What Is The Theme Of This Blessed House

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.

“They wept together, for the things they now knew.”(104) The last sentence of the first story in Interpreter of Maladies, reveals the cruelty of the elapsed romance in a marriage. In the two collections, A Temporary Matter and The Third and Final Continent, Jhumpa Lahiri demonstrates that a marriage can be either uplifting or discouraging depends on the mindset held by the couple and the strength of human bonding. Lahiri emphasizes the significance of mindset and human bondings through the ending of the two stories. The endings of the two stories are polar opposite : In A Temporary Matter, Shukumar and Shobha weeps for the termination of their relationship; The Third and Final Continent, by contrast, the protagonist(MIT) enjoys a fairytale-like

Through Lahiri’s characterization of Mr. Kapasi, she demonstrates how the actions communicated between characters can be misinterpreted from one person to another, potentially causing one to believe in a false reality. While touring around with the Das family, Mr. Kapasi tries to make friendly conversation. It is only when Mr. Kapasi reveals that he also an interpreter for a local Indian doctor that Mrs. Das suddenly becomes very intrigued by the man behind the wheel. “For the first time, her eyes met Mr. Kapasi’s in the rearview mirror” (Lahiri 50). Mrs. Das’s sudden interest in Mr. Kapasi captures his attention. It is then that the two characters in Jhumpa Lahiri’s story begin to discuss Mr. Kapasi’s occupation more in depth. Not only is it that Mrs. Das now pays more attention to Mr. Kapasi but, she also romanticizes his interpreting skills. “She did not behave in a romantic way toward her husband, and yet she had used the word to describe him [Mr. Kapasi]” (Lahiri 53). Mr. Kapasi’s imagination only continues to wander further and further from reality when Mrs. Das asks him for his address so that she may send him a photo. Mrs. Das’s sudden interest in Mr. Kapasi encourages him to imagine their relationship progressing to the future possibility of a written correspondence between the two of them. Mr.

“The Treatment of Bibi Haldar”, by Jhumpa Lahiri, describes the unfortunate illness of Bibi Haldar and the numerous, painful, and fruitless attempts her community has gone to in order to cure her. Such an account offers a profound insight about the human condition. “The Treatment of Bibi Haldar” suggests that in the pursuit to completely heal those that are sick, we lose ourselves and neglect the pain and immediate need for love of the very people we are trying to help. Lahiri is able to smoothly communicate this through her eloquent use of a detached yet sympathetic overall tone, and the perspective from which is originates. Setting and its defining role towards Lahiri’s specific type of plot also plays a key role in the development of her theme. Finally Bibi Haldar herself and what she symbolizes is essential to communicating the lack of affection those that are severely ill or handicapped receive

    In contrast to our contemporary understandings, back in the late nineteenth and twentieth century sexology had just emerged and cast a new way of understanding. There were controversial views on sex and its benefits or dangerous. Our view of sexuality was quite intertwined with biblical and religious inputs. At this time understandings and terminology of same-sex sexual relations were linked with mental illness or considered sinful. Laws were in place to criminalize male sexual activity.

The Third and Final Continent, in the book Interpreter of the Maldives by Jhumpa Lahiri, depicts the life of the narrator. The narrator first meets Mrs. Croft, who is 103 years old, when he requests a room in her house. Mrs. Croft's belief in American tradition is evident by her, “long black skirt that spread like a stiff tent to the floor, and starched white shirt edged with ruffles…” This description shows that she has yet to adapt to the current American culture. When first introduced to Mala, the narrator’s wife, it is evident that she has yet to begin to emulate the American culture, like Mrs. Croft, by what she is wearing. Mala is described as wearing her sari, “draped in a sign of bridal modesty over her head,” and this shows that Mala is still heavily immersed in her Indian culture. Mala adapted to the American culture and this is evident when it is stated that she, “no longer drapes the end of her sari over her head…” This change in description of her sari proves that Mala took in American culture.

Her unforeseen actions are due to the rest care tradition, which has progressively worsened her mental state and caused her to overlook her role as a caring wife in desperation to escape the imprisonment of the tradition. As witnessed from the two short stories, conflicts arise amidst families due to the events of old traditions, establishing a divide between family members that is difficult to overcome once constructed.

In the story “This Blessed House,” Sanjeev’s disliking of Twinkle’s personality shows that she spontaneous with an unpredictable nature. For example, Sanjeev describes Twinkle as being “excited and delighted by little things” (142) while Sanjeev is portrayed as being more serious and scholarly by liking to “read in the liner notes that Mahler had proposed to his wife” (140). This contrast in personalities is why Sanjeev specifies that Twinkle was “nicknamed after a nursery rhyme, she had yet to shed a childhood endearment” (142). Jhumpa Lahiri uses characterization to show the impression of differing personalities that occur between Twinkle and her husband Sanjeev.

This highlights the realistic atmosphere prevailing as well as reflects the true meaning of relationship. The readers are exposed to the mother-son relationship. It can be seen that even if the narrator is a twenty-year old law student, he is still the little boy who needed his neck scrubbed from the point of view of the mother. Whatever good advice the son gives, it is not followed and instead he is given a lecture. This is a typical mother-son relationship which shows that no matter how much a child grows, he always remains a little kid for the mother. Moreover, the readers also notice the routine life of the narrator and his mother. The boy used to accompany his mother to work and help her which makes a four-hour job becomes two. There is solidarity, strong family bond and understanding between them because although he did not like his mother

In Jhumpa Lahiri's "This Blessed House", Sanjeev and Twinkle cannot agree on keeping the mysterious Virgin statues in their new house. Emotions can bring forced compromises as attempts for peace.

It is known in psychology that your mental state plays a significant role in the way you view the environment around you. In The Yellow Wallpaper, Gilman emphasizes this relationship between consciousness and the outside world through the eyes of an upper middle class woman suffering from post partum depression. This woman, the narrator, escapes the oppression she feels from the outside world and her internal conflict, by creating this fantasy world where the wallpaper is the focus of her frustrations. In the beginning, the narrator is a highly imaginable and creative woman who delights in her summerhouse as a “haunted house…

Sexuality is a fundamental aspect of being human all through life and includes gender identities, sex, and sexual orientation, roles, eroticism, intimacy, pleasure, and reproduction (Chapman, 2008). Sexuality is expressed and experienced in thoughts, ideas, fantasies, desires, manners, values, behaviors, roles, relationships and practices. Though sexuality can encompass all of these aspects, not all of them are for all time experienced or demonstrated (Hunter, 1992). It is influenced by the interface of biological, social, political, psychological, ethical, economic, cultural, historical, legal, spiritual and religious factors (Simoni & Walters, 2001). There

In “The Treatment of Bibi Haldar,” Bibi fails to receive adequate healthcare because of her lower class position. Instead of properly diagnosing Bibi with epilepsy, society believes marriage can cure her, signifying the sexism of Bibi’s surrounding society. “Besides, who would marry her? The girl knows nothing, about anything, speaks backward, is practically thirty, can't light a coal stove, can't boil rice, can't tell the difference between fennel and a cumin seed. Imagine her attempting to feed a man!"

Towards the beginning of the story, Bibi is viewed as a degenerate in her town in India. Townspeople ridicule her and mock her harsh condition and view her as a bad omen. Even her own aunt describes her as a reincarnation of the devil! “ “Haldar’s wife, convinced that the devil had possessed her, kept her away from fire and flame”. The utter fact that someone in her family is purely convinced that she is a reincarnation of the devil catastrophic. Facing adversity, Haldar places a one-line advertisement in the town newspaper, in order to attract a groom along with a photo of herself. “GIRL, UNSTABLE, HEIGHT 153 CENTIMETERS, SEEKS HUSBAND”. This is truly the midpoint of Bibi’s transition from hopeless to hopeful. Towards the end of the short story, Haldar is placed in a small confinement and is forced to sleep in the storage room because Haldar and his wife are scared that she will get their newborn child sick. The town boycotts the Haldar’s store and then the business closes which causes the Haldars leave town. But, Bibi is left behind and one day in the spring, the women of the village discover vomit and a pregnant Bibi. “She carried a baby full term, and one evening in September, we helped her deliver a son…..She was to the best of our knowledge, cured”. This excerpt displays how Bibi has completely transitioned from being dubbed as the

The present study is based on the idea of displacement as the major theme of the selected short stories of Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Interpreter of maladies”. The book contains nine short stories and each one of them deals with the question of identity, alienation, and plight of those who are physically and psychologically displaced. But I would like to limit my studies to the three short stories from the collection viz. “When Mr. Pirzada came to dine”, Interpreter of Maladies”, and “Mrs. Sen’s”. The migration has become one of the most important issues of the contemporary world. Jhumpa Lahiri is also a diasporic writer like Salman Rushdie, V.S Naipaul and Bharati Mukherjee. The characters in the prescribed stories are citizens of more than one country