Interpreter of Maladies begins with a story about a couple who becomes depressed over the death of their child and lose the connection to each other. Their lack of relating leads to them breaking up. Interpreter of Maladies ends with a story of a couple who start out as total strangers who then become a loving couple. Eventually in passing they mention their son, a direct result of their successful relationship. These two stories have mirrored sequences of events except for the move to America. The relationships of the couples in them show that in times of strain, there must be an interpreter of maladies to ease the situation.
"A Temporary Matter" features a couple who is blind to each other's thoughts. The day that their baby died, their relationship died. The guilt over not being able to be there for his wife drives Shukumar deeper into himself. He feels as though he cannot speak to his wife, that there is a gap between them. The pain and longing of losing a child consumes Shoba. To her, everything reminds her of what she lost, so she avoids everything by staying out. As Shukumar and Shoba move in opposite directions they need someone to bring them back together and redirect them towards each other.
The narrator in "The Third and Final Continent" has accepted an arranged marriage to a girl in India. His wedding is an event to him, no more personal than to any other average attendee. When his wife joins him in America they are strangers to each other and no reason to care.
I think that there needs to be an interpreter of maladies with all of the couples in the book. The interpreter would ease the communication between the estranged partners like the tour guide in "interpreter of maladies," or the old woman in the last story. That old woman so instrumental that the couple's marriage would've ended up like the couple in the first story had they not went to speak with her.
I also noticed the stark contrast from the first and second story. I actually really liked "The Third and Final Continent" as an ending. To be honest, the theme of dysfunctional marriages was so prevalent in "Interpreter of Maladies" that I was definitely ready for a change. I did point out in class that I kind of found it a bit to much of a happy ending, but the more I thought about it and processed it, I realized that we actually did see Mala and the narrator (was his name mentioned?) go through trials before eventually becoming the stereotypical happy couple, which did make me view it as a more satisfying ending.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. I usually would tend to agree that communication is key to a successful relationship, but in "Temporary Matter" it doesn't seem like a lack of communication is the problem: the whole story consists of them coming together and talking for the first time in a long time, and one result of that talking is that Shoba comes to realize that their relationship will not recover from this grief. In other words, the end of the marriage is not a result of failed communication but of successful communication. But I do see your point about the need for an "interpreter": at the end of these nights of candle-lit conversation, does Shoba still not get that Shukumar is grieving too, in his own way? Is his final revelation to her not an intention to hurt her but to show that the loss of the baby is something he's experienced as well?
ReplyDeleteBut the "interpreter" in the title story *doesn't* clearly help the Das's situation at all. We might even say that they could use something like a temporary power outage to force them to sit and face each other and talk.
I think that the fact that this book starts with such a bleak story helps to make the last story a really solid ending. Especially looking at the loss of the beginning of a life at the beginning, and then this very fulfilled life at the end. In terms of the need for an interpreter I see more of a need for open communication. Clearly there are a lot of dysfunctional relationships in this book, but maybe instead of getting someone to interpret our maladies, we need to interpret out own maladies. That was pretty cheesy, but i'm just trying to get at the fact that Lahiri seems to call on her characters to be more communicative, and when they aren't things go awry. Like in " This Blessed House" the two characters never talked out the issue with the christian stuff, they just kinda passively argued about it.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of an interpreter of maladies being necessary for all marriages is interesting, but I don't think marriage is supposed to work that way. A healthy marriage should involve good communication, not reliance upon an interpreter to avoid falling apart. I did like the continuity that the final story brought to this collection, nicely tying it up.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how large of a role Mrs. Croft actually played in the couple’s relationship. You’re right that they didn’t seem to connect, or have any interest in connecting, when they married or once in America. I think that Mrs. Croft’s comment helped the narrator bring Mala into focus. He realized that she was a human being and his wife, instead of just an object around the house, another thing he had to take care of. I wonder if he would have had the same experience if they had not visited Mrs. Croft. Does it depend on the sequence of event? Or the personalities of the characters? Maybe a mixture of both?
ReplyDeleteI do agree that miscommunication is a large part of it, but another part is just that it seems like no one really cares -- people just ignore the problem and either pretend it doesn't exist or acknowledges that it exists but doesn't put much effort to change it (for most of the stories at least). Mrs. Sens continues to be alone, Mrs. Daz continues to hide her secret, and Shukumar just goes along with Shoba and the marriage is broken.
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