In the story “Mrs. Sen’s”, Lahini presents the struggles of assimilating into a new country and portrays how lonely and restricted immigrants can feel. She is able to do this through her use of the character, Mrs. Sen, a woman who is originally from India. Throughout the story we see how difficult it is for Mrs. Sen to assimilate to the lifestyle in America. Her days, usually consist of staying in an apartment while her husband teaches at a nearby university. Mrs. Sen’s Indian lifestyle still seems very prominent, all her furniture is still wrapped in plastic, the shoes are all lined in a bookcase by the front door, she refuses to purchase fish from the supermarket and she uses and abnormal blade to do her cooking. All of this illustrating …show more content…
Sen is often restricted, unable to do much. She doesn’t know how to drive since in India they usually have a driver for themselves. Because of this, Mrs. Sen usually has to rely on her husband to get anywhere. Something as simple as going to buy fish from the seaside, requires her to rely on her husband. Mrs. Sen does not have the freedom that she is accustomed to having. Her life and what she does relies on whatever Mr. Sen is doing. For example, when Mr. Sen began to hold office hours for his students, Mrs. Sen was no longer able to go buy fish from the seaside and was only able to cook chicken. Mrs. Sen not knowing how to drive is something other people would easily take for granted however, she fears tackling these restrictions. It’s possible that she would not fear learning hot to drive in India as much as she fears learning how to drive in America, but because she doesn’t know the language very well or the area, this automatically makes this task much more complicated. As Elliot compares sitting in the backseat with his mother driving and then with Mrs Sen driving, he states “Then the road was just a road, the other cars merely a part of the scenery. But when he sat with Mrs. Sen...he saw how that same stream of cars made her knuckles pale, her wrists tremble, and her English falter” (Lahini 121). Driving is something that immigrants often fear for various reasons. Sometimes it’s because the driving rules are different or because …show more content…
Sen often refused to drive, it didn’t seem like she cared very much about being restricted. In reality, she may have not even realized that she was being restricted. To her, this lifestyle was very different than what she had been accustomed to, but she also didn’t know too much about American lifestyle so she accepted it. It is almost as if she wasn’t really realizing how restricted and encaged she was living until she finally hit a breaking point. This lifestyle was nothing like what she was accustomed to and having her family far away was difficult, especially when they were thinking that she was living her dream life in America. “Send pictures of your new life”. What pictures can I send?” (Lahini 125). Mrs. Sen had nothing exciting in her life, she was always restricted and had the same repetitive schedule every day, yet she kept this frustration all to herself. She is the classic example of someone who rarely speaks her mind, afraid to be a bother to anyone, until she tells Eliot “Tell me, Elliot. Is it too much to ask?” (Lahini 125). Here, Mrs. Sen finally spoke up about what she was feeling. After her husband was once again unable to take her to buy fish, she realized she was all alone. Mrs. Sen finally realized how restricted she really was, she couldn’t drive anywhere, so she always had to rely on her husband but her husband was too busy for her. Although it does seem as if Mrs. Sen was finally realizing how restricted she was, she also didn’t do very
“Like many immigrant offspring I felt intense pressure to be two things, loyal to the old world and fluent in the new, approved of on either side of the hyphen” (Lahiri, My Two lives). Jhumpa Lahiri, a Pulitzer Prize winner, describes herself as Indian-American, where she feels she is neither an Indian nor an American. Lahiri feels alienated by struggling to live two lives by maintaining two distinct cultures. Lahiri’s most of the work is recognized in the USA rather than in India where she is descents from (the guardian.com). Lahiri’s character’s, themes, and imagery in her short stories and novels describes the cultural differences of being Indian American and how Indian’s maintain their identity when moved to a new world. Lahiri’s inability to feel accepted within her home, inability to be fully American, being an Indian-American, and the difference between families with same culture which is reflected in one of her short stories “Once in a Lifetime” through characterization and imagery.
She says, “My perception as a young girl was that I fell short at both ends, shuttling between two dimensions ... I followed the customs of my parents, speaking Bengali and eating rice and dal with my fingers. These ordinary facts seemed part of a secret, utterly alien way of life, and I took the pains to hide them from my American friends” (Lahiri 182). Lahiri could not change the fact her skin was brown. This was beyond her control, but has shaped her identity in adulthood. Regardless, the decision to assimilate in childhood made all the difference. The annoying and most real part about assimilation, is that no matter how hard you try, your name and skin color give off so many things that people love to stereotype you before you even open your mouth. I laugh at how many people have told me "your voice doesn't match your face". I really feel with Lahiri when she says, " The immigrant's journey …secures for the subsequent generation a sense of arrival and advantage" (Lahiri
The story is about two sister who currently lives in America. It has to deal with moving to the United States in the 1960’s. Both sisters moved to the United States in hope to pursue their dreams and to achieve they goals with college and further education. Both having similarities in appearance and religious values. Both Bharati and her sister Mira had planned to move back to their homeland India after their education. This story relates to our point of culture having a major impact on how people judge each other because it has a huge impact on how people view the world differently because, in this example, I feel manipulated and discarded. This is such an unfair way to treat a person who was invited to stay and work here because of her talent” it is basically stating on how even immigrants (like the sisters themselves) who have come into the U.S., are sometimes given fewer benefits and rights than everyone else and that they feel discluded from being able to express themselves if they wanted to, or to have good thoughts that America is as good as people has said it was, with all this freedom. The last example is, I feel some kind of irrational attachment to India that I don’t to America. Until all this hysteria against immigrants, I was totally happy.” This demonstrates that it isn’t the country itself that makes people unsafe or unsure, it’s the people running it who try to put limitations
The author demonstrates a personal example of how communication became a barrier because of the way Tan had to assist when her mother would speak. Tan would often have to relay the meaning of her mother’s message, because her mother’s “broken English” was difficult for others to comprehend. When Amy was younger, she remembers having to act as her mother on the phone, so that people on the other end would treat her mother with the respect she deserved. On one occasion, when her mother went to the doctor to get her CAT scan results on a benign brain tumor, her mother claimed that “the hospital did not apologize when they said they had lost the CAT scan and she had come for nothing” (Tan, 544 ). It was not until Tan had talked to the doctor that the medical staff seemed to care about any of her mother’s complications. Tan seems to come to the conclusion that a language barrier affects both sides. Not only does it affect Tan, but it also appears to affect the people around her. For instance, this happens when Tan changes her major from the stereotypical “Asian’s become doctors” to an English teacher. She eventually learns to write fiction and other writings that she was constantly told she would never be successful at.
In her short stories, Lahiri presents the condition as a ramification of the degree to which characters adapt to society (Bhardwaj 12-13). This is to say that immigrants experience this crisis differently, depending on how much they have integrated into their new surroundings. Mrs. Sen cannot seem adapt to American culture as she continues to embrace her Indian upbringing. Her traditions cannot be fulfilled at her house or in her community as she yearns to return to India. However, she realizes that she should try to adjust and becomes a babysitter for a short while until she gets into a car accident. Because Sen barely accepts her environment, her challenge is embracing Western
Immigrants arriving in America for their first time are initially devastated at their new lives and realize their “golden lives” were simply fantasies and dreams of an ideal life in America. Immigrants from foreign countries, including those mentioned in Uchida’s Picture Bride, faced countless problems and hardships, including a sense of disillusionment and disappointment. Furthermore, immigrants and picture brides faced racial discrimination not only from white men, but the United States government, as well. Immigrants were plagued with economic hardships lived in deplorable living conditions. Though nearly every immigrant and picture bride who came to America fantasized about an ideal life, they were faced with countless hardships and challenges before becoming accepted American citizens.
...d and left with little cultural influence of their ancestors (Hirschman 613). When the children inadvertently but naturally adapting to the world around them, such as Lahiri in Rhode Island, the two-part identity begins to raise an issue when she increasingly fits in more both the Indian and American culture. She explains she “felt an intense pressure to be two things, loyal to the old world and fluent in the new”, in which she evidently doing well at both tasks (Lahiri 612). The expectations for her to maintain her Indian customs while also succeeding in learning in the American culture put her in a position in which she is “sandwiched between the country of [her] parents and the country of [her] birth”, stuck in limbo, unable to pick one identity over the other.
Traditions control how one talks and interacts with others in one’s environment. In Bengali society, a strict code of conduct is upheld, with dishonor and isolation as a penalty for straying. Family honor is a central part to Bengali culture, and can determine both the financial and social standing of a family. Usha’s family poses no different, each member wearing the traditional dress of their home country, and Usha’s parents diligently imposing those values on their daughter. Those traditions, the very thing her [Usha] life revolved around, were holding her back from her new life as an American. Her mother in particular held those traditions above her. For example, when Aparna makes Usha wear the traditional attire called “shalwar kameez” to Pranab Kaku and Deborah’s Thanksgiving event. Usha feels isolated from Deborah’s family [Americans] due to this saying, “I was furious with my mother for making a scene before we left the house and forcing me to wear a shalwar kameez. I knew they [Deborah’s siblings] assumed, from my clothing, that I had more in common with the other Bengalis than with them” (Lahiri ...
Mira is the sister that likes celebrates her culture of being Indian. For example, Bharati talked about how her sister felt about being american, she said “She is happier to live in America as an expatriate Indian than as an immigrant American”. She expresses that her sister wouldn’t want to change her culture or who she is. Bharati on the other hand, likes the American way of life better than her Indian culture. In other words, she wants to be more apart of her new culture, she said “I need to feel like a part of the community I have adopted (as I tried to feel in Canada as well)”. This reinforces how she and Mira have different views on how to integrate into America. This relates to the feeling of being introduced to a new culture. How you can still be apart of your original culture, or how you can just become really into this new culture. It expresses how cultural morals would affect just about anything in your
...de effects of ‘nontraditional’ immigration, the government officially turned against its immigrant communities…” In this line, Mukherjee is showing that she had also been a victim of the new immigration laws, and that was the reason she had conformed to the country, in order to feel a sense of belonging. In this instance, exemplification is used to develop her argument in an effective manner that causes the audience to feel a sense of guilt and even listen to her argument.
Previously, the narrator has intimated, “She had all her life long been accustomed to harbor thoughts and emotions which never voiced themselves. They had never taken the form of struggles. They belonged to her and were her own.” Her thoughts and emotions engulf her, but she does not “struggle” with them. They “belonged to her and were her own.” She does not have to share them with anyone; conversely, she must share her life and her money with her husband and children and with the many social organizations and functions her role demands.
The speaker is visiting “home for the weekend, /from school, from the North,” and her grandma asks her, “How’s school a-goin’?” The speaker replies with “School’s fine,” holding back her emotions on her lifestyle in college. “I wanted to tell her/about the nights I cried into the familiar heartsick panels of the quilt she made me,/wishing myself home on the evening star./I wanted to tell her/the evening star was a planet,/that my friends wore noserings and wrote poetry/about sex, about alcoholism, about Buddha./ I wanted to tell her how my stomach burned acidic holes at the thought of speaking in class,/speaking in an accent, speaking out of turn,” Understanding is a vital part of the bonds people share. She knew her grandma couldn’t comprehend any of it. The speaker sensed her grandma would deem her friends inadequate. “I was tearing, splitting myself apart/with the slow-simmering guilt of being happy/despite it all.” In spite of the hardships, the speaker enjoyed it
In “My Two Lives” Jhumpa Lahiri talks about her hardship growing up in America coming from two different cultures. At home she spoke Bengali with her parents, ate with her hands. According to Jhumpa’s parents she was not American and would never be. This led her to become ashamed of her background. She felt like she did not have to hide her culture anymore. When Jhumpa got married in Calcutta she invited her American friends that never visited India. Jhumpa thought her friends would judge from being part of the Indian culture and isolate her.However her friends were intrigued by her culture and fascinated. She felt like her culture should not be hidden from her friends anymore, and that coming from an Indian-American culture is unique. Jhumpa believes that her upbringing is the reason why she is still involved with her Bengali culture. Jhumpa says“While I am American by virtue of the fact that I was raised in this country, I am Indian thanks to the efforts of two individuals.” Jhumpa means that she is Indian, because she lived most of her life and was raised here. In the story Lahiri explains that her parents shaped her into the person she is. Growing up coming from two different cultures can be difficult, but it can also be beneficial.
Bharati Mukherjee’s story, “Two Ways to Belong in America”, is about two sisters from India who later came to America in search of different ambitions. Growing up they were very similar in their looks and their beliefs, but they have contrasting views on immigration and citizenship. Both girls had been living in the United States for 35 years and only one sister had her citizenship. Bharati decided not to follow Indian traditional values and she married outside of her culture. She had no desire to continue worshipping her culture from her childhood, so she became a United States citizen. Her ideal life goal was to stay in America and transform her life. Mira, on the other hand, married an Indian student and they both earned labor certifications that was crucial for a green card. She wanted to move back to India after retirement because that is where her heart belonged. The author’s tone fluctuates throughout the story. At the beginning of the story her tone is pitiful but then it becomes sympathizing and understanding. She makes it known that she highly disagrees with her sister’s viewpoints but she is still considerate and explains her sister’s thought process. While comparing the two perspectives, the author uses many
In Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, The Namesake, the protagonist, Gogol, struggles with his cultural identity. He is an American-born Bengali struggling to define himself. He wants to fit into the typical American-lifestyle, a lifestyle his parents do not understand. This causes him tension through his adolescence and adult life, he has trouble finding a balance between America and Bengali culture. This is exemplified with his romantic relationships. These relationships directly reflect where he is in his life, what he is going through and his relationship with his parents. Each woman indicates a particular moment in time where he is trying to figure out his cultural identity. Ruth represents an initial break away from Bengali culture; Maxine represents