In Jhumpa Lahiri’s, Interpreter to Maladies, she explores a variety of themes such as marriage, assimilation, communication, and malady. While each of these themes can be identified and understood throughout the nine different stories, marriage seems to be the most common one being portrayed. Furthermore, Lahiri discusses a wide range of diverse relationships among married couples and reveals how each couple handles different stressors in their lives such as the death of a stillbirth, extramarital affairs, and arranged marriages.
For example, the book starts with “A Temporary Home,” and shares how the death of a stillborn child slowly breaks Shoba and Shukumar’s marriage apart. Towards the beginning of the short story, it is clear that the couple is happy and ready for a child, but it slowly takes a turn for the worse and they began miscommunicating, finding pleasure in other things, and resenting each other for the loss of the child. According to David Gibson (2021), couples who experience a stillbirth have a 40% higher risk of sharing signs of resentment and ending their relationships. Another marriage worth noting is Mr. and Mrs. Das’s in “Interpreter of Maladies.” This short story reveals how Mina (Mrs. Das) lives with guilt and pain because of an affair she had with Raj’s Punjabi friend. Similar to Mina’s actions, 53.5% of all women are known to sleep with their husband’s close friend (McPherson, 2018). Finally, the last story “The Third and Final Continent,” shares a more positive marriage where the narrator and Mala experience geographical separation, cultural hardships, and an arranged marriage in which they overcome to establish a loving and long-lasting relationship.
It is evident that Lahiri does an excellent job conveying the message that all married couples will face some life-altering obstacle, and the outcome is purely defined by their actions. In the end, each of the nine short stories help paint a vibrant picture of the marriages we see in today’s society by sharing their common imperfections.
Citations:
Gibson, D. (2021). Miscarriages and stillbirths put some couples at risk. For Your Marriage. https://www.foryourmarriage.org/blogs/miscarriages-and-stillbirths-put-some-couples-at- risk/
McPherson, D. (2018, April 04). Extramarital sex partners likely to be close friends, and men are more apt to cheat. Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine. https://www.colorado.edu/asmagazine/2018/04/04/extramarital-sex-partners-likely-be-close-friends-and-men-are-more-apt-cheat
Thank you for this great presentation! I appreciated the addition of statistics and facts that related some of the issue brought up in the short stories to real issue that people face. I also enjoyed how you commented about marriage from three different stories, all with very different situations. That shows how there is not one correct way to do marriage. Overall, great job!
Thank you for your presentation. I thought it was neat that you included statistics as it makes what we read in the stories a lot more real given that there are actual numbers to back up their existence. These statistics also help to really showcase that a wide variety of these marriages really do face some sort of trouble so it fed into the main point really well so I appreciated their inclusion. Many people experience personal issues when it comes to relationships they enter so any info that backs up the percentage of people who face the same problems is helpful.
Thank you for your presentation. I enjoyed the fact that you included multiple of Lahiri’s stories to give us multiple examples of what your in trying to explain. I also enjoyed the stats the you included. Lahiri used several stories to portray that marriages all go through obstacles and working through them come in many different ways. Good presentation.
Hi there! I loved your choices in stories to emphasize as they all described a different perspective of marriage that many do not want to discuss. It was very devastating to learn that 40% of marriages are ripped apart due to stillbirth. The facts and statistics you applied were so beneficial and added a realistic factor to your presentation. This variety in presentations of marriage breaks the “single story” perspective. Thanks for sharing!
Hi! Thank you for your great post! You did a great job in analyzing the reason for the marriage issues. You provide us with a detailed overview of the argument between the married couple. In addition, I really like the statistics you provided to us. They are really persuasive to me. Knowing the “stillbirth have a 40% higher risk of sharing signs of resentment and ending their relationships”, I think the real reason behind the horrible statistic is the silence. If a couple doesn’t want to negotiate, their relationship would come to the end.
Your presentation introduced very well. You summarized many stories in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter to Maladies very clearly. I like your description of these different marriages. It can be seen that different marriages face different problems, which is also what the author wants to expose. However, as you mentioned in your presentation, not all marriages are unfortunate and it completely depend on the actions of both husband and wife. I agree with you very much, and you can see it in Lahiri’s article. I think the statistics you use in your presentation are very useful and persuasive, which provides sufficient authenticity and reliability for your explanation. In general, good presentation, well done.
Your presentation was very well put together and I enjoyed reading it. My parents divorced when I was younger and its always interesting to see statics and how people handle situations is what ultimately causes the break. People seem to more likely push away instead of coming together and talking about the problems they have. Great post, it helped prepare me for what type of readings and how to dissect them.
Great job on your presentation and the statistics you included are surprising. I like how you broke down each story and explained in detail the issue. The arranged marriage is interesting, the idea of “learning to fall in love” rather than falling in love then getting married. There have been studies that showed that arranged marriages tend to last longer than non arranged marriages. The idea that your parents and family know what’s best for you. My grandparents have been married for 56 years and they had an arranged marriage. They don’t always see “eye to eye” but there may be something to the notion of learning to love someone.
great job on this context presentation! I really liked how you included real life marriage statistics. It shows that Marriage isn’t just hard but marriage can be affect by so many things. I also like how you share three different stories of how marriage can be affected. Great job!
Great presentation. Your thoughts and analysis on the marriage problems that exist were spot-on and provided a good insight to learn about them clearly. Marriage is not an easy thing and there many perspectives to it that cause issues to arise. The statistics you provided were also a nice touch to see some outside information and facts to showcase marriage difficulties that exist.
Great presentation! I really enjoyed your presentaiton as well as the statistics; it not only helped your points, but it also further informed me how well the stories in the book tie into real life. Some of the numbers you mentioned are actually quite astounding, like how many married women sleep with their husband’s friends. Aside from that, you did a really good job analyzing and interpreting the book to fit into what marriage is like in the real world. So, excellent job!
Awesome job on you’re presentation. I thought you really did a good job on diving into the marriage problems and I liked the statistics you included. Marriage is a tough thing in life that people don’t seem to care about as much anymore which is sad and I think its nice to look at this topic.
Great work on this post! I think you did a really nice job of highlighting the main idea of different kinds of marriages. The statistics you gave also made this presentation really good. You did a nice job of explaining what these numbers mean and how they relate to the story. This gave me a much better understanding of what was going on and how these numbers relate to the story. Overall, really nice job!
Great job on the summary of Interpreter to Maladies, and you did a great job analyzing the issues that would influence marriage. Also, you gave many statistics to support the statement, which is very thoughtful and organized. Thank you for the presentation; it helps us better understand the story.