A FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE ON JHUMPA LAHIRI’S WOMEN IN the “INTERPRETER OF MALADIES”

 

A FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE ON JHUMPA LAHIRI’S WOMEN IN the “INTERPRETER OF MALADIES”

by

Suparna Sinha

ABSTRACT

The objective of this paper is to analyze some of the women characters of Jhumpa Lahiri’s book, “Interpreter of Maladies” and infer whether her stories could also be termed as feminist literature. The trials and tribulations of the female diaspora some of who left their own country due to marriage or Partition, have been carefully examined in this article, and compared with the tenets of Feminism as outlined in Mary Wollstonecraft's `A Vindication of the Rights of Woman’. A humble attempt has been made to study the characterization of seven female characters of seven stories of the book. The women are diverse in age, education, financial status, marital status, country of origin and attitude. They are immigrants in Boston, like Mrs. Sen in “Mrs. Sen’s” and Mala in “The Third and Final Continent”, first generation immigrants like Mina in “Interpreter of Maladies” and Twinkle in “The Blessed House”, or a poor refugee from Bangladesh like Boori Ma in “A Real Durwan”. Some of her women are highly educated like Twinkle and Shobha, just educated enough to get a “good husband” like Mrs. Sen and Mala, or uneducated like Boori Ma and Bibi Haldar. Though apparently divergent, they share some traits in common. They are emotionally fragile, dwell in their ‘glorious’ past to avoid loneliness and attract attention, and are observed and valued for their physical appearance and demeanour by their men. In short, they exhibit the characteristics and live a lifestyle which Mary Wollstonecraft discusses in her seminal book. It is for these reasons that Lahiri’s debut Pulitzer Prize winning book can be considered as an example of Feminist Literature.

 

 

 

 

Shobha in “A Temporary Matter” is a young and educated, woman of thirty-three, who is dealing with life after a miscarriage. The miscarriage has taken a toll on her somatic and mental health. She no longer seems to be bothered about her looks. “….looking at thirty-three the type of woman she’d once claimed she would never resemble”(1) The room that she and her husband Shukumar had set up for their soon-to-arrive baby had haunted her after the miscarriage and she avoided going into that room. This shows the emotional toll the miscarriage had taken on her.

Methodical to the core, she plans for groceries weeks in advance, buys in bulk during discounts, and keeps a track of doctor appointments. “She was the type to prepare for surprises, good or bad”(2). But she was not prepared for the bad surprise and her life had gone out of order after that, and it was reflected in her behaviour, demeanour and conversations. Shukumar, on the other hand, hadn’t changed much since the mishap, and he seemed to be pursuing his doctorate disinterestedly as he always did. When he would hear Shobha approaching the room “…..he put away his novel and begin typing sentences..”(3) Shobha was under the impression that he was working very hard for his dissertation and would advise him not to work so hard. It could be mentioned here that higher education is predominantly the prerogative of men, they could be of any age, interested or not, and still be studying. While Shobha is trying to pick herself up after the miscarriage, which she is not able to fully, and yet has to handle an immense workload at office, and bring some work home too.”He thought of how he no longer looked forward to weekends, when she sat for hours on the with her coloured pencils and her files,….”. (4) Work was a distraction for her, to distract her from the bad times she went through, and also an excuse to let her be away from Shukumar. She also has to look young and fresh, and carry herself with poise as the lack of those “womanly” attributes get noticed by Shukumar. This sort of observation clearly shows that women are more appreciated for their physical charms. Mary Wollstonecraft says, ”Men look for beauty and the simper of good-humoured docility”(5)

This obsession with external beauty and demeanour can also be seen in Lahiri’s last story “The Third and Final Continent”. Here too Mala’s husband is unsure about how she would fit in the American culture. An incident on the road which he witnesses, affects him. He thinks that something similar may also happen to Mala. In short, he is more insecure about Mala, than she about herself. He needs the “approval” of a hundred year old, bed-ridden, mentally not very stable, American woman, who likes Mala instantly.”She is a perfect lady!” This makes him reconsider his previous observations about her, and begins to start liking her. “I like to think of that moment in Mrs. Croft’s parlor as the moment when the distance between Mala and me began to lessen”(6). Not once, in the above story, has her education, skills or passions been discussed, because they were never thought to be relevant to Mala’s husband.. Wollstonecraft quotes Rousseau who had outlined a plan for the education of women. “For my part, I would have a young Englishwoman cultivate her agreeable talents in order to lease her future husband with as much care and assiduity as a young Circassian cultivates hers, to fit her for the harem of a Circassian bashaw”(7). In other words the women should have that much of an education to prepare them to be a pleasant companion to their husbands. The men have emigrated to greener pastures for higher studies or jobs, and the women have been uprooted from their home country, where they were well-ensconced with their milieu, customs, culture, food, amenities, only to be artificially planted in foreign soil, just to take care of their husbands, cook and clean, be presentable, and adapt to the American way of life. This becomes a routine for them. A woman is compared to a soldier by Wollstonecraft. “The consequences are similar; soldiers acquire a little superficial knowledge, snatched from the muddy current of conversation, and, from continually mixing with society they gain, what is termed as a knowledge of the world; and this acquaintance with manners and customs has frequently been confounded with the knowledge of the human heart.”(8)

Mrs. Sen in the story “Mrs. Sen’s” is also living her life like an automaton. Elliot used to watch Mrs. Sen’s daily routine. “Each afternoon Mrs. Sen would lift the blade and locked it into place, so that it met the base at an angle….She could peel a potato in seconds…..The daily procedure took about an hour. “ (9)  She is hard-wired into following a dull and monotonous routine. This makes her mind so rigid, that any sort of creative thinking, or learning a new skill like driving becomes impossible and traumatic for  her. Also, she associates her driving with her childhood spent in India. When Elliot’s mom asks Mrs. Sen whether she knows driving, she admits that she is a slow learner. “But I am a slow student. At home, you know, we have a driver”.(10)   So she is sub-consciously unprepared to learn. She  feels that she wouldn’t have to do this if she would have been “home”. Mrs. Sen has a habit of dwelling on her past always. She recounts stories of her childhood to Elliot. The nostalgia bursts out of proportion when one day after being denied to be taken to the fish market by her husband, a very trivial cause apparently for the readers, she throws out her saris, sobbing uncontrollably. “When have I ever worn this one? And this? And this? “ (10) She feels neglected and belittled in her new life. She tells Elliot that her relatives in India want her to send pictures of her new life, but she has no pictures to send, as this is not the life of a queen as her kin might be guessing, where every work gets done in the press of a button. This proves that she has to do chores here, which she may not have to do in her maternal home.

This reminiscing of the “glorious” past in the native country is also seen in Boori Ma of “A Real Durwan”. Though Boori Ma is so different from Mrs. Sen, in age, financial status, country of origin, and education, she still shares some commonality with Mrs. Sen. She lives in her past most of the time; just like Mrs. Sen has Elliot as her sounding board, so does Boori Ma have her own set of people, residents of the building, who give a patient ear to her incessant, most of the time gobbledygook, of her “glorious” past. Here is an example when she remembers her third daughter’s wedding. “She was married to a school principal. The rice was cooked in rosewater. The mayor was invited. Everyone washed their hands in pewter bowls.”(12) She mixes up events, maybe due to her old age, and people doubt that those events have ever even happened in her life. The reason for Boori Ma to spin spiels all the time is maybe to attract the attention of the people around her. She is after all an old, poor, and lonely woman, who lives on the alms provided by the people of her building, the building which she vehemently guards like a “Durwan” (watchman) , and is ironically rewarded for her selfless service by the people of the building doubting her integrity and doing away with her.

This craving for attention is seen in Mina of Lahiri’s story “Interpreter of Maladies”, again a young mother of twenty-eight who is starkly different from Boori Ma in most aspects, but shares this attitude of attention seeking. She is lonely by nature, and lives a neglected life, even though she is a very young lady living in luxury in the US. She even gets interested in the second occupation of the tour guide Mr. Kapasi. Mr. Kapasi works as an interpreter for a doctor, as he knows English and Gujarati, and most of the doctor's patients are Gujarati. She finds his profession as an interpreter “romantic”. This proves that she looks for romance in the quotidian of things, as she is bereft of it. She is married to her high-school sweetheart. They got married while still in college, he went on with his education and career, while she became a mother soon after. “After marrying so young, she was overwhelmed by it all, having a child so quickly, and nursing and warming up bottles of milk and testing their temperatures against her wrist while Raj was at work, dressed in sweaters and corduroy pants, teaching his students about rocks and dinosaurs. Raj never looked cross or harried or plump as she had become after the first baby.”(13)  Mina was so much occupied in her role as a young mother, that she did not pay any attention to herself, and was taken in by the charms of Raj’s friend and became a mother to his child, without him or Raj knowing about it. Wollstonecraft says “The woman who has only been taught to please will soon find that her charms are oblique sunbeams, and they cannot have much effect on her husband’s heart when they are seen everyday, when the summer is past and gone. Will she have sufficient native energy to look into herself for comfort, and cultivate her dormant faculties? Or is it not more rational to expect that she will try to please other men, and in the emotion raised by the expectation of new conquests, endeavour to forget the mortification her love and pride has recieved?” (14) This sort of conquest does not bring any happiness to Mina, and she lives a terrible life as she explains to Mr. Kapasi, who she confides in, as she feels that he may have a cure for her malady.  “I feel terrible looking at my children, and at Raj always terrible. I have terrible urges, Mr. Kapasi, to throw things away. One day I had the urge to throw everything I own out the window, the television, the children, everything.” (15) This shows that Mina is an emotionally fragile young woman,  whose dark secret of eight years is affecting her peace of mind.

The subjugation of women by men, even if the woman is equally educated, and is a typical cigarette smoking, “modern” woman, is seen in The Blessed House. Twinkle has to literally beg Sanjeev to keep a few trinkets, and other show pieces which she discovered while cleaning the house, and use them as pieces of decoration much to her husband’s chagrin. She has to cry before he “allows” her. “He had never seen her cry before, had never seen such sadness in her eyes…….She went to him, placing her damp toweled arms about his neck, sobbing into his chest, soaking his shirt.” (16) This shows that Sanjeev’s will reigns supreme. He decides where to put which items, and she ultimately compromises by hiding them from his view.

The theme of subjugation of women can also be  seen in The Treatment of Bibi Haldar. Bibi is suffering from a strange disease whose only solution seems to be marriage and childbirth. She is mentally unstable and gets sudden fits, which make her seem unfit for marriage. She is despised by her own relatives, who leave her at the misery of the neighbours. Unlike Boori Ma and Mrs. Sen, she dwells not on her past, but looks forward to, and prepares herself for her imaginary future, when she would be married. “In the windows of sari shops she pointed to a magenta Benarasi silk, and a turquoise one, and then that one that was the color of marigolds. The first part of the ceremony I will wear this one, then this one, and then this.”(17)  Though her dreams are never realised, and she is abandoned by her cousin and his wife, she is ultimately cured of her malaise by a stranger who impregnates her, and she eventually becomes a mother and takes care of her child, as well as earns a living.

A Vindication was published in 1792. Interpreter of was published in 1999. It is indeed disappointing to note that 207 years have passed by since the publishing of Wollstonecraft’s book and little has changed in the lives and conditions of women. The issues which Wollstonecraft addresses are exemplified in the women characters of Lahiri’s book. This shows that emancipation of women is an excruciatingly slow process. The solution which Wollstonecraft provides, is not an easy one because unlike other theories like post colonialism and Marxism, Feminism is not unified across continents, as women are vastly different across different cultures. Some capitalist cultures are apparently better off for women than those countries ruled by monarchy. Also the Arab countries have more restrictions on women than the others, so a chance of forming a common platform for all women of the world, where women representatives of all countries would meet, motivate each other, and learn from each other is next to impossible.

Wollstonecraft ends her “Vindication” by asking women to revolt, saying that they are not inferior to men because they are weak in any way. It is only because men think them to be weak. If women are independent, and are free from ignorance, they will develop their own understanding, think out of the box, not be automatons, and will not be bothered by what men think of their physical beauty. As a result they will be rational creatures, and this will benefit society at large.

 

 

 

 

 

WORKS CITED

 

1.”A Temporary Matter”. Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri, Houghton Miffin, New York,  1999, Page 9.

2.”A Temporary Matter”. Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri, Houghton Miffin, New York,  1999, Page 11.

3.”A Temporary Matter”. Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri, Houghton Miffin, New York,  1999, Page 12.

4.”A Temporary Matter”. Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri, Houghton Miffin, New York,  1999, Page 10.

.5.A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, by Mary Wollstonecraft, Dover Publications Inc., New York, 1996.

6..”The Third and Final Continent”. Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri, Houghton Miffin, New York,  1999, Page 100.

7.A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, by Mary Wollstonecraft, Dover Publications Inc., New York, 1996.

8.A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, by Mary Wollstonecraft, Dover Publications Inc., New York, 1996.

9.”Mrs. Sen’s”. Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri, Houghton Miffin, New York,  1999, Page 62

10.”Mrs. Sen’s”. Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri, Houghton Miffin, New York,  1999, Page 62

11.”Mrs. Sen’s”. Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri, Houghton Miffin, New York,  1999, Page 67

12.”A Real Durwan”. Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri, Houghton Miffin, New York,  1999, Page 42

13.”Interpreter of Maladies”. Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri, Houghton Miffin, New York,  1999, Page 38

14.A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, by Mary Wollstonecraft, Dover Publications Inc., New York, 1996.

15.”Interpreter of Maladies”. Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri, Houghton Miffin, New York,  1999, Page 39

16.”This Blessed House”. Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri, Houghton Miffin, New York,  1999, Page 79

17.”The Treatment of Bibi Haldar”. Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri, Houghton Miffin, New York,  1999, Page 85