Interpreter of Maladies: A Story of Misinterpretation - Essay Example

“Interpreter of Maladies A story of Misinterpretation. “Interpreter of Maladies,” is the story in Jhumpa Lahiri’s much-acclaimed, Pulitzer-winning collection of short stories. The Indian-American Das family, consisting of Raj and Mina, and their three children, Bobby, Ronny and Tina, are on a vacation to India. Mr. Kapasi is their driver and guide on their tour of the Sun temple of Konarak. The story evolves round the relationship between Mrs. Das and Mr. Kapasi on this short trip. Mina is fascinated by Mr. Kapasi’s job as an interpreter at a Doctor’s office. This fascination leads Mina to make the guide privy to the closely-guarded secret of her life: Bobby is her illegitimate child. Their fleeting relationship is abruptly terminated when Mr. Kapasi’s response to this disclosure fails to meet with Mrs. Das’s expectations. Lahiri’s inspiration for this story dates back to her days as a graduate student at Boston University. She encountered an acquaintance, who worked at a doctor’s office as an interpreter for the doctor’s Russian patients. This role, as an ‘interpreter of maladies,’ remained with Lahiri, and evolved, five years later, into this short story. In the author’s own words, the story expresses “the dilemma, the difficulty, and often the impossibility of communicating emotional pain and affliction to others, as well as expressing it to ourselves. In some senses I view my position as a writer, in so far as I attempt to articulate these emotions, as a sort of interpreter as well,” (Houghton. A Conversation with JL). In “Interpreter of Maladies,” Jhumpa Lahiri paints a poignant picture of a marriage which is falling apart, and the universal search for love. Misinterpretation is the axis on which the story revolves. All the characters, each in their own way, exhibit their disconnectedness with the world round them. The author makes skillful use of characterization to highlight the miscommunication among the characters. This disconnectedness is the cause of the misinterpretation which forms the leitmotif of the story. Mr. Das, Raj, best portrays this characteristic of disconnectedness. He isolates himself from the real world by hiding behind the lens of his camera, and within the pages of his guide book. He abdicates responsibility whenever possible. He foists his daughter on to his wife, when Tina wishes to go to the toilet. When Ronny approaches the goat, he confines himself to mere words of admonition, but has “no intention of intervening” (Lahiri, 310). He attempts to pass the buck to Bobby, who himself is only a child. The decision to visit the Udayagiri hills is not made by him: he merely acquiesces to the children. In his preoccupation with his camera, he fails to keep Bobby under his supervision. When the monkeys attack Bobby, he remains at a distance, with his camera, and helplessly asks, "What are we supposed to do? What if they start attacking?" (325). Raj uses his “born and raised” (310) in America identity as an excuse for his total disconnectedness from his Indian roots and culture. When Mr. Kapasi introduces himself with the Indian gesture of pressed palm, Raj responds with the American handshake. He is the typical ‘foreigner,’ clicking photos from a distance of monkeys, and of the peasant riding the bullock cart. His guide book is his soulless interpreter of India, and is itself a foreign publication. He maintains a safe distance from the real India. He equates his trip to India with a trip to New York’s Museum of Natural History: the country of his origin is merely a museum, and is not connected to him on a living level. Even family relationships are viewed from the across the distant barrier of the camera. He photographs the family having lunch. He takes a photograph of his wife and the guide, instructing her “to lean in closer to Mr. Kapasi,” (316), and is totally oblivious to the building tension of Mr. Kapasi’s relationship with Mina. Although his marriage and family are falling apart, and each member is living in a self-centered world of his own, Raj plans to take photographs of the family as one happy unit and “use one of these pictures for our Christmas card this year” (321). He is completely disassociated from the realities of his life. He does not care for his wife: he does not accede to her demand for an air-conditioned car, refuses to take her out, or to entertain, in the early days of their marriage, and continues to live as if he believes that his wife is “still in love with him” (323). The epitome of Mr. Das’s disconnectedness with his life is, of course, the fact that he remains “unsuspecting and unaware that one of his sons was not his own” (324). Raj’s distance from his family is echoed by the disconnectedness of his wife. Mina is the personification of self-centeredness. Her lack of interest in her husband and children is evident throughout the narrative. She reluctantly takes Tina to the toilet but does “not hold the little girl's hand as they walked to the rest room” (309). She does not castigate her daughter for playing with the locks of her car door, which is dangerous. At the temple, she walks “past her children as if they were strangers” (319). She does not offer to share her puffed rice with her husband or children. Like her husband, she is completely disassociated from, and disinterested in, her Indian roots. She is indifferent to the flirtatious singing of the man at the tea stall. Raj views the world through the lens of his camera; Mina conceals her gaze behind the “large dark brown sunglasses with a pinkish tint to them” (311). On the tour, she is indifferent to the sights and devotes her attention to painting her nails! She does not take an interest in the monkeys or the peasant. Here again, she cannot be bothered to indulge her daughter’s wish to have her nails painted. Mr. Kapasi accurately portrays the couple as not being “responsible for anything other than themselves” (313). At the beginning, Mrs. Das is totally disinterested in Mr. Kapasi, and does not bother to greet him, confining herself to “smiling dutifully” (309). When her interest is finally piqued by Mr. Kapasi’s profession as an interpreter, and she emerges from her cocoon of self-centeredness, she imbues the job with unrealistic connotations of romanticism, far removed from the prosaic realities of its workings “in a stale little infirmary” under “the blackened blades of a ceiling fan” (345). In an obvious attempt to make him talk, she offers Mr. Kapasi a piece of chewing gum, makes room for him at their lunch table, and asks for his address, promising to send him copies of the photographs. She even makes the effort to engage him in conversation over the statues at the temple. She deliberately maneuvers to be left alone with Mr. Kapasi and confides the secret of Bobby’s illegitimacy. In her self-absorption, she does not have the sensitivity to perceive the overtones of disgust in his attitude towards her disclosure. She is unaware of the romantic emotions she has aroused in him, and of his disappointment when she callously remarks “I’m twenty-eight. You probably have children my age" (323). She endows Mr. Kapasi’s prosaic job as an interpreter with mysterious “talents” (323) which will make him “help me feel better, say the right thing. Suggest some kind of remedy" (324). It is only when Mr. Kapasi openly mentions her guilt that she realizes that he is not willing to play the role she expects from him. She immediately terminates their relationship. He becomes merely the guide once again. She ignores Mr. Das’s strictures about not provoking the monkeys with food, and trails puffed rice as she walks. While she comforts Bobby with the bandage and the hairbrush, she does not acknowledge her responsibility for the monkey attack, which was brought on by her carelessness and irrespobsibility. She fails to notice when the slip of paper with Mr. Kapasi’s address is lost to the wind. In every aspect of her actions and words, Mrs. Das displays her lack of interest in her married life and her family. The characteristic of disconnectedness with the world around them extends to the Das family as a whole, and to the children. The family is cut off from their ethnicity. “The family looked Indian but dressed as foreigners did” (309). The Indian culture of their parents is alien to them. They are strangers to the land of their ancestors. The family looks at the world through their translucent visors. They personify the caricature of ‘the Ugly American Tourist,’ with their incessant gum-chewing, loudness and egoism. The children are insolent and indifferent to instruction. Tina plays with the locks on her car door and bangs her doll on the seat behind the driver. Ronny defies his fathers’ orders and approaches the goat. He calls his brother a “dummy” (312). Bobby provokes the monkeys with a stick. The picture of Bobby cut off from his family, surrounded by a ring of monkeys, emphasizes his separateness from the Das family. He is actually an outsider. Even their teeth braces, covering their teeth “in a network of flashing silver wires” (309), seems to form a barrier between India and their alien world. In all their actions, the children display no sympathy or interest in the land of their heritage. They do not connect with Indian culture in any way. Mr. Kapasi, the ‘interpreter of maladies,’ continues this exemplification of disconnectedness with the realities of life. Right from the beginning of his encounter with the Das family, the guide has a mistaken conception of them: their Indian appearance confuses him and prevents him from accepting them as completely foreign. It is in his perception of Mrs. Das that he displays the greatest disconnect from reality. His view of Tina is distorted by his own fantasy: the author beautifully suggests this distortion by making Mr. Kapasi view her through the rear view window of his car. Ignorant of the total self-absorption of Mrs. Das, Mr. Kapasi shows her the consideration of easing “up on the accelerator, hoping to produce a smoother ride” (312), to facilitate her painting of her nails. Similarly, he worries that she may notice the drip of mango juice on his chin during their lunch. He finds her sudden interest in him to be “intoxicating” (316), and is very easily taken in by her flattery regarding his job as an interpreter. He indulges in romantic fantasies: the author very appropriately makes Mr. Kapasi write his address on a slip of paper underneath “a tiny picture of a hero and heroine embracing under a eucalyptus tree” (317). The signs of a bad marriage, which he recognizes from his own, “the bickering, the indifference, the protracted silences” (316), give him hope that her interest in him is romantic. He has grandiose dreams of corresponding with her “serving as an interpreter between nations” (319), fulfilling his youthful dreams of being an interpreter for diplomats and dignitaries. This dream is hardly realistic in a man who is doubtful of the interpretation of the American expression “Neat!” (319). He progresses so far and fast in his fantasy, “that he had an overwhelming urge to wrap his arms around her, to freeze with her, even for an instant, in an embrace” (319). He dreams of holding her hand in Udayagiri. All these dreams evaporate when Mrs. Das confides her secret to him. Mr. Kapasi returns to the real world. For the first time, he loses his disconnectedness with this Indian-American family and sees Mrs. Das as she is “a woman not yet thirty, who loved neither her husband nor her children, who had already fallen out of love with life” (324). He is repelled by her confidences. He assumes his identity as a tour guide and refuses to assume the identity of ‘interpreter of maladies’ which she wants him to don. He is “insulted that Mrs. Das should ask him to interpret her common, trivial little secret” (324). When he speaks of guilt, instead of absolution or comfort, Mrs. Das cuts off communication with him. He realizes his true position in her eyes. He interprets her malady correctly and she is unable to accept the truth of his diagnosis. The end of his fantasies regarding their relationship is symbolized by the slip of paper with his address fluttering away in the wind. The disconnectedness exhibited by the characters in “Interpreter of Maladies” is the source of the misinterpretation and miscommunication which characterizes the entire theme of the story. As each character inhabits a world of their own, there is no comprehension of the others genuine feelings or needs. Each character lives in isolation from the other. Mr. Das isolates himself behind the pages of his guide book, looks at the world through the lens of his camera, ignores the signs of rift in his family, and pretends that his wife loves him. He does not connect Bobby’s different complexion or personality with the possibility that the boy may not be his. Even with the help of his guide book, he is unable to correctly interpret the true India: he sees the peasant as a picturesque character, and ignores the emaciation which signifies starvation. He fails to interpret Mr. Kapasi’s changed behavior as an indication of his romantic interest in Mrs. Das. He does not comprehend the romantic appeal of the interpreter’s job for his wife. On the other hand, Mrs. Das is isolated in her own cocoon of self-centeredness, viewing the world from behind the lens of her pink-tinted sun glasses. Her attitude to life is characterized by an emphatic disinterest: her raised car window signals her lack of interest in India. This disinterestedness extends to her family. She emerges from her cocoon only to give Mr. Kapasi’s job as an interpreter at a doctor’s office a totally false construction. She paints a fantastic picture of interpreter’s job as romantic, and filled with great responsibility. She misinterprets Mr. Kapasi’s role as an interpreter. All Mr. Kapasi’s job entails is the prosaic burden of “assiduously translating the symptoms of so many swollen bones, countless cramps of bellies and bowels, spots on people's palms that changed color, shape, or size,” (314). However, Mrs. Das gives the interpreter a power of understanding which he does not possess. She misinterprets his job, and expects him to be the supplier of some kind of a remedy to heal the so-called pain of her secret. The three children remain isolated from their cultural roots, viewing India from behind their visors. They make no attempt to interpret their heritage, and are content to inhabit their own self-centered world. It is Mr. Kapasi, the story’s chief protagonist and ‘interpreter of maladies,’ who is guilty of the greatest misinterpretations. He views Mrs. Das from the distorted perspective of his cars’ rearview mirror. He misinterprets her interest in his job as a romantic interest in himself as a person. He fails to decipher that her all-encompassing self-centeredness leaves no room for anyone else in her life. While he notes her failure as a wife and mother, he deludes himself into hoping that the disappointment of their respective marriages would serve to lead them to fulfilling relationship with each other. He mistakenly transfers the romantic connotation she gives his job to his person. Her encouragement to him to talk about his job sets him off on a frenzy of imagination, very far removed from the reality. His inflated images are punctured when he realizes that she sees him as a father-figure. He understands that she has assigned him the role of some kind of a father-confessor, who is to interpret her malady of “feeling so terrible all the time” (324), and giving her absolution. However, of all the characters in “Interpreter of Maladies,” it is undoubtedly Mr. Kapasi who has his moment of epiphany. Mrs. Das’s of contempt “crushed him; he knew at that moment that he was not even important enough to be properly insulted” by her (324). While the other characters remain in their disconnected spheres, he realizes the truth of his position and connects with reality. In this context, Mr. Kapasi finally becomes a true ‘interpreter of maladies.’ As a translator at the doctor’s office, he merely interprets the symptoms of the patients; it is the doctor who treats them and prescribes a cure. Likewise, Mr. Kapasi correctly interprets Mrs. Das’s malady to be the guilt associated with her adultery and concedes his inability to prescribe a cure. He refuses to give in to her demand that he assume the false role of a healer. He comes to make an accurate construction of his relationship with the Das family. “Interpreter of Maladies” is a moving account of the search for connectedness and belonging in a meaningful relationship. The characters are mired in a maze of isolation, lack of communication and self-absorption. This leads to the mistaken reading of signals and a marked disconnectedness with the real world. As each character moves in isolation in separate, individual spheres, there is no evidence of the give-and-take which makes a relationship truly meaningful and fulfilling. The author conveys this lack of meaningful communication through a detailed characterization. Mr. Das lives in a make-believe world of camera images; Mrs. Das builds up a false image of Mr. Kapasi’s job; the children remain uninterested in their Indian heritage; Mr. Kapasi indulges in unrealistic romantic fantasies involving Mrs. Das. Misinterpretation is the heart of the narrative. In this story, Jhumpa Lahiri brilliantly accomplishes her declared aim of conveying “the impossibility of communicating emotional pain and affliction to others, as well as expressing it to ourselves” (Houghton, A Conversation with JL). “Interpreter of Maladies” is a tale of self-absorption and misinterpretation. Works Cited. Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt. 2011. A Reader’s Guide. “Interpreter of Maladies,” by Jhumpa Lahiri. A Conversation With Jhumpa Lahiri. 21 July, 2011. http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/readers_guides/interpreter_maladies.shtml Lahiri, Jhumpa. “Interpreter of Maladies.” Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing (3rd Edition). Kennedy, J. and Dana Gioia. Longman, 2010. 308 – 326. Print.  Read More