Dedicated to the study of literature.
1. What seems to be the author’s intention or purpose for writing the narrative? Try to think of several purposes and consider varying audiences in your response.
2. Describe the role of faith in the author’s ordeal or in the narrative as a whole.
2a. In general, what would a Puritan say about God and his providence in their everyday lives?
3. Describe the relationship between Mary and her captors.
4. Based on the reading, what do you think the characteristics of a “good” Puritan are?
5. How do you think Mary feels about her captivity by the end of it?
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A Temporary Matter
This story tells the tale of Shoba and Shukumar; a married couple who recently had the misfortune of a stillborn child. This traumatic event profoundly changed both people. What had before been a functional married couple became, “experts at avoiding each other in their three-bedroom house” (pg 4). The two withdraw, both physically and emotionally, for months after the incident.
This routine of mutual avoidance, “The more Shoba stayed out, the more she began putting in extra hours at work and taking on additional projects, the more he wanted to stay in (pg 2),” is interrupted by the news that every day for five days, the electricity would be cut off for one hour, beginning at eight p.m. As the two have dinner in the dark, Shoba, seemingly on a whim, suggests a way to pass the time, “I remember during power failures at my grandmother’s house, we all had to say something.” The couple winds up sharing things they never told each other. Little things, granted, but they were interacting meaningfully for the first time in a while.
Over the coming power outages, sharing in the dark became somewhat of a ritual. “They’d turned this into an exchange of confessions- the little ways they’d hurt or disappointed each other or themselves(pg 18). ” This ritual, hinged around the darkened house, allows the couple to talk to each other and cast aside the veil of distance and withdrawal.
Thus, it is clear that the message most strongly conveyed by this story is that problems are only solved by action. Shoba and Shukumar danced around the issue for months and made no progress, “In the beginning he had believed that it would pass, that he and Shoba would get through it all somehow. She was strong, on her feet again. But it wasn’t a consolation (pg 5).” It was only through both of them taking the initiative and facing their problem of emotional withdrawal that the problem began to be solved. “The next night, Shoba came home earlier than usual. All day Shukimar had looked forward to the lights going out. (pg 14, 15)”
Granted, the book ends on a somewhat ambiguous note, the final resolution of the lover’s conflict left in doubt. However, if the two had never taken the initiative to fix their problem, it is plain that the ending would be a very unambiguous portrayal of an unresolved conflict. Therefore, the primary lesson of this book is that problems are solved through action, not inaction.
When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine
The story of Mr. Pirzada is a story that exemplifies the confusion split identities faced by first-generation immigrants to America. The narrator, a first-generation immigrant from India, is the method through which this is exemplified. The story chronicles the visits of Mr. Pirzada, a Pakistani man who visited the narrator’s home for dinner every day. Through his visits, Mr. Pirzada becomes the catalyst that forces her to focus on issues of immigration and heritage, “He [her father] seemed concerned that Mr. Pirzada might take offence if I accidentally referred to him as an Indian (pg 26).” Being raised in an American home, far away from the culture of her parents, the narrator does not understand these nuances, “It made no sense to me. Mr. Pirzada and my parents spoke the same language, laughed at the same jokes, looked more or less the same (pg 25).”
Because the story takes place during the seventies, Pakistan and India are at war. “My father rapped his knuckles on top of my head. ‘You are, of course, aware of the current situation? Aware of East Pakistan’s fight for sovereignty?’ I nodded, unaware of the situation (pg 26)” Because she was raised in America, far away from the conflict in the land of her parents, she is ill-informed about issues that are important to all Indians. This is due, in part, to her American education. “We learned American history, of course, And American geography (pg 27).” She learns all the things that are important to herself as an American citizen, but none of the things that are important to herself as an Indian. This is only made worse by her receiving active discouragement when attempting to educate herself, “She glanced at the cover, then at me. ‘Is this book [Pakistan: A Land and Its People] a part of your report, Lilia?’ ‘No, Mrs. Kenyon.’ ‘Then I see no reason to consult it.’ (pg 33)”.
Though Mr. Pirzada eventually returns to Pakistan and his family after the conflict settles down, he leaves an indelible mark on the narrator. Because of his nightly visits, shelearns a bit more about herself, her ancestral country and its troubles, and what it means to be an immigrant.
Interpreter of Maladies
The plot of Interpreter of Maladies is fairly straightforward. It chronicles an American-born Indian family, the Das’s, taking a tour to a temple in India. Their tour guide, Mr. Kapasi, is the main focus of the story, with most, if not all attention being paid to his motives, thoughts, and feelings. As the couple, their children, and Mr. Kapasi progress through the tour, the author makes several points about the nature of conflict and how we deal with it.
First, the point is made that conflict happens. It is unavoidable. This is demonstrated by the Das’s familial problems, “‘Leave me alone,’ Mrs. Das said [to her daughter], blowing on her nail and turning her body slightly. ‘You’re making me mess up.’ (pg 48)” The conflict shown here is that Mrs. Das; and by virtue of not commenting, her husband, are less than ideal parents. As is further demonstrated, Mr. and Mrs. Das are not the best spouses either, “I told you to get a car with air conditioning. Why do you do this, Raj, just to save a few stupid rupees (pg 49) .” The family is dysfunctional, plain and simple.
The second point that is made about conflict is that it is universal. Mr. Kapasi, though he was born in India, not America, grew up thousands of miles away from the Das’s, and lives in a completely different culture, has the same problem as them, “...His wife had little regard for his career as an interpreter. ...He wondered if Mr. and Mrs. Das were a bad match, just as he and his wife were. (pg 53)” The Das’s and Mr. Kapasi sharing a problem shows that conflict is not limited to a set person, place, or time period. Conflict transcends these boundaries and more.
The third and final point made about conflict is how people view it. That is; people usually only focus on how to fix their own conflicts, not the conflicts of others. For example, when Mr. Kapasi realizes how strained Mrs. Das’s marriage is, the only thought on his mind is how it will help him. “In those moments, Mr. Kapasi used to believe that all was right with the world, that all struggles were rewarded, that all of life’s mistakes made sense in the end. The promise that he would hear from Mrs. Das now filled him with the same belief. (pg 56)” Likewise, Mrs. Das only regards Mr. Kapasi as someone who can help her fix her own problems. “Eight years, Mr. Kapasi, I’ve been in pain eight years. I was hoping you could help me feel better, say the right thing. Suggest some kind of remedy.” Both are seeking solutions that neither of them have. Therefore, in the end, when the Das’s have completed their tour, neither conflict has been solved and neither party has gained anything more than a lasting memory.
A Real Durwan
A Real Durwan tells us the sobering tale of what happens when we embellish or fabricate stories too often. It tells the story of Boori Ma, an old, poor woman who lives in a tenant flat with several other families. Boori Ma spends her days sweeping the steps, guarding the gate, and doing other menial tasks. As she does these things, she weaves countless tales of her old life, in which she was rich and pampered and had luxuries about which none of the other tenants could even dream. Despite her fabricated tales, the tenants liked Boori Ma, “Her throaty impostures hurt no one. All agreed that she was a superb entertainer. (pg 73)”
However, when Boori Ma is away one day, thieves break into the house and steal on of the only sinks. The tenants are furious and immediately turn on old Boori Ma. They accuse her of neglecting her duty to watch the gate and throw her out on the street. When Boori Ma attempts to convince them of her innocence, her years of telling tall tales finally catch up with her, “For years we have put up with your lies... You expect us, now, to believe you? (pg 82)”
In an almost identical fashion to the western story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, A Real Durwan shows us what happens when we are not considered trustworthy. Boori Ma never gave the tenants a reason to trust her; her continued refrain is “Believe me, don’t believe me.” So, when she finally did need their trust, when she cried, “Believe me, believe me,” no one did. As a result of her untrustworthy habits, old Boori Ma winds up just like the boy who cried wolf: fending for herself.
Sexy.
Sexy. It’s a word that evokes all sorts of images and connotations; some good some bad. It is fitting then, that it should be the title of a story that focuses on how the same word can mean many different things. Sexy tells the story of an American woman, Miranda, who falls in love with an Indian man, Dev. Dev is a married man, but the two pursue a romantic relationship despite the circumstances. During the story, Miranda attempts to learn more about Indian culture. She also deals with her friend, Laxmi, who is constantly talking about her cousin’s cheating husband.
However, these are but details of the story. The true bulk of the plot lies in the adulterous affair between Miranda and Dev. The clandestine lovers spend months secretly dating, with Dev taking her to all manner of romantic vistas. It is in one of these places that Dev first introduces the main theme of the story. “You’re sexy (pg 91),” he whispers to her. Initially, Miranda perceives this as a very positive thing. “When she closed her eyes she could still feel his whisper drifting through her body, under her skin. (pg 92) ” She is even affected to the point of altering her behavior, “Miranda went to Filene’s Basement to buy herself things she thought a mistress should have. (pg 92)” To her, the word sexy evokes a feeling of excitement, enjoyment, and a hint of danger. It is a good word.
This soon changes. When Laxmi’s cousin comes to visit, Miranda is volunteered to babysit the woman’s son. Over the course of the visit, the young boy finds a cocktail dress that Miranda purchased with the intent of looking sexy for Dev. The boy asks her to put the dress on, and Miranda relents. Much to her surprise, the boy remarks that she looks sexy. Knowing that the boy is far too young to know what that word actually means, she asks him what he thinks it means. His answer is less than encouraging, “‘It means loving someone you don’t know.’ Miranda felt Rohin’s words under her skin, the same way she’d felt Dev’s. But instead of going hot, she felt numb. (pg 107-108)” Suddenly, the word sexy is not a good word anymore.
From that moment on, Miranda feels bad about her relationship with Dev. Because the word sexy now has a connection to the victims of adultery, the prior wife and her children. She cries herself to sleep imagining the situation Rohin must have heard, “‘Tell me,’ Rohin’s mother would shriek, ‘tell me if she’s sexy.’ (pg 108)” Now the word sexy reminds her only of the pain she is causing Dev’s family; of the injustice she is doing to Dev’s wife.
This radical shift reveals how fickle words are. Words, even the same words, can mean entirely different things to different people, or even the same person. Definitions shift, and a word that was previously associated with good feelings is now only associated with bad ones. This shift of connotations causes Miranda to eventually end her adulterous affair; the very word that enticed her from the start, now compelling her to cease
Mrs. Sen’s
Homesickness is a powerful thing. As debilitating as any disease, it can drive us into ruts of despair and make us do things we wouldn’t normally do. The story of Mrs. Sen exemplifies this perfectly. The story revolves around Eliot, an eleven year old boy who spends his afternoons being watched over by Mrs. Sen, a kindly old Indian woman.
Through the impartial eyes of a child, we view Mrs. Sen’s homesickness. “Eliot understood that when Mrs. Sen said home, she meant India, not the apartment. (pg 116)” Mrs. Sen feels that where she is living is not truly a home, and constantly reminisces about India, “Not everybody has a telephone. But just raise your voice a bit, or express grief or joy of any kind, and one whole neighborhood and half of another has come to share the news. (pg 116)”. In America, however, she can raise her voice all she wants, and the most she is likely to get is a call complaining about the noise.
Additionally, she clings on to several Indian customs. The most noteworthy of which is her love of fish, “Mrs. Sen said that she had grown up eating fish twice a day. She added that while the fish at the market tasted nothing like the fish in India, at least they were fresh. (pg 123)” Particularly fond of fresh fish, Mrs. Sen goes so far as to make Mr. Sen come home from work early to drive to the fish market and pick up her orders. This is due to her outright refusal to learn an American custom: driving. “‘No more,’ she said, her forehead resting against the top of the steering wheel. ‘I hate it. I hate driving. I won’t go on.’ (pg 131)”.
Ironically, it is these two things which cause her to lose her status as Eliot’s caretaker. She is driven by her homesickness to pick up a load of fresh fish. She had fish twice a day in India; they remind her of home. However, to get to the fish she must drive to the market. She hates to drive. They had chauffeurs in India. In the end, her nostalgia for fish overpowers her aversion to driving, and she and Eliot set out for the market. Mrs. San crashes the car.
Neither Eliot nor Mrs. San is injured, but Eliot’s mother understandably revokes Mrs. San’s right to watch Eliot after school. Homesickness robbed Mrs. San of her happiness, her livelihood, and the little boy whom she had looked after for months.
This Blessed House.
This story details the lives of a newlywed Indian couple, Sanjeev and his wife, who goes by the name Twinkle. It begins with the two moving into a new home, and uncovering several pieces of Christian memorabilia. Though the couple is Hindu, not Christian, Twinkle delights in the discovery, viewing it as akin to a treasure hunt. She wants to display the pieces and hunt for more, much to the annoyance of Sanj, who hates them. This causes many arguments and is the main source of conflict throughout the story.
From the conflict between Sanj and Twinkle and its eventual resolution, we can draw a point. That point is the value of accepting people for who they are. In the beginning of the conflict, the consequences of not accepting people are shown, “These objects meant something to Twinkle, but they meant nothing to him. They irritated him. (pg 138)” Sanj is unable to accept Twinkle’s affection towards a few seemingly meaningless trinkets, instead allowing it to aggravate him.
From that point on, even aspects of Twinkle’s personality that are completely unrelated to the trinkets begin to aggravate him. “When he asked why she was in bed in the middle of the day she told him she was bored. He had wanted to say, You could unpack some boxes. You could sweep the attic... (pg 141)” Because Sanj cannot accept Twinkle’s idiosyncracies, the conflict between them eventually reaches a boiling point; coming to a head over what to do with a large lawn ornament of the Virgin Mary. “For now, I am going to put [the statue] in the garage. Then tomorrow morning on my way to work, I am going to take it to the dump.’ ‘Don’t you dare. I hate you.’ (pg 148-49)”
But, when things seem to be at their worst, the two manage to settle their dispute with compromise. “In the end they settled on a compromise: the statue would be placed in a recess at the side of the house, so that it wasn’t obvious to passerby, but was still clearly visible to all who came. (pg 149-50)” This underscores the fact that even if someone rubs you the wrong way, compromise can fix the problems without dramatic confrontation. In the end, however, compromise is merely a band-aid. Sanj is only truly happy when he learns to accept his wife for who she is. “He did hate it. She would never put it in her study, he knew. He decided these were among the things that made Prabal think she was wow. (pg 156-57)” Only by learning to celebrate others for their differences and not hate them for them, is lasting happiness achieved.
The Treatment of Bibi Haldar.
The story of the treatment of Bibi Haldar is a sad story with a strange moral. The protagonist, Bibi Haldar, is an Indian woman who has had a strange condition since birth. With no warning, she will sometimes dissolve into uncontrollable seizures. No treatment prescribed by any sort of healer has ever cured her. She lives as a social outcast in a storage shed in her cousin’s property.
Eventually, a doctor prescribes a cure for her condition: Marriage. Coincidentaly, all that Bibi desires for in life is a husband. She constantly daydreams about her wedding, what she would do, who she would invite. However, her condition means that no man would propose to her, and she alternates between blind optimism that she will one day find a man who will overlook it, and bottomless despair that she will never be wed. To add to her misery, her cousin treats her horribly and regards he as a hindrance to his business.
Eventually, her cousin moves out of his shop, she is left alone with no one else in the world, and to top it all off... she gets raped. At this point, it sounds like the most horrible things that could ever happen to a person have happened to this woman. However, in a sense, her life could never be better. Through this sequence of horrible events, the book details the message that sometimes the worst things in life are really blessings in disguise.
For example; being raped, while certainly one of the most horrible things that can happen to a person, provides Bibi with a child to care for. Her cousin’s abandonment of her turned out to be a blessing as well. “...She dusted the shelves and arranged the leftover potions and lotions, selling Haldar’s old inventory at half price... In this manner she raised the boy and ran a business in the storage room.” This shows that in life, even the most horrible of things can be a blessing in disguise. “For years afterward, we wondered who had disgrased her. But there was no point carrying out an investigation. She was, to the best of our knowledge, cured.”
The Third and Final Continent
This is the story of an unnamed Indian narrator. He is born in India, moves to Britain for a time, then settles down in America, the third and final continent. The story focuses on his daily routines in each continent, with specific emphasis on America. In America, he rents a room in the house of a woman who is 103 years old. This is a major point of the story, as the woman’s habits and her extreme age make a large impression on the main character.
Through the accounts of his time with the woman, Mrs. Croft, and the eventual immigration of his wife, Mala, the main character recounts a story that teaches a theme of adaptation. The most obvious is the main character’s adaptation to life in America. He is unfamiliar with American society, as everything is different from England, “I learned that Americans drove on the right side of the road, not the left, and that they called a lift an elevator, and an engaged phone busy. (pg 174)” Eventually, however, he learns to adapt to American culture, “In a week I had adjusted, more or less. I ate cornflakes and milk, morning and night, and bought some bananas for variety, slicing them into the bowl with the edge of my spoon. (pg 175)”
Ironically, another story of adaptation can be found in the old woman, Mrs. Croft. Thought she was born an American and has lived there all her life, she too finds herself in a strange culture. This is because the era she grew up in, the late 1800's was so radically different than the era she lived in at the time of the story, the 1960's. The era was so radically different that she was unable to adapt. “‘For your information, Mother, it’s 1969. What would you do if you actually left the house one day and saw a girl in a miniskirt?’ Mrs. Croft sniffed. ‘I’d have her arrested.’ (pg 186)” Unable to accept things changing around her, Mrs. Croft is trapped in the past, never leaving the house or exposing herself to new ideas.
This distinction between Mrs. Croft, who is set in her ways, and the main character who adapts to his environment shows the importance of adaptation. Whereas Mrs. Croft is trapped in the past, unable to accept the present, the main character goes on to adjust to American culture and make a happy life for himself.
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