Hell-Heaven

In both “Hell-Heaven” by Jhumpa Lahiri and “The Sun, The Moon, The Stars” the protagonists both struggle in discovering their true identity. For both. Their lives seem hopeless and bleak with little chance of improving. In Hell-Heaven, the narrator’s mother represents a lonely homemaker who has little will to survive. On the other hand, in The Sun, The Moon, The Stars, the narrator strives to discover himself through the on-and-off relationship with his girlfriend Magda. Both protagonists endeavor to discover their true identity. While both Yunior and Aparna (Boudi) each struggle to determine their purpose or value in life, they eventually realize that they must define their purposes for themselves to transform into their own desired assertive …show more content…
Yunior attempts to understand his purpose in life through his romantic affairs with his girlfriend Magda. Throughout the short story, Yunior tries to show his love for Magda to validate his opinion that his purpose in life is to a loving boyfriend. Yunior believes that if his girlfriend loves him back, that he then will feel fulfilled. Yunior reveals his love for Magda by revealing that she is the stability and security in his life. “It’s because I love you, mami. I know that this sounds like a load of doo-doo, but its true: Magda’s my heart. I didn’t want her to leave me; I wasn’t about to start looking for a girlfriend because I’d fucked up one lousy time.” Yunior first uses the word “mami.” In Spanish, the word “mami” is colloquial term for honey or significant other. Yunior utilizes this word to reveal to Magda that she is the most precious thing to him in the whole world. Yunior desperately desires her affection. Yunior also uses the word “doo-doo.” Doo-doo symbolizes Yunior as a person. Yunior uses “doo-doo” to suggest that even though it may seem that Yunior superficially cares about that this is false because in reality she is, a part of