Sociology professor Morrie Schwartz once said, "Rules I know to be true about love and marriage: If you don't respect the other person, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you don't know how to compromise, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you can't talk openly about what goes on between you, you're gonna have a lot of trouble…” (Albom 149). Although not stated as clearly or concisely, the vast majority of Jhumpa Lahiri’s stories retell the truths told above. Three stories in particular; "A Temporary Matter," "When Mr. Pirzada Comes to Dine," and "The Third and Final Continent," especially exemplify the quote above. Throughout these stories Jhumpa Lahiri writes of the struggles Indians have building new relationships while trying to assimilate to American culture; Lahiri illustrates that in order to strengthen any relationship, one must display compassion, respect, and honesty. “ A Temporary Matter” paints the portrait of a young Indian couple, Shoba and Shukumar, who have become cold and distant after the birth of their stillborn child. Both Shoba and Shukumar are very well assimilated to American culture, so much so that their Indian culture has slowly melted away and they often struggle to reconnect with their Indian roots. Wife Shoba decides to play a game of truth every night when their lights go out. She says it reminds her of her grandmother in India. Shukumar jumps on the chance to spend this time with his increasingly distant wife. Shukumar thinks that the game is a way to help Shoba reconnect with her past in India but he later learns that there is much more to the game than he thought. After the death of their child Shukumar says that Shoba "treats the house like a hotel" she avoids her husband as much as po... ... middle of paper ... ...b. 17 Feb. 2010. . Lahiri, Jhumpa. “A Temporary Matter.” The Interpretor of Maladies. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999. 1-22. Print. - - -. “The Third and Final Continent.” Interpreter of Maladies. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999. 173-198. Print. - - -. “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine.” Interpreter of Maladies. Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1999. 23-42. Print. Morace, Robert A. “Interpreter of Maladies: Stories.” Magill’s Literary Annual 2000 1999: 198. Literary Reference Center. Web. 6 Apr. 2010. .
Not only did Shoba didn’t care about their appearance anymore but she was trying to hide her sadness by adding more work to her work load. “The more Shoba stayed out, the more she began putting in extra hours at work and taking on additional projects” (302). Shukumar was also starting to let his self go. Also at first he was focused on his finishing his final chapters of his dissertation on agrarian revolts in India. “Until September he had been diligent if not dedicated, summarizing chapters, outlining arguments on pads of yellow lined paper” (303). However, that’s take a downfall with the death of their child because Shukumar “now he would lie in their bed until he grew bored, gazing at his side of the closet” (303). He also would forget to do his daily hygiene routines such as brushing his
In ¨Mountains Beyond Mountains”, The biography of Paul Farmer by Tracy Kidder the author uses powerful language by effectively creating common connections such as profanity and religion to Illustrate the type of person Farmer is. Going back to Christmas Day, Tracy Kindler, the reporter following Paul Farmer, goes to the Brinham Social Work department in Boston to visit Farmer´s patients with him, and listens to Farmer talk to them and hand out presents on this special occasion. During this trip Tracy Kindler along with the reader gets a vivid description of whom Paul Farmer is as a doctor and more specifically as a person. The most staggering moment of this experience was when they met with Joe, a patient of Paul´s who has been diagnosed with
Joseph Carey Merrick, who died 120 years ago, was an individual with extreme disfigurements that could cause any person to run in fear, or even become ill, at the sight of him. Joseph Merrick was an inspiration to many, whether it was to people who saw him in sideshows, in the hospital, or to doctors who were baffled by his condition. Many questions were asked about Merrick; many refused to believe that he was even a human. Some thought he was alien, some thought animal, or, in the case of Frederick Treves, just a misunderstood man with nowhere to turn.
Wherein lies the odd attraction and power of the freakish? Just as often as it introduces us to expressions of common human experience, study in the Humanities also introduces us to the decidedly uncommon--to writers, artists and thinkers who push conventional limits of language and narrative, vision and imagination, memory and history, or logic and rationality. For our Freaks of the Core colloquium, we explored the outer limits of human expression and experience. What, we asked, defines the abnormal or the outlandish? the fanatical or heretical? the illusory or the grotesque? Why are we commonly drawn to the very uncommon? "Nothing, indeed, is more revolting," wrote Thomas De Quincey in his famously freaky Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, "than the spectacle of a human being obtruding on our notice his moral ulcers or scars, and tearing away that 'decent drapery' which time, or indulgence to human frailty, may have drawn over them" (1).[1] But De Quincey chose to tear away that drapery in his Confessions nevertheless, believing that his outlandish experiences with addiction, poverty and illusion would teach his readers valuable lessons that outweighed any offense. "In that hope it is that I have drawn this up," wrote De Quincey, "and that must be my apology for breaking through that delicate and honorable reserve, which, for the most part, restrains us from the public exposure of our own infirmities" (1). The essays below also tear away the "decent drapery" which covers the sometimes unsightly extremes of human experience, and they do so with similar hopes and reasons.
A narrative is constructed to elicit a particular response from its audience. In the form of a written story, authors use specific narrative strategies to position the ‘ideal reader’ to attain the intended understanding of the meanings in the text. Oliver Sacks’ short story The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is an unusual short story because it does not display conventional plot development; the story does not contain conflict or resolution of conflict. The genre of the story is also difficult to define because it reads as an autobiographical account of an experience Sacks had with a patient while working as a neurologist. Although it is arguable that the narrative is a work of non-fiction, it is nevertheless a representation, distinct from a reflection of the real events. It is a construction, Sacks chose the elements that were included and omitted in the narrative and used narrative strategies to position readers to process the signs in the text and produce reach the dominant understanding. This blurring of truth and fiction is similar to that in the genre of ‘new journalism’. Although, rather than being a journalist writing a fictional piece of journalism, Sacks is a doctor writing a fictional medical analysis. To influence readers’ comprehension of the narrative, Sacks utilised the point of view strategy of subjective narration, atypical in this short story in that a characterisation or representation of Oliver Sacks is the narrator and Oliver Sacks the person is the real author. The story is character-driven rather than plot-driven and regardless of how accurate a depiction of the real people the characters are, they are constructions. Sacks gave the characters of Doctor P. and his namesake admirable and sympathetic trait...
Shaw, A.B. "Depressive Illness Delayed Hamlets Revenge." Medical Humanities 28.2 (2002): 92+. Academic Onefile. Web. 28 Feb. 2011.
In the summer between third and fourth grade my mother and father sat my sister and I down and informed us that my mom had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. My mom’s experience of MS emulates narrative concepts detailed in Arthur W. Frank’s The Wounded Storyteller. In his work, Frank describes different kinds of illness narratives ranging from the morbid chaos narrative to the more inspiring restitution narrative. In accordance with Frank’s definitions, my mother has responded to the situation by using her body didactically and communicatively by proactively reaching out to an active community of MS sufferers, including recently diagnosed friends and family. She has used her body with discipline as well, through her commitment to a prescription of nightly injections. However, the dynamic nature of my mother’s experience with MS complicates Frank’s classification of body types because she embodies multiple body types at various stages of her disease. Her illness narrative most closely matches that of the quest narrative, drawing elements from both the automythology and memoir facets.
... the dichotomy disease / Illness established to differentiate between pathology and suffering of the individual. While disease is an organic condition that can be discovered through various laboratory procedures, illness is much more subjectively, describing the status of the individual suffering and how the suffering is influencing his daily experience of life ( EJ Sobo , 2004:3 ) .The concept of illness includes both individual reactions to the state of being ill, and beliefs and attitudes that he has on the disease of suffering ( M. Winkelman 2009:60 ) . At least in theory, disease is universal, pathological damage of the body can be labelled and classified. Illness, however, is a variable factor, influenced by human personality traits, family background and social context, as well as, by the cultural context which acts as a modelling vector of human suffering.
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.
In these patients live, they always hurt others unconsciousness. Only because of the suspicions caused by distrust. In the comic, the author’s father and the person he remarried could have a better marriage life than the current situation after the war. However, due to the excessive strong suspicion, Valadek recognized all the things based only on his self-knowledge, then ignored and refused all others explanation. As a result, his wife left him, and the marriage ended in the meaningless squabble. In Art’s comic “Maus I”, there is a character has distinctive personality called Mala who is the second marriage partner of Valadek. After she spent a long time living with Valadek, Mala started to complain about his strange behaviors. Mala said: “Fah! I went through the camps… All our friends went through the camps. Nobody is like him!” (Spiegelman, 131) It means that she cannot endure him anymore because of his refection of traumatic experience. Valadek’s suspicious and obsession drives her crazy. The influence caused by Valadek’s strange temper affected Mala unconsciously, and awake her memories during the wartime. Mala is also a person who survived from the war and faced various difficulties and pains. These traumas caused the situation changed to the distrust in each other. Thus, the distrust caused by trauma is like the cancer
America has been know to be the land of opportunity, it has also been refereed to as the melting pot. Due to the fact that American is the land of opportunity, many different diversities of different cultures and con tries came to obtains the chances that America could provide, becoming a melting pot of diversity. Although, while the “immigrants” were trying to establish settlement there were a struggle for equality and Deculturalization. The Europeans seemed to be the start of this problem. Their settlement according to the author was know as an invasion. It was invasion due to the fact the Europeans believed the were superior over other cultures, starting with the Native Americans. Though, as time goes on we look back and see other cultures experienced inequality including Asian Americans, Hispanic/Latino Americans, and African Americans. Although each experienced their own effects of prejudice and power better know as racism, I believe American culture, and myself, are
Kristeva, Julia. "Within the Microcosm of 'The Talking Cure.'" Interpreting Lacan. Eds. Joseph Smith and William Kerrigan. New Haven: Yale UP, 1983.
The title ‘A Temporary Matter’ is rather ironic in the sense that their issue is more a permanent matter. It is something that cannot be fixed or improved. The author, Lahiri emphasizes on her diction throughout the story. Shukumar remembers how Shoba would mark errors “in a code she had once explained to him” (2). Jhumpa Lahiri mentions Shoba using a code to hint at her secretive personality. Throughout the paragraphs, readers wonder if Shobas’ intentions were enigmatic because they were not shared. Lahiri continues to explain how Shukumar “envied her the specificity of her task” (2). The author uses the word ‘envied’ to exhibit how truly envious he was of how she was dealing with the loss of their baby. Almost somewhat jealous of how focused and precise she had become towards her work. Readers can gain Shukumar’s uncertainty towards Shoba’s new behavior. Referring to the author’s intent of sympathy towards Shukumar, she describes him as “a mediocre student”(2). The word ‘mediocre’ relates to average. With Shoba flourishing in her work life, Shukumar 's ordinary skills are not enough for him to make a living on his own. Lahiri continues to explain “he and Shoba had become experts at avoiding each other in their three-bedroom house”(2). The author applies the word ‘experts’ when describing their avoidance to boost the attention to that sentence. The couple not only avoids each other but they are becoming professionally well at this craft. This means they have been avoiding each other for an extended period of time. Jhumpa Lahiri magnifies the couple’s issues through diction in order to display how deep the marriage is
Shoba in the past 6 months has become more distant from the house. Staying away and busying herself is her way of coping. Shukumar notes that “She wasn’t this way before. She used to put her coat on a hanger, her sneakers in the closet and she paid bills as soon as they came. But now she treated the house as if it were a hotel” (Lahiri 6). Shoba way of coping is being away for a long period of time. One may confuse this with her getting to the traumatic event. However, Shukumar states “In the beginning, he had believed that it would pass, that he and Shoba would get through it all somehow. She was only thirty-three. She was strong, on her feet again. But it wasn’t a consolation” (Lahiri 5). The couple never received any type of therapy. Therefore, they have not healed and now they have to pretend that they are okay. Shoba appears handling the loss of their baby better than Shukumar. However, her actions only reveal that she is still dealing with it. Lahiri tells the audience that “The more Shoba stayed out, the more she began putting in extra hours at work and taking additional projects” (Lahiri 3). Shoba is constantly trying to keep herself busy so she can appear okay. Her taking up more work is just an excuse for her to be out of the house. The house to her represents her depression because at home the nursery is a constant reminder for her. Therefore,
and disease (Haas 258). As he developed and honed his craft, all the scholarly encounters with