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read in November, 2007
Shirley said:
"In her review in of Interpreter of Maladies in The Explicator, Jennifer Bess contrasts “Mrs. Sen’s” and “This Blessed House” with “The Third and Final Continent.” According to Bess, flawed marriage is the reason why the characters in th...more
In her review in of Interpreter of Maladies in The Explicator, Jennifer Bess contrasts “Mrs. Sen’s” and “This Blessed House” with “The Third and Final Continent.” According to Bess, flawed marriage is the reason why the characters in the former two stories fail to find global and self-awareness. In “Mrs. Sen’s”, the title character “attempts to become a global citizen by maintaining her Indian identity at the same time she adapts to American culture” (Bess 125), but is unable to assimilate because her husband has anchored himself to an American university. Sanjeev and Twinkle “suffer a similar fate” (Bess 126) in “This Blessed House” as a result of their mismatched marriage. In the last of Lahiri’s short stories, however, the unnamed narrator’s relationship with his landlord, Mrs. Croft, leads to the satisfaction of both parties, and therefore the discovery of humanity, allowing the narrator to experience a life that is both “universally human” (Bess 127-128) and unique. In this way, transient relationships lead to the convergence of “the universal and the individual” (Bess 128).
Bess’s critique of Lahiris' collection demonstrates its emphasis on not just the immigrant experience but also human relationships without regard to race. It also suggests a theme of balance found throughout Lahiri's stories. For example, while the “A Real Durwan” and “The Treatment of Bibi Haldar” are similar in their lack of American characters, the former depicts the denunciation of its main character, Boori Ma, while the latter reveals the eventual acceptance of the main character by her community. The review, however, is limited by its omission of certain nuances. Though Bess claims that Mrs. Sen tries both to adapt American culture and to retain her Indian culture, she actually seems solely concerned with preserving her Bengali traditions, as seen by her preference for native ingredients and tools. Mrs. Sen herself, rather than her husband, causes her own loss of identity and belonging. Furthermore, the comparison of “Mrs. Sen’s” with “This Blessed House” is ill-fitting. Whereas the former places emphasis on the immigrant experience, the latter is concerned with a first-generation Indian-American couple. That the two stories are not as similar as Bess argues complicates the way the reader is able to compare the two with “The Third and Final Continent.”
Indeed, the reader must question what role transient relationships really do play in the collection. The transient relationship between Mrs. Sen and Eliot in “Mrs. Sen’s” is unaddressed by Bess. Although Eliot aids the reader in seeing the contrast between American and Bengali lifestyles, his relationship with her does not contribute to any gain in the understanding of humanity or self. Thus, not all short relationships result in satisfaction. Bess also overlooks the fact that in “The Third and Final Continent,” Mrs. Croft plays a large role in catalyzing his relationship with his wife, which comes to comprise a crucial part of his success and well being. Not only is this a beneficial marriage, even Sanjeev and Twinkle’s union in “This Blessed House” is one of not only misunderstanding but also concession. At the very end of the story, Sanjeev’s care “not to let the feather hat slip” (Lahiri 157) from the bust that Twinkle finds can be viewed as an effort to compromise with his wife despite his abhorrence of the bust. In short, the reader is not to view the relationships in Lahiri’s stories as extremes. Given the multiple perspectives with which the reader is able to view the “other,” it is unlikely that Lahiri would try to define long-term ethnic relationships, especially marriages, in a strictly pessimistic manner. Instead, Lahiri’s short stories work to deconstruct both submissive wife/violent husband and dominatrix wife/emasculated husband stereotypes. ...less
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