Lahiri Mahasaya

In her fiction “Mrs. Sen’s”, Jhumpa Lahiri channels her unique experience as an Indian-American in the United States by constructing characters that reflect the juxtaposition she faced as a descendant of immigrants. She portrays the protagonist, Mrs. Sen as a cultural outsider to the American society and a cultural insider in her microcosm — the apartment she decorated to resemble India. Interestingly, Lahiri portrays another protagonist, the 11-year-old Eliot, as a cultural outsider to Mrs.…

In the novel A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami, the narrator is constantly questioning his surroundings. Through his questions he causes the reader to contemplate the origins of names. Murakami believes that names are based firstly on the emotional attachment, fixity, and then the purpose of the object. Murakami states that to have a name an animal must be able to move on it's own, have feelings and possess senses like sight and hearing (Murakami 152). After a child is conceived the parents…

In the story Namesake, the author Jumpa Lahiri uses flashbacks and settings to help the characters remember their culture during tough times in their new life in America. Flashbacks are important to remember good times and bad. Remembering the bad times helps to know that even through bad times something good can come out of it. Moving to a new country is ruff getting used to a new lifestyle but the Ganguli family fights through the hard times and makes a new living in America. In 1961…

The first four chapters start off with the new life that Ashima is experiencing after she moved to the United States with her husband. Her first child, Gogol, was born in America. The name “Gogol”, a Russian writer’s last name, is given by Gogol’s father, Ashoke because he thinks he has a very special bond with that Russian novelist’s book. Ashima met Ashoke when she was 19 in Calcutta, and she is the most conservative member of her family. Ashima’s marriage was determined by her parents…

Ajima, also known as “The honorable potter’s wife, has always been very compassionate to Tree-ear since the beginning. She nourished Tree-ear at the midday meal along with her husband. In addition, she provided him with clothing. Ajima used to be known as, “The honorable potter’s wife”. More frequently, she is known as Ajima. On page 91 in A Single Shard, it says “The second is that from now on, you will call me Ajima”. Ajima was closed off at the beginning. She was mainly in the home, or…

Zami: A New Spelling of My Name is a semi-autobiography and semi post-modern post structuralism fiction. It is an elegant, however strange, mixture with metaphorical, mythic and fictional story lines. As a black author, Audre Lorde presents the story as a semi self-reflection of the inception of black lesbianism in the modern era. Although the vivid depiction of hetero-sexual and homo-sexual encounters is border-lined with exotics, this book is not intentioned to promote either promiscuity or…

and a source of the greatest happiness, true love can be incredibly elusive to those that do not understand it. With each relationship that a person engages in, they begin to understand their self worth and identity. The Namesake, written by Jhumpa Lahiri, accounts the life of an Indian boy from his teens to middle age and how he handles these feelings of “love”. Gogol Ganguli, firstborn of a recently immigrated family, chooses to rely on his own devices as he rebels from his parent’s…

refer to similar emotions in different ways through the use of metaphors in “Araby” and details in “Maladies.” “Interpreter of Maladies” and “Araby” are two short stories that showcase two very distinct styles of writing. The two authors, Joyce and Lahiri, use various techniques ranging from the use of metaphors…

In my second critical reading exercise I wrote more than my last one. I included three paragraphs and I started off my assignment with, “In Sherman Alexie’s short story, “Indian Education”, includes many concepts of the genre conventions, such as being alienated from his society and feeling left alone to solve his own problems. However, Alexie also modified some genre conventions such as conflict of generations”. This introduction is different from my last critical reading assignment because…

Sexy By Jhumpa Lahiri Usually when I’m looking for something new to read I go off of titles, I don’t read the reviews, I don’t read the blurb on the back, if the title catches my eye then I will more than likely pick it up and see what goes from there. So one day during my LIT 224 class I was going through the contents of our book and one story caught my eye, Sexy by Jhumpa Lahiri, I turned to the page the story started on and began to read. The story wasted no time getting someplace…