Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Mrs. Sen’s�? Essay Example
RESEARCH PAPER
JHUMPA LAHIRI’S “MRS. SEN’S”
(INTERPRETER OF MALADIES)
Jhumpa Lahiri, through the stories in her book “Interpreter of Maladies”, sheds light on the experience of immigrants from the subcontinent who face difficulties in adjusting and integrating and as a result feel homesick and isolated in a new world so different from their homeland. The short story “Mrs. Sen’s” is about a thirty-year old Indian woman who migrated to the United States with her husband. Her husband is a professor of mathematics at the university and is gone all day leaving Mrs. Sen behind by herself. She feels lonely and isolated when her husband is away and she therefore baby sits an eleven year old boy named Elliot. She thinks of the times she had back home “sitting in an enormous circle on the roof of her building, laughing and gossiping and slicing fifty kilos of vegetables through the night” (115). She attempts to find the life she had in India but finds it hard to do so in this society which is new to her. Her only connection to the society is the little boy, Elliot. The short story “Third and final continent” is also about a young woman just like Mrs. Sen, who migrates to the United states after getting married but unlike Mrs. Sen, she adjusts well to the life in the United States.
At the start of the story, Lahiri describes Mrs. Sen’s apartment as being decorated in a typical Indian style. Her apartment is what one can say a living example of an archetypal Indian house with “plush pear-colored carpet” (112), unwrapped lamp shades (Lahiri 112) and the “TV and telephone covered by pieces of yellow fabric with scalloped edges” (112) are only a few examples of how her house was decorated. Mrs. Sen is described as wearing a “shimmering white sari patterned with orange paisleys” (112) and she wore “saris of a different pattern each day” (119). Her hair was centered perfectly and “was shaded with crushed vermilion” (117) which married Indian women wear on their scalp just
JHUMPA LAHIRI’S “MRS. SEN’S”
(INTERPRETER OF MALADIES)
Jhumpa Lahiri, through the stories in her book “Interpreter of Maladies”, sheds light on the experience of immigrants from the subcontinent who face difficulties in adjusting and integrating and as a result feel homesick and isolated in a new world so different from their homeland. The short story “Mrs. Sen’s” is about a thirty-year old Indian woman who migrated to the United States with her husband. Her husband is a professor of mathematics at the university and is gone all day leaving Mrs. Sen behind by herself. She feels lonely and isolated when her husband is away and she therefore baby sits an eleven year old boy named Elliot. She thinks of the times she had back home “sitting in an enormous circle on the roof of her building, laughing and gossiping and slicing fifty kilos of vegetables through the night” (115). She attempts to find the life she had in India but finds it hard to do so in this society which is new to her. Her only connection to the society is the little boy, Elliot. The short story “Third and final continent” is also about a young woman just like Mrs. Sen, who migrates to the United states after getting married but unlike Mrs. Sen, she adjusts well to the life in the United States.
At the start of the story, Lahiri describes Mrs. Sen’s apartment as being decorated in a typical Indian style. Her apartment is what one can say a living example of an archetypal Indian house with “plush pear-colored carpet” (112), unwrapped lamp shades (Lahiri 112) and the “TV and telephone covered by pieces of yellow fabric with scalloped edges” (112) are only a few examples of how her house was decorated. Mrs. Sen is described as wearing a “shimmering white sari patterned with orange paisleys” (112) and she wore “saris of a different pattern each day” (119). Her hair was centered perfectly and “was shaded with crushed vermilion” (117) which married Indian women wear on their scalp just