Interpreter of Maladies

by Jhumpa Lahiri

Questions for Discussion What kinds of marriage are presented in the stories? One reviewer has written that Lahiri’s “subject is not love’s failure, . . . but the opportunity that an artful spouse (like an artful writer) can make of failure . . .” Do you agree or disagree with that assessment? Lahiri has said, “As a storyteller, I’m aware that there are limitations in communication.” What importance in the stories do miscommunication and unexpressed feelings have? In “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine,” what does the ten-year-old Lilia learn about the differences between life in suburban America and life in less stable parts of the world? What does she learn about the personal consequences of those differences? For Mrs. Sen, “Everything is there” (that is, in India). What instances are there in these stories of exile, estrangement, displacement, and marginality—both emotional, and cultural? What characterizes the sense of community in both the stories set in India and stories set in the U.S.? What maintains that sense, and what disrupts it? Another reviewer has written, “Food in these stories is a talisman, a reassuring bit of the homeland to cling to.” How do food and meal preparation maintain links to the characters’ homelands? What other talismans—items of clothing, for example—act as “reassuring bits of the homeland”? The narrator of “The Third and Final Continent” ends his account with the statement, “Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, ea...