Lahiri, Jhumpa | "Interpreter of
Maladies"
Classroom Strategies
Full disclosure: My writing assignments heavily emphasize argumentation, which is
partly, I think, what made this assignment successful.
The response to this semester’s lesson plan for “Interpreter of Maladies” was
unexpectedly positive. I decided to focus most of the discussion on the story’s title.
First, I drew parallels between the story title and the title of our class, The
Interpretation of Literature. After a review of what we mean by interpretation as a
frame and skill for the class, we discussed what Lahiri seemed to mean by
interpretation—especially as it compares to her uses of the word translation. After
the large group discussion about interpretation, it was time for small group work.
My goal for the small group activity was to use our writing model (I rely on a modified
version of the Toulmin model) to analyze moments of interpretation in the story. So,
each group was asked 1) to find a moment in the text when the “interpreter” of the
title, Mr. Kapasi, is performing an act of interpretation, 2) to explain what he is
interpreting, 3) to determine his interpretation. As each group reported back, I
followed up with questions about evidence: What is Kapasi’s evidence? Is it good
evidence or bad evidence? What are his hidden assumptions? What impact does his
interpretation have on his behavior and judgments throughout the rest of the story?
(Again, these are meant to replicate the Toulmin model, which I continued to
foreground throughout the discussion.) The whole class responded to these follow
up questions.
I base the success of this assignment on a couple of things. First, students seemed
to have the “Oh!” moment about the Toulmin model. They all of the sudden realized
why just any ol’ reading isn’t valid. They also finally seemed to get what I meant
when I told them to reveal any “hidden assumptions” in the warrant section of their
papers. Second, none of the groups chose the same moment in the text, which
allowed us more coverage than I had expected. Third, the discussion led us into
close readings instead of generalized conversation about surface details like Mrs.
Das’s infidelity. Fourth, in the discussion about interpretation v. translation as it
appears in the story, some students seemed to finally accept that interpretation is
more than “tearing a story apart” or a skill that only applies to literary texts.