27 pages • 54 minutes read
Jhumpa LahiriMrs. Sen's
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1999A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Jhumpa Lahiri
Lahiri was born in London in 1967. Her parents immigrated from India to London before she was born. At age three, Lahiri moved to the United States. While Lahiri has said that she considers herself American, she is a child of immigrants and therefore associated with both American and Indian cultures.
In an interview with the New York Times, Lahiri said: “I don’t know what to make of the term ‘immigrant fiction.’ Writers have always tended to write about the worlds they come from […] many writers originate from different parts of the world than the ones they end up living in” (Lahiri, Jhumpa. Interview. “Jhumpa Lahiri: By the Book.” New York Times, 5 Sept. 2013). In her novels and short stories, Lahiri explores the inner life of characters who deal with issues of identity, family responsibility, pressures to assimilate, differing customs, and fitting in. Lahiri’s 2003 novel The Namesake follows a man who feels pressure from his family to follow Indian traditions and from American society to assimilate. He wishes to change his given name “Gogol” to the more American “Nick.”
Interpreter of Maladies was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2000, the PEN/Hemingway Award in 1999, and the New Yorker’s Best Debut of the Year 2000. One reviewer noted, “The theme of identity is a constant one, whether it is the battle between dual Indian and American identities, or between the personal and family identity” (Jain, Gunjan. “Book Review: Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri.” Medium, 22 Aug. 2008). Interpreter of Maladies deals with themes of identity and culture through realistic characters with complex desires and behaviors.
Ideological Context: Third-Wave Feminism
Third-wave feminism is a social movement that started in the 1990s. First-wave feminism focused on the fight for women’s voting rights, and second-wave feminism prioritized reproductive rights. In 1989, Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality,” arguing that identities and interests exist in several different dimensions including race, gender, and class. Beginning in the 1990s, feminist activists aimed to cast a wider net that highlighted the intersection of women’s rights and interests with race, gender identity, sexuality, class, ability, and nationality.
Third-wave feminism is more inclusive of trans people and seeks to lift the voices of women from all races. Previous feminist movements predominantly featured the concerns and voices of white women. Many of Lahiri’s works focus on non-white women and the opportunities and struggles particular to their lives and experiences. In this sense, her work reflects the concerns of third-wave feminism Although the feminist movement made strides for women’s rights in America, relationships like Mr. and Mrs. Sen’s continue to exist due to persistent Patriarchal Gender Roles in Marriage, which prioritize men’s needs above women’s.
Literary Context: Immigrant Literature
Interpreter of Maladies includes characters who struggle to conform to American culture despite the promises of a better life implicit in the American dream. Mr. and Mrs. Sen are from India, where family members or parents often select an appropriate match for their child based on class, tradition, religion, and gender roles. While arranged marriages can be emotionally filling and supportive, Mr. and Mrs. Sen’s marriage is unequal and frigid. Mrs. Sen’s emotional needs are not met, and Mr. Sen feels no obligation to consider whether she feels fulfilled in their marriage.
Mrs. Sen reminisces with Eliot about her days in India because she feels alienated in America. There is no community that she participates in. Her situation is indicative of the isolation that can happen after being dislocated to a new country. Instead of chopping vegetables with neighborhood women to help prepare for a wedding as she did in India, she chops vegetables in her small apartment, telling Eliot about the customs of her old life. In contrast to being an integral part of her neighborhood in India, Mrs. Sen is isolated in America with no friends or family members to connect with besides her cold and distant husband. She experiences the loneliness and isolation often characteristic of American life, but without the accompanying freedom of a Western-style marriage.
Identity is an overarching theme of Lahiri’s stories. The identity of someone who has immigrated to a new country is often split into two, due to the difference in society’s standards. Assimilation is the process of adopting a new culture’s way of life by severing connections to and customs of a previous culture. Because immigrants are often discriminated against in their adopted country, assimilation is frequently valued in families that have immigrated.
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