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Unit 9: Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies: Discussion on all Important Spheres of the Text Questions

husband and is caught in the boredom of her life as a housewife. Her depression and apathy distance Notes
her from her family, but she harbors a secret that could tear the entire family apart. She carelessly
scatters the puffed rice along the trail at the monastic dwellings, never thinking about the danger her
actions pose to others. Even when she realizes the danger to Bobby, as monkeys surround and terrify
him, Mrs. Das does not take any responsibility for the situation, just as she refuses to acknowledge
any guilt about her affair with Mr. Das’s friend. If Mrs. Das’s secret is ever revealed, Bobby will be the
true victim of that carelessness as well. Conceived out of anger, boredom, and spite and then lied to
about his real father, Bobby is surrounded by deceit. Mr. Kapasi feels the urge to tell Bobby the truth
as he carries him away from the monkeys. He knows that the safety he is providing for the boy—
scattering the monkeys and lifting Bobby away from danger—is insubstantial. He delivers Bobby
back to Mrs. Das, whose distance and carelessness fail to provide true safety.
Point of View
“Interpreter of Maladies” is told from third-person limited point of view—that is, the story is told by
an objective narrator who reveals the perceptions of Mr. Kapasi’s perceptions but not those of the
other characters. Events unfold primarily as Mr. Kapasi, not Mrs. Das, sees them. For example, when
the characters leave the taxi at the temple, the narrator follows Mr. Kapasi, who walks ahead so as
not to disturb Mrs. Das, and does not show us what Mrs. Das is doing until she again enters Mr.
Kapasi’s view. Likewise, when Mrs. Das leaves the taxi to take Tina to the bathroom, the narrator stays
in the car with Mr. Kapasi, who waits alone while the boys and Mr. Das get out of the car. Even the
characters’ names reflect the focus on Mr. Kapasi. Instead of calling Mrs. Das by her first name, Mina,
as both her husband and her children do, the narrator refers to her exclusively as Mrs. Das, which is
how Mr. Kapasi sees her. Likewise, the narrator does not disclose information that Mr. Kapasi would
not know. We do not, for example, ever learn the exact ages of Ronny and Tina. We do, however, hear
about how Mr. Kapasi has only two suits, the better of the two is the one he wears in the story.
By using this point of view, Lahiri limits the scope of our knowledge about the Das family and
emphasizes the disconnection between Mrs. Das and Mr. Kapasi. Although Mr. Kapasi interprets
Mrs. Das’s comments as flattering and even flirtatious, Mrs. Das likely did not intend her comments
to be construed this way. Mr. Kapasi wishes for an intimate connection with Mrs. Das, but when she
finally does spill her secrets—her affair, her true feelings about her husband, the heated beginning of
their relationship—Mr. Kapasi is overwhelmed and disgusted. She was unaware of how crass and
inappropriate her revelations would seem to Mr. Kapasi, just as she is oblivious to how insulting it is
for her to expect him to have a “cure” for her pain. Mr. Kapasi thinks he and Mrs. Das have a connection
because he recognizes in her situation the distant spouse and troubled marriage from his own life.
However, any connection between them is only in his mind.
Character Development
To develop characters in “Interpreter of Maladies,” Lahiri layers small, specific details in her
descriptions of each character, giving them depth and richness. From the first paragraph of the story,
details such as the bickering about who will accompany Tina to the bathroom and the fact that Mrs.
Das does not hold Tina’s hand tell us that Mr. and Mrs. Das are at odds, at least in some small way,
and that Mrs. Das is a somewhat careless mother. These details are important because the narrator
tells us few explicit facts about the Das family. Rather, we must infer information about them from
the way they act. We learn about Mr. Das’s distance and willful ignorance from his picture taking
and absorption in his guidebook, and we learn about the children’s insolence through small behaviors,
such as Tina’s playing with the car locks and Ronny’s approaching the goat with gum. Mr. Kapasi
infers what he knows about the Das family from the same set of details.
The small pieces of information that we have about Mrs. Das almost overwhelm her big confession
toward the end of the story. What we know of her character is based less on the substantial knowledge
that she has committed adultery with her husband’s friend and borne a child of the affair and more
on the less significant fact that she does not share her puffed rice with her children or husband, does
not care to be in the photographs they take at the monastery, and wears insensible shoes while she

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