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Interpreter Of Maladies

Decent Essays

Due to the imperfections and circumstances of life, people often times look towards other remedies to give them the falsehood that they are living in a utopian world. Sometimes, these antidotes can be intentional due to their selfish desire to have everything go their way or unintended due to a deplorable situation. Jhumpa Lahiri intelligently intertwines character development and symbols in the eclectic short stories of Interpreter of Maladies. Lahiri creates characters through symbols associated with those characters to exemplify their true desires in their lives.
A camera’s primary function is to capture photographs, but in the short story Interpreter of Maladies, the camera works to put Mr. Das in his own imaginary realm. With the camera …show more content…

Das lives through the deception of his camera, so too does Mr. Pirzada through his “plain silver watch without a band” (30). When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine focuses on the regular visits of Mr. Pirzada, who is living in America while his family is home in Dacca during the war. Separated from his family, he visits Lilia’s home every night to dine, and more importantly watch the news regarding the Indo-Pakistan War. Every night before eating, Mr. Pirzada takes out his watch from breast pocket, brings it to his ears, winds it, and leaves it on the coffee table for the duration of the meal. Unlike his wrist watch, the pocket watch is set to the local time in Dacca. Mr. Pirzada constantly worries about his wife and seven daughters back at home and it seems that his pocket watch serves as the only connection he has to them. Mr. Pirzada’s life is “being lived in Dacca first,” (30) as “[the] meals, [the] actions, [are] only a shadow of what had already happened there, a lagging ghost of where Mr. Pirzada really belonged” (31). The watch represents Mr. Pirzada’s longing desperation to be with his family, even though he does not know their current status as they have not written back to him in six months. Although his body is in America, his mind, spirit, and soul yearns to be with his family in Dacca and to a certain extent

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