JhumpaLahiri’s short stories emphasize on the lives of Indo Americans, and the short stories in Interpreter of Maladies are set in India or part of the US, including Cambridge, Massachusetts, and an anonymous university town very much like Cambridge. In her short stories, characters come together for reasons that are not intimate and wind up finding themselves in intimate situations. For example, in “Interpreter of Maladies” the two main characters Mr. Kapasi and Mrs Das find themselves together in a car because
Cultural Clash “Interpreter of Maladies” by Jhumpa Lahiri recounts the excursion of an American family to India through the eyes of its driver, Mr. Kapasi. The bicultural family represents an affluent yet ultimately miserable lifestyle. Mr. and Mrs. Das are a young couple with severe marital issues, with their carelessness most manifest in how they treat their children. By contrast, Mr. Kapasi sacrifices his career aspiration to pay for his son 's medical bills and remains faithful to his wife,
JhumpaLahiri’s first and second generation Indian immigrant women characters play the traditional gender roles in a conscious effort to preserve the culture left behind. They try to preserve Indian culture in their home through their attention to religion, food, dress, and raising Indian children. The challenges of mainstream American life require Lahiri’s women toadjust their approach to their gender roles. While the division between home and outside is essential in the sense that home is still
In the collection of short stories “Interpreter of Maladies” written by Jhumpa Lahiri, there are multiple stories where characters feel like outsiders. For example, Mr. Pirzada feels like an outsider because he is a Pakistani in America and wants to go back because he misses his family and wonders if they are ok. Boori Ma feels like an outsider because no one believes that she came from a wealthy area and life, and Bibi Haldar does not feel normal and feels like an outsider because she is sick and