What experiences define an immigrant? A few may be loss of country, separation from loved ones, and most importantly, assimilation into a new culture. All of this can cause immigrants to feel isolated and unable to communicate with others. No other group experiences this more than Indian immigrants. Jhumpa Lahiri writes about this inability to communicate emotions in her collection of short stories, The Interpreter of Maladies. Lahiri presents Indian immigrants as poor emotional communicators though the characters of Ms. Sen in Ms. Sen, and Sanjeev in This Blessed House.
She does this to establish the psychological toll forced relationships and assimilation takes on these characters. Ms. Sen cannot communicate with Mr. Sen about her homesickness, she feels that her only hope for happiness is assimilation in the United States. Throughout the story Eliot observes her, he finds that she is incredibly lonely. Ms. Sen confides in Eliot, saying “Here, in this place where Mr. Sen has brought me, I cannot sometimes sleep in so much silence” (155) and “Could I drive all the way to Calcutta? How long would that take, Elliot? ” (119).
It is obvious that she longs to get out if this backwards country. The problem is, Mr. and Ms. Sen are incompatible. Ms. Sen loves community and family, whereas Mr. Sen keeps to himself. Mr. Sen is not present, but this relationship clearly needs more attention. This is shown though the descriptions Lahriri used; “Mr. Sen would arrive, patting Eliot on the head, but not kissing Ms. Sen” (124) and “They didn’t hold hands or put their arms around each other’s waists. Both smiled with their moths closed” (130).
Ms. Sen tries to communicate homesickness to him though the Indian food she prepares, but Mr. Sen is not a person that would understand this type of physical communication. They are trapped in an incompatible relationship because feel they need it for happiness in the United States, especially Ms. Sen. They only have each other. They do not communicate, but its preferable to being lost and alone, trying to assimilate in a foreign society. In This Blessed House, Sanjeev is a poor communicator with Twinkle because he is incompatible with her and he is in a relationship of obligation, rather than a loving relationship. They say opposites attract but this is not true in terms of Sanjeev and Twinkle.
Twinkle is a curious and outgoing, the Christian “treasures” in their home fascinate her. Twinkle is a rebel; she does not care what other people think. Whereas Sanjeev is organized and self-conscious. The very existence of those artifacts “irritate” him and “ruin” the atmosphere in his home. He is the kind of person that listens to classical music just to impress people. Sanjeev can tell twinkle “Oh God, no. Twinkle, no” (146) when arguing over the placement of the artifacts but cannot tell her why “they meant nothing to him” (145).
All they do id argue over the Catholic junk, they are too different to sit down and have a conversation about why they disagreed. Moreover, Sanjeev is a bad communicator because he does not love Twinkle. “Sanjeev was lonely, with an excessively generous income for a single man, and had never been in love. ” (143). His mother tells him he makes money for three families. All of this pushes Sanjeev to marry twinkle in less than a year. Sure, he was lonely but it is uncharacteristic to spontaneously marry a girl he didn’t love. He married her because he thought he had to. This made the health of their relationship unimportant.
He needed a wife; he did not need to understand her. Lahiri portrays immigrants as bad communicators because she wants to illustrate the importance of strong relationships in immigration. This evidenced by the order the stories and the details that link Ms. Sen and This Blessed House together. Although Lahiri’s characters have different experiences with immigration, the thing that links them together is their weak relationships. Often these relationships are with people they should be closest to.
This weak bond due to poor communication causes characters to fail in assimilating to the U. S. Ms. Sen shows this though her failure to learn to drive and Sanjeev does this by way of his failure to have his “normal” housewarming party. These failures can be traced back to their inability to communicate with their spouses. Ms. Sen never told Mr. Sen that she didn’t want to drive and Sanjeev could never to speak up during the party. They just tried do what they felt they had to, assimilate, but in the end failed because they tried to assimilate alone. Lahriri confirms this though the details that linked them together. In Ms. Sen, Ms. Sen getting into an accident driving with Eliot to get fish for stew.
In This Blessed House, Lahiri nods to this when twinkle makes a stew made with fish. This happens again with Sanjeev’s classical music, one of his defining characteristics. Ms. Sen says, ““It is more than even your Beethoven, isn’t it? ” (117). These similarities coupled with the fact that the stories are next to each other shows that Lahiri intentionally expressed this message. In summary, in The Interpreter of Maladies Lahiri expresses Indian immigrants as poor emotional communicators though Ms. Sen and This Blessed House. She did this to convey the importance of close relationships in immigration.
Lahiri confirms this by weaving the stories together with small details and by placing them together in the book. Overall, these characters are poor communicators because they are incompatible with their spouses and they feel obligated to stay in these broken relationships to succeed in assimilating in the U. S. Despite their differences, Sanjeev and Ms. Sen need Twinkle and Mr. Sen. They must try to communicate so they can be happy. To prove this, Lahiri writes the Third and Final Continent. It shows an Indian immigrant succeeding in the United States by being emotionally open to his spouse. Something that Ms. Sen and Sanjeev never did.