Summary Of Interpreter Of Maladies

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 the sacred space in which to act on one’s cultural identity, the demands of life in the United States, particularly the independence of the modern American woman, make it difficult for immigrant women to move back and forth between their native cultural traditions and mainstream American society on their own terms.

Her position as the daughter of immigrants and as an American wife and mother curiously alienates her from both Indian culture and her own family.While on a vacation in India with her husband and children, Mina attempts to come to terms with her unhappiness byconfessing her anxiety to the tour guide her husband has hired. Mina’s problem -- her inability to be understood by Mr. Kapasi -- stems out of herfailure to translate the social, political, and historical expectations he has of her because of her appearance and name, which in his eyes mark her as Indian. She shows little interest in the country of her parents’ birth, which passes her by as she touches up her nail polish in the car, scolding her daughter, “Leave me alone,” when she asks to have her nails painted, too