Jhumpa Lahiri Character Analysis

Pratishtha Vaswani

English 9

November 12th 2014

Jhumpa Lahiri`s Novel Analysis

Throughout Jhumpa Lahiri’s novels the largest category of stories that she focuses on concentrates on marriage and relationship, specially the arranged marriages that support Indian society. “This Blessed House”, “A Temporary Matter” and “Interpreter of Maladies”, while also painting memorable characters striving to modify to American culture.

Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Interpreter of Maladies” shows three adults who suffer from their own maladies. The story takes place in India in modern times. The Das family, who are Indian, have come to holiday in India although they are Americans. The other character in the story is Mr. Kapasi, the tour guide and driver, who is

Through “This Blessed House”, she looks into both the problems of an arranged marriage and the sacrifices that must be made to adjust a couple’s different personalities inside any type of relationship. Sanjeev clearly prefers his bachelor way of life “when he would walk each evening across the Mass. Avenue Bridge” (Lahiri, p.138) and not think about anyone else in his lonely evenings. He and Twinkle are not meant for each other because he prefers an organized way of life, whereas Twinkle is lazy and untidy. Additionally, she was “excited and delighted by little things as if the world contained hidden wonders” (p.142). These characteristics make Sanjeev “feel stupid”, because he has no understanding of her passion in life. When Twinkle grows an addiction with the Christian artifacts left behind by the owner before them in their new house, Sanjeev becomes even angrier pondering what the people from the office will think about these Christian symbols in a Hindu house. He hates the fact that Twinkle is engaged with them; however in the face of her denial to abandon them he accepts that he will tolerate her “little biblical menagerie” (p.139). Sanjeev and Twinkle had met “only four months before” (p.142), and were brought together by the wishes of their parents. This tends to be the problem of their story, for their obvious differences soon become clear like Sanjeev is the son of parents who live in Calcutta, while Twinkle is a second-generation American. This basic cultural difference is an extra obstacle to their creation of a successful relationship. Sanjeev had been lonely in America and an American man had recently rejected Twinkle. By bringing them together by their parents, they believed they had some thins in common such as a “persistent fondness for Wodehouse novels” (p.143). With this comment, Lahiri shows her sense of the absurd. To make a marriage work, especially from cultural diverse backgrounds, she