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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In “A Temporary Matter” a married couple, Shoba and Shukumar, are having a hard time with their relationship ever since their baby was born dead. Since then, they seem to avoid each other. Shoba is very independent and was always prepared. For example, “She kept the bonuses from her job in a separate bank account in her name” (Lahiri 6). Shukumar has lost his drive in life, and just does enough to get by.
Shoba’s hobby was to check for typographical errors, and Shukumar was still going to school at 35, even though his drive to be there seemed to be dwindling. “His advisor said ‘…the summer should give you a good push’ but nothing was pushing Shukumar” (Lahiri 4). They were getting bored with their marriage and since they did not have a child, they were not sure what was the next step to take. (I think they feared to try again with another baby because they didn’t want what happened the first time to happen again, and be filled with all the heartbreak a second time). Their answer was to avoid one another. “He and Shoba had become experts at avoiding each other in their three-bedroom house ... in the beginning he had believed it would pass” (Lahiri 5) but it had not.
The couple is informed that their electricity will be shut off each night for an hour. This did help bring them together because it made it easier to talk to one another and share secrets they have not told one another before. Things were going well with the couple until the lights were restored. Shukumar said, “It wasn’t the same … knowing that the lights wouldn’t go out” (Lahiri 20). Therefore, the light the couple may have though they had rekindled, had no chance to survive and that same night, independent Shoba told him that she wanted to move out and get an apartment all by herself. Their relationship now had no chance of survival.
In “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine,” a young Indian girl, Lilia, learns about the world. Her parents invite Mr. Pirzada, a well dressed and well kept man, to stay for dinner in the evenings and watch the news with them every night. Lilia thinks he is like her family, but later finds out that he is from East Pakistan, not India, which makes him a little different. Lilia “began to study him with extra care, to try and figure out what made him different” (Lahiri 30). “They ate pickled mangoes with their meals, ate rice every night for supper with their hands. Like my parents, Mr. Pirzada took off his shoes before entering a room, chewed fennel seeds after meals as a digestive, drank no alcohol, for dessert dipped austere biscuits into successive cups of tea” (Lahiri 25). Lilia thinks he is the same as them, but her father explains the difference to her from a map, and seems to be bothered that she does not know more about the world from school. When Mr. Prizada lived in Pakistan he had a wife and seven children, and Lilia realizes that he misses them. Lilia even prayed for his family because she was worried that they were no longer alive. When Lilia was at school she looked up a book on Pakistan to learn more about Mr. Pirzada’s former home. Later in the story Lilia and her friend Dora go trick-or-treating and Mr. Pirzada becomes worried for the safety of Lilia. When they were done they went to Dora’s house to call Lilia’s parents to check-in. When they were there Lilia notices that Dora’s family does not watch the news of what is happening in the world, like the Pakistan war. Lilia notices how other cultures can relate to one another, like her family and Mr. Pirzada, or how they can be completely oblivious to the others affairs. In the end, Mr. Pirzada returns home to his country of Pakistan after the war and thanks the family for their hospitality.
In “Interpreter of Maladies” a young married couple, Mina and Raj Das, take their three children on a sightseeing trip. The couple disregards their children and do not enjoy one another’s company. For example, when their daughter, Tina, asked her mother to paint her nails because her mother was painting her own, Mina became annoyed and when Tina asked to go to the restroom, both parents were reluctant to take her. The narrator says, “Mr. and Mrs. Das behaved like an older brother and sister, not parents” (Lahiri 49). As the trip carries on Mrs. Das and the tour guide, Mr. Kapasi, begin talking which is unusual because until now Mrs. Das was bored and had not spoke to anyone. It seems that they start to become interested in one another and “forget” about their spouses. Mr. Kapasi becomes very intrigued when she refers to his job of interpreting as romantic. The narrator describes how Mr. Kapasi becomes overwhelmed because, “She did not behave in a romantic way toward her husband and yet she had used the word to describe him” (Lahiri 52). Mrs. Das continues to hold conversation with the tour guide which leads the reader to believe that there is a connection between the two married adults and an affair might occur, especially when Mrs. Das asks for his address or when he is turned on by the back of her bare legs. Later the reader finds out that Mrs. Das was opening up to much to Mr. Kapasi because she had never had a friend, other than Mr. Das, because ever since she was a child she knew him and they were engaged in high school. She had kept a secret from everyone including her husband, that Bobby was not his son, and the guilt had made her miserable for eight long years. Later Mr. Kapasi learns that she only sees him as a father figure and he is let down from all the excitement he had earlier. She had become so open to talk to him because she thought that he could help her with her problem, but he only translated languages, he was not a psychiatrist. He did try to help her though and gave her advice to be honest with him. In the end, the note with Mr. Kapasi’s address floats away in the wind just as quick as he realized that there would never be a relationship with Mrs. Das.
In “A Real Durwan”, an elderly lady named Boori Ma is a stairwell cleaner and guards a building which people live in. Boori Ma says she used to live in luxury but whenever questioned about the situation she says, “Why demand specifics? . . . Believe me, don’t believe me” (Lahiri 72). She likes to tell stories about her past, but tenants of the building think she exaggerates because she worked for a prosperous zamindar. She carries around skeleton keys from her sari, and when the tenants made upgrades to the building, such as basins and painting the shutters, she felt she was no longer needed. Therefore, she left to wander the markets and talked to strangers. Later, the tenants found the basin was broken and the walls had holes in them, they became upset and blamed it on Boori Ma because she had abandoned the building while the workers were there. They felt betrayed and fired her. Shortly after, she realizes the keys had fallen off which symbolizes her transition of letting go of the past and moving on.
In “Sexy”, a woman Miranda meets a married man Dev at Filene’s Basement. At the same time, her friend, Laxmi has a cousin whose husband is having an affair on his wife. Miranda spends time with Dev while is wife is in another country. They spend the night with one another, and Miranda is amazed of how she was treated by him. “Dev was the first always to pay for things, and hold doors open, and reach across a table in a restaurant to kiss her hand (Lahiri 89).” In one of their conversations, Dev told her she was sexy, which she was flattered by. Later Miranda is babysitting a young boy, Rohin, and he asks her to put on a dress, which she had bought for Dev to impress him. She is surprised and eventually she puts it on and says, “You’re Sexy” (Lahiri 107). (The exact same words Dev had said to Miranda.) She asks him what the word ‘sexy’ means and he tells her, “It means loving someone you don’t know” (Lahiri 107). She feels awkward, and realizes that she has to let go of Dev because they do not have anything, and he already is married. She then appreciates the woman’s body and the importance of not wrecking his marriage any more than she already has, and they no longer see one another.
In “Mrs. Sen’s”, a distant Indian couple, Mr. and Mrs. Sen, live at a university in America where he teaches. Mrs. Sen baby sits a boy, Eliot, during the day while his mother is working. The reader senses that she misses India by referring to it as home. A task she is very comfortable with is cutting up vegetables with her blade from India. “She took whole vegetables between her hands and hacked them apart . . . She could peel a potato in seconds” (Lahiri 114).She did this daily and did not mind the responsibility. Her husband though, has more problems helping his wife. She asks him to go to the fish store to pick up fresh fish for supper, and apparently, he complained because she says later to Eliot, “Is it too much to ask?” (Lahiri 125). There is one American trait she is uneasy about which is driving. Back in India, she says, “At home, you know, we have a driver” (Lahiri 113). She knows it would make her babysitting job easier if she knew how, and had her license, but she has troubles overcoming her fear. She practices but every time she ends up quitting. Eventually she is fed up, and decides to drive herself to the market to get the fish when she became scared again wrecked the car. This costs Mrs. Sen her babysitting job, and luckily, neither she nor Eliot had any injuries, but they decided to no longer trust their son with another babysitter.
In “This Blessed House”, a newly wed couple, Sanjeev and Twinkle, have just moved into a new home. Sanjeev is very orderly and self-conscious. He worries about what other people think of him. For example, when he tells Twinkle she does not want her to put the statue of Christian figures around the home or outside on the lawn because they were not Christian, but Hindu. On the other hand, Twinkle is very free spirited. “She seemed content with whatever clothes she found at the front of the closet, with whatever magazine was lying around, with whatever song was on the radio – content yet curious (Lahiri 141). Throughout most of the story, Sanjeev seems to regret marrying Twinkle. “He did not know if he loved her. . . . In truth, Sanjeev did not know what love was” (Lahiri 147). In the new home, the previous owners left statues all over. She is very fond the figurines and likes to display them around the home. “She was like that, excited and delighted by little things” (Lahiri 142). Sanjeev hated them though, and she knew that but it made her happy so he let her have her way. She did not understand why he worried about what others would say or think about him and he did not understand some of Twinkle’s traits. In the end, Sanjeev realize what Twinkle means to her when he sees her cry for the first time. They compromise and realize they will work with one another’s quirks and the reader is left to believe the arranged marriage will work.
In “The Treatment of Bibi Haldar”, a woman has an incurable disease. She has gone to many doctors and had numerous opinions as to what they think will cure her illness, but nothing has worked. There are two things she wants in life, and that is to be cured and to be married. “Bibi wanted a man in life. She wanted to be spoken for, protected, placed on her path in life” (Lahiri 160). She begins to think of all the wedding details such as the invitations and the pictures of the ceremony. “Anticipation began to plague her with such ferocity that the thought of a husband, on which all her hopes were pinned, threatened at times to send her into another attack (Lahiri 160). But a new treatment is prescribed for Bibi, the cure is marriage. Therefore, a search was put out in the newspaper. There is one problem though, Bibi is not ‘wife ready’ by any means. “The girl knows nothing about anything, speaks backward, is practically thirty, can’t light a stove, can’t boil rice (Lahiri 163). The ad was out for awhile and there was no response. She even had help learning wife responsibilities to help prepare her for any interested men, but nothing. Shortly after, her father’s wife has a baby and she becomes sick and they blame it on Bibi and her disease. For that reason, Bibi has to live in the storage room instead of the flat. She began to live her life from the storage room. Whenever asked to go out, she would come up with excuses and says, “The world begins at the bottom of the stairs. Now I am free to discover life as I please” (Lahiri 170). Months passed and she was still secluded from the world. Her father who had moved awhile back, came to visit her and found Bibi to be four months pregnant. She ended up giving birth to her son but, “She could not remember what had happened. She would not tell us who had done it” (Lahiri 172). No one ever found out who had done it, but it did not seem to matter because it cured her.
In “The Third and Final Continent”, a man from India moved to England and then to the United States of America. The man is going to move into an apartment with his arranged wife, Mala, but before she can move in with him, she has to get a green card. When he moves to the United States, he works for Dewey Library, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He first moves into a small place, where a lady, Mrs. Croft owns it. He is fascinated by the woman. He learns she is one-hundred and three years old, is a widow, and is very traditional. “I was mortified. I had assumed Mrs. Croft was in her eighties, perhaps as old as ninety. I had never known a person who had lived for over a century. That this person was a widow who lived alone mortified me further still” (Lahiri 187).Every evening the two of them talk and hold the same conversation about the flag on the moon.
Eventually, Mala received her green card and came to live in the States with her husband. He seems uncertain because they do not know one another very well. He says, “I waited to get used to her, to her presence at my side, at my table and in my bed, but a week later we were still strangers” (Lahiri 192). They went for a walk and visited Mrs. Croft. When they are there, they learn she has broken her hip. She does say one comment about Mala. She says, “She is a perfect lady!” (Lahiri 195). This remark appears to be the turning point in their relationship. They slowly became close to one another, and learned to be a couple. “At night we kissed, shy at first but quickly bold, and discovered pleasure and solace in each other’s arms” (Lahiri 196). They communicated about their lives and began to be husband and wife. Shortly after their visit to Mrs. Croft’s house, he reads in the newspaper that she had passed away. He says “Mrs. Croft’s death was the first death I mourned in America, for hers was the first life I had admired” (Lahiri 196). He realizes how delicate life is and how precious his wife is to him.
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