An Unconventional Love

I have yet to decide what Lahiri’s main theme is in “Interpreter of Maladies”. Although its main message is not readily apparent to me, there are many excerpts from the narrative that stick out in my mind as significant.

Jhumpa Lahiri’s use of realistic and relatable people that succumb to human pressures is pertinent to the reader’s emotional attachment. Her description of and insight into her characters’ minds and beings creates an extremely deep relationship between the reader and these fictional characters. Mr. Kapasi, an Indian tour guide, expresses that he is unhappy in his marriage. He, then, out of his own misery and disillusionment prejudges an American tourist. Mr. Kapasi begins to assume that Mrs. Das possesses what his own wife lacks. He begins to presume that she, like he, is miserable in her own marriage. Mr. Kapasi fantasizes about a future relationship with this stranger. Mr. Kapasi thinks about communicating with this woman as if in the few hours they had spent together on the tour they had fallen in love. Mr. Kapasi is clearly a lonely desperate man who is unappreciated at home. He is looking for comfort in an idea— an idea of a relationship with Mrs. Das. Perhaps, this fantasy that he has created in his mind serves as a tool to keep Mr. Kapasi occupied and mentally with company. But the company that Mr. Kapasi is keeping is a stranger and his presumptions of Mrs. Das prove to be incorrect. Mr. Kapasi finds that Mrs. Das is in fact unhappy in her marriage, as he predicted, but it is what follows that brings his fantasies to a halt. Mr. Kapasi’s imaginings are fruitless when finds out that Mrs. Das is unhappy in her marriage because she keeps a secret illegitimate child in her company. Mr. Kapasi realizes that his own unhappiness and loneliness had driven him to feel connected to this person that is not who he thought she was. He snaps back to reality and is quick to let his fantasy shatter to pieces.(341)