Module 4: Interpreter of Maladies Discussion – Interpreter o…

Purpose

This assignment is designed to specifically focus on the dense nature of a short story while understanding the new globalized Asian immigrant.

Instructions

This is a group discussion. The course instructor will assign you to one of the 6 groups listed below and you will need to work together to create your initial post. Only one person per group will submit your group’s initial post, but each of you will need to individually reply to 2 posts.

Initial Post

Your initial post is due by March 13th. It should be at least 150 words long. Your post must offer a minimum of THREE references to the story given to your group and a minimum of TWO references must come from the supplemental readings.

For my group – Group 6 -The Third and Final Continent

How do you comprehend the idea that one has moved across three continents before setting down roots? Is this a fitting concluding story to this collection? Finally, since you are analyzing the last story in this volume, I want to point out that critics often find fault with what the call the authors elitism. Her characters are educated, middle class or above, not trapped down by bourgeoise ideas, and move freely across the globe. Do you agree with this criticism?

Below is the initial reading: (please note as stated in the instructions there is also supplemental reading as well that needs to be included in the discussion. I’ve attached the supplemental readings here)

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

The bulk of Asian immigration from the Indian subcontinent did not occur until after WWII. The

Cold War meant that America needed more scientists, doctors, and engineers who could fulfill

the need to win the technological race with Russia. Where better to bring them from than Asia?

By 1947 India had become independent of British rule. The British had left the subcontinent

impoverished beyond imagination. The new government of a free India decided education was

the only way to crawl out of the poverty hole. With a focus on science and technology the

country produced a generation of doctors and engineers who began looking for lucrative careers

elsewhere. America found their brain source in this wave of Indian immigrants. Lahiris short

stories reveal the struggles these immigrants faced in America. In particular these stories focus

on women and children who accompanied the educated men on their journey abroad.

Chronologically, the collection is a mixture. The stories do not necessarily entirely represent the

early Cold War immigrant experience. Some of the stories deal with second generation

immigrants who are living in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. What is also important for us

to consider is the difference in the ways in which immigration itself is constructed in the post-

WWII era and beyond. Unlike an earlier era, there is now a free movement of peoples between

continent (based of course on visas and passports). Families are permitted to move into the

United States as opposed to the exclusionary laws of the 19th and early 20th centuries. These

immigrants appear to be educated. Also, we find that immigration is no more a point A to point

B movement. Immigration is now a back-and-forth movement. Home is no more a lost space. It

is a space immigrants choose (and are able to) to return and visit.

Although the stories differ in theme and content, there are some common strands to look for.

Food is a good example. Food as nostalgia, food as identity, food as togetherness and belonging

all these ideas recur through the tales. Marriage and family are also common threads. These are

important concepts in any society. But perhaps they take on a new importance for the immigrant.

Immigrants are strangers in a strange land. Family is a source of solace and comfort. It is also a

place where the immigrant may feel a sense of belonging. The immigrants desire to establish

cultural identity is also strengthened through family. Sometimes marriage does not survive the

immigrant journey. In A Temporary Matter, a stillborn birth remains an unspoken wound

which eventually witnesses the end of a young Indian-American couples relationship. In a

sense, the title word maladies reverberates through the entire book, and the reader is witness to

the many maladies or sorrows arising from the uprooting of one culture and the birth of a new

one.