Jhumpa Lahiri's 'Interpreter Of Maladies'

‘Interpreter of Maladies’ explores how one culture adapts to living with another.’ Discuss.

In Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story collection ‘Interpreter of Maladies’, the writer silhouetted the adaption of one culture to live within another in the form of allowing differences to exist and reaching a compromise. Lahiri drew the readers into the witness of different people battling with the obstacles they encounter. While some people like Mrs Sens, fell to the abysm of culture-displacement because of her unwillingness to adjust herself into the new society; whereas for individuals like Mr Kapasi, are stopped by the hindrance of misunderstanding on the way of bridging the culture gap. However, tolerance can resolve the difficulty in the coexisting
This stance was clearly built up in Lahiri’s depiction of Mrs Sen, she came to America with her husband, a professor who adjusted himself finely into the new culture and barely had an understanding of her malady- including the fear of learning to drive and finding the equilibrium of facing new life and homesickness. Learning to drive symbolised to live independently and finally integrating into the American culture, whereas for Mrs Sen, she voiced that she ‘hate it, (I) she hate(s) driving’ after being coerced to drive under Mr Sen’s instruction. Mrs. Sen hatred to drive stemmed from her unwillingness to transform her fear into the courage to change to adapt into the new culture. Also, the fish that she often bought served to illustrate her resistance to accommodate into the new culture, as Mrs Sen recalled solemnly that “everything is there” in India, she relied on fish as a connection to her Indian culture rather than cooking American- style dishes. Under the third-person perspective from Elliot, Mrs. Sens’s story demonstrated that it was not impossible to allow two cultures to coexist within each other, but instead, the potential of reconstructing a person’s feeling of belonging and a sense of self can be pumped through his willingness and the effort that he put in. The story was depicted in a chronological order with dialogues and third person narrative
Through ‘This Blessed House’, Lahiri explored both the complications of an arranged marriage and the adjustment that must be made to accommodate a couple’s disparate cultural background within marriage. Twinkle and Sanjeev, were brought together under their parents’ arrangement. Sanjeev was charmed by Twinkle’s vigour, beauty and social statue, thinking ‘what was there not to love?’ for such a perfect wife. As their marriage moved on he came to realisation that marriage was not just a fleeting sense of happiness within love, but instead, involving finding equilibrium of family harmony and diversification of culture and characteristics. To Sanjeev, Twinkle should be a traditional Indian woman who would ‘sweep the attic and unpacking the boxes’ rather than ‘talking to one of her girlfriends in California even though the long-distance rates were at their peak’. Whereas for Twinkle, she was a second- generation Indian American who was not restrained by her original identity, she had a open mind ready to accept anything outside of her religion of Hindu, she valued ‘every day was a treasure-hunt’, and insisted to put the Christian paraphernalia in the garden. This had sparkled an argument between Sanjeev and Twinkle as he believed this act was prohibited in Hindu, ultimately Twinkle’s crying provoked Sanjeev’s protective reaction and compassion, resulting the compromise they reached. It