into. The impact of food and how it has factors to comfort, heal, and bring people together holds high relevance in how my self-identity was shaped regarding food.

As I added the finishing touches of friend onions and parsley to make it look aesthetically pleasing, I took a step back to stare at the masterpiece I had just created, a luscious and delectable Pakistani rice dish called “Briyani”. Making this dish is the epitome of success in every Pakistani girl’s lifetime. It’s considered an essential quality to add to one’s marriage “resume”. However, to me, it was more than just a future “in law pleaser”, it was my compass for life. A cook must be diligent and attentive to detail, conscious of every ingredient and amount that is being used. A cook is a provider, helping with the wellbeing of the people who are consuming the prepared food. The kitchen is their clinic, and the consumers are their patients. Nine years of cooking with my mother has taught me dedication, obedience, and tested my patience when some recipes would fail. Cooking, as a safe haven from the difficulties of everyday life, has helped me better connect to all my experiences throughout the years and has molded the foundation for my passion and calling, medicine.

My earliest memory of food is lentils and rice cooked in a pressure cooker. Lentils were cooked at least three days a week. Other days we had different vegetable curries, curd and more rice. This was what I took to school as my lunch every day. As I grew older and started caring more about my social life and people around me, I started noticing what my classmates brought for lunch from their homes. I started understanding how food reflected different cultures and communities. One day, in our

Marshall stresses the importance of food traditions and how they help us as readers understand the different

Sunglasses, not only worn for protection from the sun, are also used for other reasons. Some are unrecognizable in sunshades and can even hide their true selves. Ultimately, sunglasses can even hide one’s shame. In Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story, Interpreter of Maladies, Mrs. Das, a major character, is portrayed as a distant woman that searches for romance in all the wrong places. Throughout the story, Mrs. Das rarely removes her sunglasses. The symbol of Mrs. Das’s sunglasses represents the detachment from her own family, the potential bond breaking secrets she hides from them, and the inevitable guilt she feels.

When you are asked what your daily essentials are, food must be one of your answers. We all know that food means a lot to people but have you ever thought about food from another perspective? Anderson’s readings investigate food from many other perspectives. According to Anderson, food represents our views, class, power, lifestyles and identities. These ideas are true and can be found among the Trobriand Islanders. In their society, life revolves around lineage and food because lineage controls all the food. In order to make the lineage system successful, people from Trobriand Island treat yams as their wealth, social status and political power. Connecting back to Anderson’s ideologies, the idea of food represents social class is reflected by the different treatment received by the Trobriand Islanders, Islanders’ urge to work represents the connection between food and political power, and the fact that lineage is more important than oneself indicates the idea of food is identity.

Food, has a specific meaning to all of us; for some it is a form of nourishment, for others it is a cultural act,

Fasting and Feasting is a novel written by Anita Desai that narrates the story of the protagonist, Uma, and her family’s life. The novel is divided in two parts. Part one deals with Uma’s life in India until the tragic death of her cousin Anamika, and part two tells the story of Uma’s brother, Arun, as he spends his summer with the Pattons, a typical American suburban family. Throughout the novel, Desai explores the theme of family life and uses the novel’s two settings, America and India, to compare and contrast the values and customs that constitute each respective culture’s family life. At first glance, American and Indian families are foils of one another because of the relationships between the family members that composed them. As

Specific societies that associate with class, caste, race and gender distributions, uses food as a tool to maintain these social systems. For example, Counihan (1999) uses India to show

In The Language of Baklava, author, Diana Abu-Jaber’s writes a memoir exploring her identity.The excerpt is primarily an anecdote of her journey and with it she associates recipes. The excerpt created is a memoir describing her up-brining as the daughter of an Arab immigrant. Her memoir is primarily composed of stories from her childhood. The main theme in this specific excerpt is culture and family, which is being portrayed through the substance of food. Her stories, mostly revolve around, her father “Bub”. Abu-Jaber’s memoir strongly affects her reader's emotions because she uses many forms of formative language, such as metaphors, imagery, hyperbole and by logos.

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.