Proposal
Jhumpa Lahiri’s work, Interpreter of Maladies, is a collection of nine stories each one centering on characters of Indian decent either living in the United States or in India. The characters in these stories have something else in common besides their ethnic backgrounds. In these stories, especially in “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine,” “Interpreter of Maladies,” “Mrs. Sen’s,” and “The Third and Final Continent,” the characters go through a realization of identity because of their connection to their Indian culture. In the story “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine,” it is told in the point of view of a young girl named Lilia, who is confused about what cultural differences exist between her family, an Indian family, and Mr. Pirzada who is a Pakistani scholar. In the title story “Interpreter of Maladies,” Mr. Kapasi, a tour guide in India and interpreter for a local doctor who does not see the importance of his job, gives a tour for an Indian-American family. When Mrs. Das, the American woman on the tour tells him that she finds his interpreting job romantic and important, he becomes infatuated with her because she makes him feel important. In the story of “Mrs. Sen’s,” and young boy is under the care of a woman, Mrs. Sen, who is having a great deal of trouble assimilating into America and identifies herself through her husband’s name and occupation. In Lahiri’s last story in her novel, “The Third and Final Continent,” the nameless narrator retells his first six-weeks in America balancing his new job, a new wife, and a whole new country. In this time, he is renting a room from a 103 year-old woman, Mrs. Croft, until his wife Mala arrives from India. He and his wife are strangers at first until he takes her to meet Mrs. Croft where the old woman praises Mala and they share a smile, which leads to a long and happy marriage. The characters in these stories experience and gain an understanding of identity in different ways but these four stories are connected because of how they greatly encompass an awakening through an understanding of themselves. It is in these stories that Jhumpa Lahiri shows her audience that identity is not only what we make of it but that identity derives from culture and its borders. I will discuss this through the lens of post-colonialism theory combined with border theory because of the emphasis placed on culture and identity in these theories.
Annotated Bibliography
Annotated Bibliography
Bhattacharjya, Mithun. "Geo-politics and Construction of Identity in Jhumpa Lahiri's Story When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine." Golden Research Thoughts 1.10 (2012): 1-3. Web. Academic Search Complete. 13 Oct. 2012.
In this article the author analyzes Lahiri’s story, “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine.” The author discusses that Lahiri shows the reader how identity is constructed through Lilia’s eyes in the story as well as how this story raises questions about political lines and global connectivity. The author also discusses Lilia’s confusion on the differences between Mr. Pirzada and her parents although they share many similarities. This article will assist me in my work because it is specifically about identity in one of Lahiri’s stories. I plan to use the following quotes from this article in my work: “When Mr. Pirzada came to Dine is, uniquely important because it does not narrows itself down to the binary opposition of ‘home’ and ‘host’ culture; the story cuts across various significations of ‘identity’ and shows the impossibility of ascertaining the identity based upon any fixed determinant,” and “Lilia’s mounting confusions as to determining the ‘identity’ of Mr. Pirzada does crisscross the multifarious tributaries to the construction ‘identity.’”
Ganeri, Jonardon. “Intellectual India: Reason, Identity, Dissent.” New Literary History: A Journal of Theory and Interpretation 40.2 (2009): 247-263. Web. MLA International Bibliography. 20 Oct. 2012.
In this work, Ganeri claims that the appeal of the traditions of India is meaningless if it does not involve the details of those traditions. He talks about how Indian identities revolve around the idea of who to be and how to act. He discusses the arguments of other writers, Amartya Sen and Akbar, to discuss the “autonomy of reason.” This article will help with my literary analysis because of its discussion on Indian traditions and ideals. I intend to use the following quotations from Ganeri’s work: “Public reasoning is fundamental to both democratic politics and secular constitutional arrangements, and it is no accident that India, with its extensive traditions of tolerance and the admission of dissenting voices in public discourse, should have deep democratic and secular instincts,” and “Modern Indian identities in the global diaspora, as much as in India itself can call upon all these voices and traditions, re-think them, adapt and modify them, use the resources of reason they make available in deliberation about who to be, how to behave, and on what to agree. That is a fundamental freedom, one which he ought not to be surrendered in binding oneself to narrower, constricted understanding of what India is.”
Karunakar, P. “Threat of Globalization to Indigenous Peoples’ Culture and Identities in India.” Fourth World Journal 10.2 (2011): 153-166. Web. Academic Search Complete. 13 Oct. 2012.
This article analyzes how western centric globalization has profited for itself and that in the process has taken away from the culture and identity of the indigenous people of India. The author also discusses how there has be a great divide between the “have and have-nots” the have-nots being the indigenous and how globalization has caused this. It has been described in detail the cultural and political life of the indigenous as well as their socio-economic life and how it has slowly worn away due to globalization. This work will be relevant to mine because it will help me to understand some if the background of India. I plan on using the following quotes in my work: “They are isolated and discriminated in every walks of socio-economic, political and cultural life. In fact, for outsiders they appear to be rigid, stubborn, and unwilling people to give up their cultural ethos and religious lifestyles. But there is nothing wrong in safeguarding their culture as they are very strong in dogmas and rituals and high self respected people indeed,” and “India embraced the idea of globalization in1990s with its new economic policy and structural adjustment programs. As such innumerable industries, irrigation projects (dams), companies and educational institutions both local and global have been established all over the nation. These developments may have contributed immensely for the development of the nation but along with that it has given rise to several human rights issues, which are as important as the development of the nation.”
Koshy, Susan. “Minority Cosmopolitanism.” PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 126.3 (2011): 592-609. Web. MLA International Bibliography. 22 Oct. 2012.
In this article, Koshy discusses how ethnic literature has been greatly translated and spread internationally and how these texts challenge the boundaries of ethnic and world literature. Koshy uses Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies to discuss this because of how Lahiri uses a diasporic citizen in these stories to show the “cosmopolitanism” of being a minority. This essay will help because it discusses Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, Interpreter of Maladies, and the purposes she uses her characters for. I will be using the following quotations for evidence in my work: “to show how its narratives of worlding contest contemporary economic and political processes of globalization and Eurocentric accounts of globality. The cosmopolitanism the stories envision takes as its central figure the diasporic citizen, but Lahiri’s variations on the figure expand it so that it can contain worlds. Although the main characters in the stories cover a range of categories—new immigrant, refugee, resident alien, member of a racial minority—diasporic citizenship encompasses these differences and is presented not as an identity but as a condition under globalization that affects the long- settled and the migrant in multiple locations. Through this figure, Lahiri pushes us to imagine an impossible hospitality from the position of the other who cannot feel at home,” and “In Interpreter of Maladies, the lack of correspondence or lag between cultural and political citizenship characterizes both ends of the hyphen in the South Asian diaspora. The noncoincidence of nation (the cultural identity binding a population as a people) and state (the political body with sovereign jurisdiction over a territory) in both locales is emphasized in narratives of characters who may have formal citizenship in a state but are excluded from or tangential to its cultural national genealogies. These forms of what I name exorbitant citizenship expose the limits of civil rights in securing belonging and stress the myriad ways in which gender, religion, race, class, and sexuality configure the norms of proper citizenship.”
Mitra, Madhuparna. "Lahiri's MRS. SEN'S." Explicator 64.3 (2006): 193-196. Web. Academic Search Complete. 13 Oct. 2012.
Mitra’s article strictly analyzes Lahiri’s story, Mrs. Sen’s. She discusses the reoccurring motif in the story as well as the other stories in the novel, isolation experienced by Indian immigrants because of the cultural difference. She also discusses the issue raised by this piece, which is Mrs. Sen’s emotional health, as well as Mrs. Sen’s Bengali identity. This article is relevant to my work through its analysis of “Mrs. Sen’s” and how it relates to her cultural identity. I will use the following quotes from this article in my work: “If the bonti symbolizes Mrs. Sen’s Bengali identity, her vexed relationship with the car represents the failure to forge a successful Bengali-American self,” and “In the whole collection of stories, Lahiri’s narrative stance is extremely nonjudgmental. Marked by quiet plots, the stories achieve their power through nuance. So although we certainly sympathize with Mrs. Sen’s predicament, we cannot help but ask this question: at what point does an immigrant have to make assimilative compromises? Early in the story, Mrs. Sen asserts of her home in Calcutta: “Everything is there” (113). The all-encompassing “everything” is telling, for its corollary is “Here there is nothing.” It suggests that Mrs. Sen’s psychological state is not conducive to adaptation.”
Smith, Karen. "India's Identity and its Global Aspirations." Global Society: Journal of Interdisciplinary International Relations 26.3 (2012): 369-385. Web. Academic Search Complete. 13 Oct. 2012.
In this article, Smith discusses the question of whether or not India’s identity plays a specific role in the redistribution of wealth and power in the international system. Smith does this by analyzing identity constructions and perspectives on what role the country should play. She also discusses how India’s numerous identities have lead to India’s foreign policy. This article will be useful to my work because it analyzes India’s identity as a whole, allowing me to have insight into the culture of the country where the stories originate. I intend to use the following evidence from this article in my work: “With regard to internal influences, various domestic factors shape state identities and how these are expressed in foreign policy. When speaking about India’s national or state identity, it must be kept in mind that this exists in tension with India’s numerous sub-national identities. Some authors emphasize the fact that India’s national identity is particularly precarious and that numerous subnational ethnic, religious and linguistic identities threaten the notion of a united India. It must also be kept in mind that internally, multiple perceptions of identity vie for dominance,” and “While India’s aspirations to great power status were initially hampered by a lack of economic and military resources, Indian policymakers used ideological and diplomatic power in its stead. As a result, in the first two decades after independence, India acquired a leadership role in international relations out of proportion to its material power capabilities. This new leadership role was something that many Indians believed was long overdue. Over the past two decades, in light of India’s unprecedented economic growth and new status as a (albeit unofficial) nuclear power, the rest of the world is finally catching up with India’s own image of itself.”
Williams, Laura Anh. "Foodways and Subjectivity in Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies." Melus 32.4 (2007): 69-79. EBSCO. Web. 5 Sept. 2012.
This article is a literary analysis of Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, Interpreter of Maladies. This analysis focuses greatly on Lahiri’s use of food as a metaphor in three of the stories from Lahiri’s novel. Those stories are “A Temporary Matter,” “Mrs. Sen’s,” and “This Blessed House.” What ties these stories together, according to Williams, is that the characters have a relationship with food. This article is particularly helpful with the segment on “Mrs. Sen’s,” because it gives a good explanation on how Mrs. Sen feels about her identity. From this selection, I intend to use the following quotations in my own work: “Her solitary chopping and the stories she tells Eliot of her past life are a means of crafting her identity. She prepares food despite the absence of her friends and family. Most of all, she performs specific acts—caring for Elliot and chopping vegetables—that are well within her knowledge and expertise. Receiving news of fresh fish from the local merchants is the only thing that makes her as happy as receiving mail from India. Food preparation is linked not only to Mrs. Sen's subjectivity, but also her ethnic identity and her ability to forge a connection with others,” and “Lahiri describes this story in an interview, there were many "women like her who were basically living in the United States because of their husbands and didn't have an identity or a purpose of their own here" (Frankfort and Ciuraru 132). Mr. Sen cannot seem to conceive of the existential importance of fresh fish, or the ways cooking helps his wife shape her identity in the United States.”
Bhattacharjya, Mithun. "Geo-politics and Construction of Identity in Jhumpa Lahiri's Story When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine." Golden Research Thoughts 1.10 (2012): 1-3. Web. Academic Search Complete. 13 Oct. 2012.
In this article the author analyzes Lahiri’s story, “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine.” The author discusses that Lahiri shows the reader how identity is constructed through Lilia’s eyes in the story as well as how this story raises questions about political lines and global connectivity. The author also discusses Lilia’s confusion on the differences between Mr. Pirzada and her parents although they share many similarities. This article will assist me in my work because it is specifically about identity in one of Lahiri’s stories. I plan to use the following quotes from this article in my work: “When Mr. Pirzada came to Dine is, uniquely important because it does not narrows itself down to the binary opposition of ‘home’ and ‘host’ culture; the story cuts across various significations of ‘identity’ and shows the impossibility of ascertaining the identity based upon any fixed determinant,” and “Lilia’s mounting confusions as to determining the ‘identity’ of Mr. Pirzada does crisscross the multifarious tributaries to the construction ‘identity.’”
Ganeri, Jonardon. “Intellectual India: Reason, Identity, Dissent.” New Literary History: A Journal of Theory and Interpretation 40.2 (2009): 247-263. Web. MLA International Bibliography. 20 Oct. 2012.
In this work, Ganeri claims that the appeal of the traditions of India is meaningless if it does not involve the details of those traditions. He talks about how Indian identities revolve around the idea of who to be and how to act. He discusses the arguments of other writers, Amartya Sen and Akbar, to discuss the “autonomy of reason.” This article will help with my literary analysis because of its discussion on Indian traditions and ideals. I intend to use the following quotations from Ganeri’s work: “Public reasoning is fundamental to both democratic politics and secular constitutional arrangements, and it is no accident that India, with its extensive traditions of tolerance and the admission of dissenting voices in public discourse, should have deep democratic and secular instincts,” and “Modern Indian identities in the global diaspora, as much as in India itself can call upon all these voices and traditions, re-think them, adapt and modify them, use the resources of reason they make available in deliberation about who to be, how to behave, and on what to agree. That is a fundamental freedom, one which he ought not to be surrendered in binding oneself to narrower, constricted understanding of what India is.”
Karunakar, P. “Threat of Globalization to Indigenous Peoples’ Culture and Identities in India.” Fourth World Journal 10.2 (2011): 153-166. Web. Academic Search Complete. 13 Oct. 2012.
This article analyzes how western centric globalization has profited for itself and that in the process has taken away from the culture and identity of the indigenous people of India. The author also discusses how there has be a great divide between the “have and have-nots” the have-nots being the indigenous and how globalization has caused this. It has been described in detail the cultural and political life of the indigenous as well as their socio-economic life and how it has slowly worn away due to globalization. This work will be relevant to mine because it will help me to understand some if the background of India. I plan on using the following quotes in my work: “They are isolated and discriminated in every walks of socio-economic, political and cultural life. In fact, for outsiders they appear to be rigid, stubborn, and unwilling people to give up their cultural ethos and religious lifestyles. But there is nothing wrong in safeguarding their culture as they are very strong in dogmas and rituals and high self respected people indeed,” and “India embraced the idea of globalization in1990s with its new economic policy and structural adjustment programs. As such innumerable industries, irrigation projects (dams), companies and educational institutions both local and global have been established all over the nation. These developments may have contributed immensely for the development of the nation but along with that it has given rise to several human rights issues, which are as important as the development of the nation.”
Koshy, Susan. “Minority Cosmopolitanism.” PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 126.3 (2011): 592-609. Web. MLA International Bibliography. 22 Oct. 2012.
In this article, Koshy discusses how ethnic literature has been greatly translated and spread internationally and how these texts challenge the boundaries of ethnic and world literature. Koshy uses Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies to discuss this because of how Lahiri uses a diasporic citizen in these stories to show the “cosmopolitanism” of being a minority. This essay will help because it discusses Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, Interpreter of Maladies, and the purposes she uses her characters for. I will be using the following quotations for evidence in my work: “to show how its narratives of worlding contest contemporary economic and political processes of globalization and Eurocentric accounts of globality. The cosmopolitanism the stories envision takes as its central figure the diasporic citizen, but Lahiri’s variations on the figure expand it so that it can contain worlds. Although the main characters in the stories cover a range of categories—new immigrant, refugee, resident alien, member of a racial minority—diasporic citizenship encompasses these differences and is presented not as an identity but as a condition under globalization that affects the long- settled and the migrant in multiple locations. Through this figure, Lahiri pushes us to imagine an impossible hospitality from the position of the other who cannot feel at home,” and “In Interpreter of Maladies, the lack of correspondence or lag between cultural and political citizenship characterizes both ends of the hyphen in the South Asian diaspora. The noncoincidence of nation (the cultural identity binding a population as a people) and state (the political body with sovereign jurisdiction over a territory) in both locales is emphasized in narratives of characters who may have formal citizenship in a state but are excluded from or tangential to its cultural national genealogies. These forms of what I name exorbitant citizenship expose the limits of civil rights in securing belonging and stress the myriad ways in which gender, religion, race, class, and sexuality configure the norms of proper citizenship.”
Mitra, Madhuparna. "Lahiri's MRS. SEN'S." Explicator 64.3 (2006): 193-196. Web. Academic Search Complete. 13 Oct. 2012.
Mitra’s article strictly analyzes Lahiri’s story, Mrs. Sen’s. She discusses the reoccurring motif in the story as well as the other stories in the novel, isolation experienced by Indian immigrants because of the cultural difference. She also discusses the issue raised by this piece, which is Mrs. Sen’s emotional health, as well as Mrs. Sen’s Bengali identity. This article is relevant to my work through its analysis of “Mrs. Sen’s” and how it relates to her cultural identity. I will use the following quotes from this article in my work: “If the bonti symbolizes Mrs. Sen’s Bengali identity, her vexed relationship with the car represents the failure to forge a successful Bengali-American self,” and “In the whole collection of stories, Lahiri’s narrative stance is extremely nonjudgmental. Marked by quiet plots, the stories achieve their power through nuance. So although we certainly sympathize with Mrs. Sen’s predicament, we cannot help but ask this question: at what point does an immigrant have to make assimilative compromises? Early in the story, Mrs. Sen asserts of her home in Calcutta: “Everything is there” (113). The all-encompassing “everything” is telling, for its corollary is “Here there is nothing.” It suggests that Mrs. Sen’s psychological state is not conducive to adaptation.”
Smith, Karen. "India's Identity and its Global Aspirations." Global Society: Journal of Interdisciplinary International Relations 26.3 (2012): 369-385. Web. Academic Search Complete. 13 Oct. 2012.
In this article, Smith discusses the question of whether or not India’s identity plays a specific role in the redistribution of wealth and power in the international system. Smith does this by analyzing identity constructions and perspectives on what role the country should play. She also discusses how India’s numerous identities have lead to India’s foreign policy. This article will be useful to my work because it analyzes India’s identity as a whole, allowing me to have insight into the culture of the country where the stories originate. I intend to use the following evidence from this article in my work: “With regard to internal influences, various domestic factors shape state identities and how these are expressed in foreign policy. When speaking about India’s national or state identity, it must be kept in mind that this exists in tension with India’s numerous sub-national identities. Some authors emphasize the fact that India’s national identity is particularly precarious and that numerous subnational ethnic, religious and linguistic identities threaten the notion of a united India. It must also be kept in mind that internally, multiple perceptions of identity vie for dominance,” and “While India’s aspirations to great power status were initially hampered by a lack of economic and military resources, Indian policymakers used ideological and diplomatic power in its stead. As a result, in the first two decades after independence, India acquired a leadership role in international relations out of proportion to its material power capabilities. This new leadership role was something that many Indians believed was long overdue. Over the past two decades, in light of India’s unprecedented economic growth and new status as a (albeit unofficial) nuclear power, the rest of the world is finally catching up with India’s own image of itself.”
Williams, Laura Anh. "Foodways and Subjectivity in Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies." Melus 32.4 (2007): 69-79. EBSCO. Web. 5 Sept. 2012.
This article is a literary analysis of Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, Interpreter of Maladies. This analysis focuses greatly on Lahiri’s use of food as a metaphor in three of the stories from Lahiri’s novel. Those stories are “A Temporary Matter,” “Mrs. Sen’s,” and “This Blessed House.” What ties these stories together, according to Williams, is that the characters have a relationship with food. This article is particularly helpful with the segment on “Mrs. Sen’s,” because it gives a good explanation on how Mrs. Sen feels about her identity. From this selection, I intend to use the following quotations in my own work: “Her solitary chopping and the stories she tells Eliot of her past life are a means of crafting her identity. She prepares food despite the absence of her friends and family. Most of all, she performs specific acts—caring for Elliot and chopping vegetables—that are well within her knowledge and expertise. Receiving news of fresh fish from the local merchants is the only thing that makes her as happy as receiving mail from India. Food preparation is linked not only to Mrs. Sen's subjectivity, but also her ethnic identity and her ability to forge a connection with others,” and “Lahiri describes this story in an interview, there were many "women like her who were basically living in the United States because of their husbands and didn't have an identity or a purpose of their own here" (Frankfort and Ciuraru 132). Mr. Sen cannot seem to conceive of the existential importance of fresh fish, or the ways cooking helps his wife shape her identity in the United States.”
Reflection
The concept of the annotated bibliography was not a new concept for me, but writing a proposal for my final work, however, was a new concept. I felt that the peer editing groups are what really helped me improve on this assignment. What also helped with my improvement was that I did not wait to do the whole assignment the night before it was due. By breaking the assignment up into pieces, I felt that I was able to accomplish more.