Two Different Worlds in Interpreter of Maladies

The stories in Interpreter of Maladies alternate setting between America and India. In class earlier this week, we briefly discussed some of the differences between the American and the Indian settings. I would like to delve into that further and explore how living arrangements in America and India shape Lahiri’s social commentaries.

            In this blog post, I will be focusing on “A Real Durwan” and “The Treatment of Bibi Haldar” as examples of stories set in India, and “A Temporary Matter” and “This Blessed House” to discuss America. When I started reading “Bibi Haldar,” I immediately noticed that it was set in a similar apartment block to “A Real Durwan.” These Indian apartment complexes are crucial to these two stories. The building is not just a place to live, but a social structure that resembles a small town, where everyone knows each other. There are wise men people seek out for advice, like Mr. Chatterjee in “Durwan” and there are eccentric characters like Boori Ma or Bibi Haldar. Everyone knows everyone. Perhaps more importantly, stories set in these apartment blocks seem to be narrated by the community, adding to the feeling of a large social group involved in the story.

            The stories in America could not be further from this community setting. In “A Temporary Matter,” much is made of the large size and resulting emptiness of the house shared by Shukumar and Shoba. Due to this, it is mentioned that Shukumar and Shoba would often find themselves in isolated corners of the house, avoiding each other. “This Blessed House” may at the surface seem to be about the social potential of the American household—the story’s climax is a housewarming party. But I observed that Sanjeev seems to be having a bad time at this party while his wife Twinkle enjoys herself greatly. I believe this at least partially has to do with Sanjeev’s desire to stay connected to Indian culture, while Twinkle is breaking away. Twinkle’s split can be observed in everything from her collection of Christian trinkets to her very non-Indian nickname.

        When these Indian characters divorce themselves from the more typical “Indian” social patterns that Lahiri describes so engagingly, they falter socially and emotionally.   America itself is a factor in these stories, and it plays a disorienting role.  The stories that take place in India can be messy, complex, and disheartening, but they take place within a community.  Without overt critique, the author nonetheless making a statement by introducing a lack of a communal setting (and/or spirit) in the stories that take place in America. 

Two Pairs of Brothers

When we read “Ysrael” and “Fiesta, 1980,” two stories in Drown by Junot Diaz, I could not help but notice a very interesting parallel between these two stories and the first two stories in Going to Meet the Man, “The Rockpile” and “The Outing.” These two pairs of stories share many striking similarities.

            These stories are both centered on the relationship between two brothers. The stories from Going to Meet the Man focus on John and Roy, and those from Drown are about Yunior and Rafa. In Drown, the relationship between the brothers is defined by Rafa’s position as the elder brother. Especially in “Ysrael,” Rafa is the dominant force in the relationship. He bullies Yunior, although this is often in the context of “tough love,” and Yunior certainly looks up to him. The relationship between John and Roy in the first story is not very strongly defined, but in “The Outing” it becomes much more significant. While Roy is the younger brother, several factors have made him more accepted in the community and the family than John. Roy has “seen the light” and become a full member of the church community, while John is still having his doubts. And within his family, John struggles to find his father’s approval because he is an illegitimate child from an earlier relationship of his mother.

            Related to John’s position in the family as an illegitimate child is the figure of the father in both families described in the two pairs of stories. In both Drown and Going to Meet the Man the fathers are violent and dominate their respective families. The father from Drown went to America before the rest of the family, so he is not a present force in “Ysrael,” but in “Fiesta, 1980” he treats both of his sons roughly, especially Yunior on grounds of his carsickness.

Successful Writing about Failed Relationships

The short stories within Self-Help vary in perspective, tone, and narrative style, yet I noticed some common themes that permeate the stories in the book. To me, the most prominent of these was the theme of infidelity and failed relationships. The first story in the collection, “How to Be an Other Woman” puts an interesting spin on this theme. Throughout much of the story we assume the protagonist, referred to in the second person, to be engaged in an affair with a married man (she has no partner herself). However, at the end of the story it is revealed that the man does not have a wife at all but is simply juggling girlfriends, and their relationship comes to an end. The main character’s moral and emotional struggles shown in this story are effective and show a side of marital infidelity very different to the affair in the story “How.”

            “How” appears much later in the collection and features a woman who is frightened by commitment and not sure her boyfriend is right for her.  This story is also narrated in the second person.  The protagonist decides not to leave the boyfriend, but then he begins to suffer from an unidentified kidney complication. Feeling as if she cannot leave him now, the woman begins an affair with an actor. She does not suffer from the same self-worth issues that plagued the protagonist of “Other Woman,” yet she does feel profoundly guilty. This guilt is shown very well in this passage from page 62: “The houseplants will appear to have taken sides. Some will thrust stems at you like angry limbs. They will seem to caw like crows. Others will simply sag.”

            A discussion of failed relationships in Self-Help would not be complete without a mention of “The Kid’s Guide to Divorce.” This story provides a completely different perspective on an already destroyed marriage. If it were not for the title, the divorce of the parents would not be obvious until the last two paragraphs of the story. However, with this knowledge, many nuances of the child’s relationship with the mother reveal the effects of the failed relationship of the parents on the child.  I perceived the continual battle waged by the child for various sodas as an attempt to exploit the divorced mother’s desire for her child’s affections.

            In the collection Self-Help, Lorrie Moore shows us multiple perspectives on failed relationships, giving us characters ranging from a trapped woman to a philandering man to the collaterally damaged children. Moore’s nuances are made all the more powerful by her use of the second person, which brings the perspective home to the reader.

Music in "Sonny's Blues"

The ending of “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin consists of an extended passage describing the jazz music played by Sonny and his friends in a nightclub. As a musician myself, I really enjoyed this passage and thought it did a great job of conveying the power of the music through text. Starting on page 137, the jazz band begins to play and Baldwin’s writing takes off, using beautiful language to describe what is almost a conversation between the instruments. When the music starts, the narrator notices Sonny struggling to get in the rhythm. But as he continues to play, Sonny finds his place in the discourse between the instruments. I loved the description of the “conversation”:

“Something began to happen. And Creole let out the reins. The dry, low, black           man said something awful on the drums, Creole answered, and the drums talked back. Then the horn insisted, sweet and high, slightly detached perhaps, and Creole listened, commenting now and then, dry, and driving, beautiful and calm and old. (139)

            The metaphor of conversation continues as Baldwin focuses more on the personal aspects of the players, in particular Sonny. The narrator seems to gain a much greater understanding of Sonny by watching him play. The powerful expression of emotion he observes makes him realize Sonny’s inner torment and creative spirit. At the beginning of the passage, he describes Sonny’s struggle to convey his emotion through the instrument. However on page 140 in the last paragraph describing the music, Sonny is successful in conveying his emotions through the piano: “I heard what he had gone through, and would continue to go through until he came to rest in earth. He had made it his: that long line, of which we knew only Mama and Daddy.” The “it” in that last sentence refers, I think, to his heritage and his culture, but by making it “his” it also signifies Sonny’s individuality and special talent which his brother has finally appreciated. Because he understands his brother and what has brought him to this point, the narrator is very strongly moved by the music. I liked the ending to this story because it manages to accurately convey the emotional power of music in the story and in general.  In addition, it actually succeeded in giving me a good idea of the sonic nature of the piece the musicians are playing.

Some Extra Stuff about Going to Meet the Man

While I know that one should be careful about claiming connections between an author’s biography and work, I wanted to share some interesting information about James Baldwin that I found online that seems to suggest a certain degree of autobiographical inspiration in the first two stories from Going to Meet the Man. I have linked below my source about his personal life. Here is a selection I found particularly interesting:

“Baldwin was born to a young single mother, Emma Jones, at Harlem Hospital. She reportedly never told him the name of his biological father. Jones married a Baptist minister named David Baldwin when James was about three years old. Despite their strained relationship, he followed in his stepfather's footsteps—who he always referred to as his father—during his early teen years. He served as a youth minister in a Harlem Pentecostal church from the ages of 14 to 16.”

After reading this, it is hard to read “The Rockpile” and “The Outing” without seeing John as being loosely based on Baldwin himself.  

Read more at: http://www.biography.com/people/james-baldwin-9196635#early-works

I also found a fascinating video of Baldwin, in  1963 speaking on race.

Relationships Between Adults and Children in Nine Stories

            Many of the short stories in the collection Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger deal with relationships between adults and young children. The first story in the collection, “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” features an interaction between a grown man and a young girl as a major part of the plot. The jaded modern reader may interpret this scene as a disturbing and predatory interaction, but a closer examination of the text seems to suggest that it is actually very innocent. In class we discussed how the traumatic events Seymour experienced in the war left him uncomfortable in adult situations and happy in a carefree conversation with a child.

            While it is not the only other story in the collection dealing with adult-child relationships, I would like to first draw a parallel between “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” and “Down at the Dinghy.” The conversation between Boo Boo and Lionel shares many similarities to the interaction between Seymour and Sybil in “A Perfect Day for Bananafish.” The distinguishing factor is that “Down at the Dinghy” portrays a mother-son relationship, whereas “Bananafish” is about an unattended young girl and an older man who is a complete stranger. Because of this, the reader does not experience any feelings of distrust or disgust when reading “Dinghy.” However in both stories the adult figure behaves in roughly the same way. Seymour makes up the story of the titular bananafish, and Boo Boo talks at length about her qualifications as an admiral. Both adults introduce some form of make believe into the conversation. In both cases the adults make physical contact with the children—Seymour kissing Sybil’s foot and Boo Boo kissing Lionel’s ear, but again this is much more acceptable coming from a mother than from a complete stranger.

            A discussion of adult-child relationships in this book would not be complete without mentioning “The Laughing Man.” This story tells of an afterschool program for grade school boys run by a local law student known to the boys as “the Chief”. The boys view “the Chief” almost as a god, contradicting the narrator’s more realistic description of him looking back on the events: 

            "The Chief’s physical appearance in 1928 is still clear in my mind. If wishes were inches,   all of us Comanches would have had him a giant in no time. The way things go, though, he was a stocky five three or four—no more than that. His hair was blue-black, his hair-line extremely low, his nose was large and fleshy, and his torso was just about as long as his legs were. In his leather windbreaker, his shoulders were powerful, but narrow and sloping. At the time, however, it seemed to me that in the Chief all the most photogenic features of Buck Jones, Ken Maynard, and Tom Mix had been smoothly amalgamated."

            The reverence the boys exhibit for this man is challenged later in the story when they confront the fact that the Chief is simply human. This becomes evident when the Chief’s girlfriend is introduced and begins spending time with the afterschool program. The Chief’s godlike façade crumbles when the boys see him in obvious distress after the end of his relationship with her.

            Each story is different, of course, but each focuses on an emotional exchange between children and adults. They are not peers, but the relationship is perhaps more memorable and gripping because of the differences in age and understanding.

Married Woman Seeks Cat

“The Cat in the Rain” by Ernest Hemingway is a simple story about a young American couple vacationing in Europe. Although their marriage appears unexceptional, several aspects of the story suggest a flawed relationship beneath the couple’s façade of happiness. The conversation between the husband and wife begins innocently enough as the woman indicates she wants to rescue a stray cat in the street below from the inclement weather. It does not take long before the conversation escalates into an argument that shows the wife’s extreme dissatisfaction with her life. However, at the end of the story the tensions dissipate as the cat is brought to the hotel room, and the wife is at least temporarily appeased.

            When the woman first mentions the titular “cat in the rain,” her husband responds, “I’ll go get it,” without making any move to get up from the bed or put down his book. His apathy begins to hint at the underlying problems in their marriage. After his wife’s initial failure in finding the cat, tensions begin to run high. His wife expresses her general frustrations with her current life:

            “I want to pull my hair back tight and smooth and make a big knot at the back          that I can feel,” she said. “I want to have a kitty to sit on my lap and purr when I stroke her.”

            “Yeah?” George said from the bed.

            “And I want to eat at a table with my own silver and I want candles. And I     want it to be spring and I want to brush my hair out in front of a mirror and I       want a kitty and I want some new clothes.”

            “Oh, shut up and get something to read,” George said. (…)

            While the wife’s many wants may initially seem to be frivolous, a careful reading reveals something of substance. Her repeated desire for a cat implies that she feels a lack of companionship with her husband. This theory is clearly supported by his curt responses. Moreover, earlier in the story she mentions that she dislikes her short hair, despite the fact that her husband emphatically states that he prefers it short. She repeats this complaint in the quoted passage. I think it is possible that her desire to let her hair grow out suggests her yearning to break free of the control of her husband.

            At the end of the story, the woman calms down. She says, “(…) If I can’t have long hair or any fun, I want a cat.” Almost as soon as she makes this proclamation, there is a knock at the door and her wish is granted by a maid holding a cat, presumably the one she noticed in the rain.

            This story, though quite distinct and seemingly simple, has the same thread of disillusion and loss that runs through most of the stories in Hemingway's In Our Time. Again and again, Hemingway deals with a character's disillusionment, whether with love, marriage, war, faith, or, ultimately, life.  He somehow manages to present big emotions in simple scenes, as in this one about a woman who wants a cat.

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A few weeks ago when we were still reading The Things They Carried I stumbled across this website that talks about a current exhibition about the book, and I figured I would share it now:

http://www.nvam.org/AboutEducation-ThingsCarried.xml