Interpreter of Maladies Essay & Works Cited PDF

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Essay on "Interpreter of Maladies." Professor was Dr. Kolbinger....

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Brandon Ness Professor Kolbinger UHON-110 Honors English September 15, 2013

In Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies, an Americanized Indian family of five vacations in their not-so-native country of India. Told through third-person narrative, the story follows the internal and external troubles that revolve around the Das family and their tour guide, Mr. Kapasi, an interpreter for a local doctor bound by a depressing arranged marriage. Throughout the story, the difficulty of communication is what shines through as the expressed theme. Lack of communication between both families is the underlying cause of the problems that they each face, and to address, or interpret these maladies would be the only solution for said families. Miscommunication is evident almost immediately upon beginning the story. When Mr. and Mrs. Das’ daughter, Tina, must go to the bathroom, the couple can’t even decide who should take her without an argument ensuing (Lahiri, 43). At this point, it is already quite clear that the couple has some issues. This point is exampled by key words with negative connotation in the story such as “bickered”, “relented” and “dragged” (43). However, the seriousness and exactitude of these problems is still unclear. Continuing on, Mr. Kapasi, the tour guide, is introduced. Mr. Kapasi is of a more traditional Indian background, unlike the Das family, as is evidenced by the greeting that Mr. Kapasi and Mr. Das shared upon meeting (44). This differentiation of cultural backgrounds plays a large role in the overall theme of miscommunication as a whole, which will be discussed later on.

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The distinct communication troubles within the Das family can be seen at several points throughout the story. Mr. and Mrs. Das are constantly depicted doing and saying childish and selfish things that just are not expected of adults, especially parents. Examples of such behavior include when Mrs. Das, on page forty-eight, begins painting her finger nails. Her daughter then begins to beg for her nails to be painted as well, to which Mrs. Das responds, “Leave me alone, you’re making me mess up” (Lahiri, 48). Such a response would be expected from a young girl, perhaps even a teenager, but surely not from the girls’ mother. Mr. Das is not much better, as throughout the story he is almost constantly preoccupied with other things, be it his camera, a map, or a book on the culture of India. At one point in the story, Mr. Das begins to rattle off facts from his book and then immediately afterward begins to snap photos (57). He finds almost no time to talk to his kids and wife unless he is scolding them or telling them what to do. As Mr. Kapasi internally notes at one point during the story, “They were all like siblings” (49). The immature behavior the parents continuously display makes the unhealthy situation they are in a much more understandable one. Lack of communication is further explored as the story begins to describe the unusual life of Mr. Kapasi. The victim of an arranged marriage, the relationship between Mr. Kapasi and his wife is much different than that of Mr. and Mrs. Das. The communication problem here lies in the fact that there is no communication at all. Every night, his wife would make tea and “serve him in silence” (Lahiri, 60). The marriage was probably never one of much conviction, but its strains grew even tighter when their son contracted typhoid several years earlier. After his death, Mr. Kapasi accepted a job as an “interpreter of maladies” for the doctor who had treated his son. This upset his wife due to the everyday relation made between his profession and their deceased son. For this reason, she would never talk about his job, ask about his patients, or inquire about

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how his days at the office went (53). This example points back to the fact that there is poor communication between Mr. Kapasi and his wife and explains why this miscommunication exists. Mr. Kapasi’s main profession of interpretation plays a central role in the miscommunication theme of the story. When Mr. Kapasi reveals this profession to Mrs. Das, she is intrigued, romantically it appears, and this revelation sparks an idea in her head. To learn more, she asks him to describe his profession and tell of his tales in the field. Mr. Kapasi is at first taken off guard, as no one has ever recognized his job as a difficult one, and he often thinks of it as a failure due to his prior education, goals, and dreams (Lahiri, 52). With a hint of pride, Mr. Kapasi relays a description of his job, recalling old medical stories in vivid detail (51). It seems as though they both misinterpret the meaning of Mr. Kapasi’s job. Mrs. Das overromanticizes his job and overdramatizes it as though Mr. Kapasi is a hero. Mr. Kapasi plays off this romanticism and begins creating a glorified image of the situation in his head. He starts to worry about his appearance, his smell, and whether he is saying the right things (53, 55). The situation is dramatized further after Mr. Kapasi takes the photo with the Das family and Mrs. Das asks him for his address (55). This event opens the doorway to communication, and Mr. Kapasi begins fantasizing several situations in which “he would explain things to her … and she would explain things to him about America” (59). This sense of romance eventually leads to the climax point in the story, in which Mrs. Das’ true intentions and expectations of Mr. Kapasi are revealed. At the second ruins site, Mr. Kapasi and Mrs. Das are left alone in the car, and at this point the story reaches its climax point. Entirely misinterpreting his profession, Mrs. Das confesses that her son, Bobby, is not Mr. Das’ son but was conceived eight years earlier by a student friend of her husband (Lahiri, 64). Mrs. Das confides in Mr. Kapasi partly due to “his

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talents,” failing to understand that his interpretation has nothing to do with emotionality. When Mr. Kapasi asks whether she may be feeling “guilt rather than pain,” Mrs. Das becomes bitterly angry, which could also point towards a form of miscommunication, this time between Mr. Kapasi and Mrs. Das (66). It is clear he was not trying to be harsh with this statement, but Mrs. Das took it wrong and overreacts and exits the vehicle in a huff. After exiting the car, the snacks in her purse attract the monkeys to Bobby, and they begin to attack him. Taking the initiative, Mr. Kapasi rescues Bobby from the monkeys. While comforting Bobby, the address falls from her purse and blows away in the wind, permanently terminating all possibility of their communication while also metaphorically representing the inevitable doom of their friendships and marriages (69). In the end, it was all an illusion, and the whole picture was disintegrated in these final pages of the story. As Noelle Brada-Williams points out in her analysis Reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies as a Short Story Cycle, Mr. Kapasi may have been trying to live out his fantasy of communication by creating his relationship with Mrs. Das (Brada-Williams, 458). However, he has long “let go of this fantasy” by the time the paper bearing his address blows off in the wind (458). This interpretation brings in a different view of the communicative issues in the story. Mr. Kapasi not only lacks communication with his wife, but he may have also been seeking it in his job, as referenced earlier in the story when he speaks of his prior goals and dreams (Lahiri, 52). In conclusion, Interpreter of Maladies was a play on the title itself. Interpretation, a form of communication, is themed throughout the story, but in the end neither Mr. Kapasi nor Mrs. Das are able to interpret the true root of their problems. The lack of communication felt throughout the story did not falter, and Mr. Kapasi’s skills in interpretation, though promising,

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are still unable to form a permanent solution. The failing marriages in the story did not find resolution because they were unable to communicate their emotions or the truth.

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Works Cited Lahiri, Jhumpa. "Interpreter of Maladies." Interpreter of Maladies: Stories. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999. 43-69. Print. Brada-Williams, Noelle. "Reading Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies as a Short Story Cycle." MELUS 4th ser. 29.3 (2004): 451-64. Print....