Jhumpa Lahiri gives a unique perspective on a family of American tourists in Interpreter of Maladies. Mr. Kapasi is a tour guide and translator at a doctors office. However, when he takes the Das family on a tour, he finds himself often diagnosing the maladies of the family. He comments several times on the families seemingly indifferent attitude towards each other. He notices symptoms in the parents such as bickering and having little contact with their children. He diagnoses this as the parents acting as if they were the children's siblings and "they were in charge of the children only for the day..." (Lahiri). However, the family's biggest malady centers around Mrs. Das's unhappiness. This unhappiness stems from her one-sided marriage. In her misery, Mrs. Das has an affair which produces Bobby, adding guilt to the complex emotions of Mrs. Das. Mrs. Das confesses all this to Kapasi, or internally diagnosis her as given up on life.
When the slip of paper containing his address flies away, Kapasi says nothing, despite his earlier fantasies. I believe this was because he realized his fantasy of Mrs. Das was just that, fiction. In reality, she was little more than a selfish, miserable women, searching for a way out.
No comments:
Post a Comment