Individual and Family Strife in Jhumpa Lahiri’s
‘A Temporary Matter’- Tracing the Roots in Feminism
Shri. Yogesh S. Kashikar
Assistant Professor in English Department
Arts and Science College, Kurha.
Cont. No. + 919822300710
Email id – y.kashikar@yahoo.com
Abstract: Feminism and Feminist literary criticism are often defined as
a matter of what is absent rather than what is present. Feminist literary criticism
is considered to be a political discourse, a literary and theoretical commitment
to straggle for women against patriarchy and sexism. It is concerned with the
marginalization, repression, subjugation and representation of all women in Art
and Culture. Jhumpa Lahiri is one of the most respected authors of our time.
Essentially her tales paint a very intelligent portrait of upper-middle-class life.
Her feminist approach is somewhat different from the other female authors.
Jhumpa presents women’s marginalization in cultural context. Her female
characters are not subjected to any economic exploitation by the patriarchy.
Most of the women characters in Jhumpa Lahiri’s works are the victims of
cultural identity; they often caught between the two worlds. The prime objective
in this paper is to focus on an Individual and Family Strife / struggle particularly
of female characters in Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘A Temporary Matter’ in the light of
Feminist literary criticism.
Keywords:Feminism and Feminist literary criticism, culture, role of
gender, position and difference of gender, object of male- desire and deprive of
self- expression and self- determination, patriarchy, darkness, cultural practices
of gender
Introduction:Jhumpa Lahiri is one of the best known women of letters of our time
whose books have topped the bestseller lists. She made her mark with a Pultizer-Prizewinning debut collection of short stories “Interpreter of Maladies” in 1999 and the novel
“Namesake” in 2003 and Unaccustomed Earth in 2008. She has won many awards,
including the Trans Atlantic Award (1993), the O. Henry Award for the short story
"Interpreter of Maladies" (1999), the PEN/Hemingway Award for Best Fiction Debut of
the Year for “Interpreter of Maladies” collection, and most recently the Frank O'Connor
International Short Story Award (2008) and the Asian American Literary Award (2009),
both for Unaccustomed Earth. Essentially her tales paint a very intelligent portrait of
upper-middle-class life. Her feminist approach is somewhat different from the other
female authors. Jhumpa presents women’s marginalization in cultural context. Her
female characters are not subjected to any economic exploitation by the patriarchy. Most
of the women characters in Jhumpa Lahiri’s works are the victims of cultural identity;
they often caught between the two worlds. The prime objective in this paper is to focus
on an Individual and Family Strife / struggle particularly of female characters in Jhumpa
Lahiri’s ‘A Temporary Matter’ in the light of Feminist literary criticism. The first part of
paper will outline the brief history and basic important assumptions and key concepts of
Feminist literary criticism. The second part will consist of brief outline of the story,
while the third part will analyze the story from Feminist point of view.
“A Temporary Matter” shows the cold and harsh realities of the family
life. Shukumar and his wife Shoba commits to spend their life together and find them
unable to even utter a word with each other. Yet it seems to be a common sort of marital
strife. The story reflects the alienation and loneliness that the emigrants face in a foreign
land. The marriage bond which is still considered sacrosanct in India is slithering down
under the pressure of new needs under a different background. A Temporary Matter is a
delineation of marital alienation between Shoba and Shukumar.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF FEMINIST LITERARY CRITICISM
Feminism and Feminist literary criticism are often defined as a matter of
what is absent rather than what is present. Feminist literary criticism is considered to be a
political discourse, a literary and theoretical commitment to straggle for women against
patriarchy and sexism. It is concerned with the marginalization, repression, subjugation
and representation of all women in Art and Culture. It addresses a wide range of issues
related with the role of gender, position and difference of gender in socio-cultural set-up.
It seeks to uncover the ideology of patriarchal society in the work of art. It reads literary
text from women’s point of view and argues for social, political, cultural and family
oppression of women. For feminist, the text is a battle field where actual power relations
between men and women are played out.
Feminist literary criticism properly begins in the aftermath of ‘second
wave’ feminism, the term usually given to the emergence of women’s movements in the
United States and Europe during the Civil Rights campaigns of the 1960s. Feminist
literary criticism is originated from the earliest writings of Mary Wollstonecraft, J.S.
Mill, and of Engels. In their articles, they wrote of the need to think the role of women
and social oppression against them. In the earliest years, it concentrated on exposing the
misogyny of literary practices, the stereotyped images of women in literature, the literary
abuses and textual harassment of women in the work of art. With the advance of women
liberation movement , it got a kinetic momentum and spread into all walks of life.
Feminist literary criticism is a source of pleasure, stimulation, confirmation, insight, selfaffirmation, doubt, questioning and reappraisal: it has the potential to alter the way we
see ourselves, others and the world. The famous feminist critics / theorists are Virginia
Woolf, Terry Lovells, Judia Swindellar, Cora Kaplan, Elaine Showalter, Guilbert Gulbar,
Kate Millet, Julia Kristeva, Helene Cixons, Lucy Irigaray, Simone De Beauvoir, Mary
Ellmanm, Judith Butler, Nancy Miller, Annis Pratt, Alice Walker, Patricia Collins, Bell
Hooks, Adrienne Rich, Julia Penelope, Sandra Harding, Donna Harraway And Vandanna
Shiva.
BASIC IMPORTANT ASSUMPATION AND KEY CONCEPTS
1. The present culture is essentially patriarchal in its nature. Women are
subordinated to men in all cultural domains- familial, religious, political,
economic, social, and legal and artistic.
2. Right from bible to the present writing, women are represented as
vulnerable, frail, weak, obstacle, dependent, less-intellectual, pro-creating
device, object of male- desire and deprive of self- expression and selfdetermination. Thus women are taught to internalize the reigning of
patriarchal ideology and to co-operate in their own subordination.
3. Sex is natural whereas gender and sexuality are the constructions of
society. Woman’s sexuality and desires are made and treated as
subservient to that of male’s. Thus the inequality of sexes originates in
the cultural construction of gender difference.
4. The patriarchal ideology pervades in the writings of great masters who
focus on male protagonists. Such writings lack a true expression of
female experiences. There is, therefore, a need of rediscovery of works by
forgotten women writers and a need of re-representation of female
experiences by female writers.
5. Some feminists have explored on “ecriture feminine” ( female writing)
and its specifications for e.g. Ann Rosalind Jones, ‘Writing the Body:
Toward an Understanding of L’Ecriture Fe´minine’, (1985)
6. Some feminists have concentrated on “woman as writer” and woman as a
reader” for e.g. Judith Fetterly’s “ The Resisting Reader”
BRIEF OUTLINE OF THE STORY “A TEMPORARY
MATTER”
Let us have a cursory glance through a short summery of the story.
Husband and wife Shukumar and Shoba are notified that their electricity will be
turned off at 8:00PM for five evenings in a row in order to fix a power line.
Shoba tells her husband this news. He looks at her, noticing that her makeup has
run from her time at the gym. Shoba insists that the electric company should
work on the lines during the day. Shukumar takes slight offense at this idea;
since January, he has worked at home on his dissertation. The outages begin
that evening.
Six months earlier, Shoba went into labor prematurely when
Shukumar was attending a conference out of town. Shukumar remembers the
station wagon cab that took him to the airport. For the first time, the images of
parenthood that flashed through his mind were welcome. While out of town,
Shukumar was alerted of the labor complications, but by the time he arrived at
the Boston hospital, their child had died. The death of child changes their
relations completely. Even before her pregnancy they enjoyed their life to the
fullest. They celebrate birthday parties - a surprise party. But now they tried to
avoid even friends with whom we can share our feelings, problems and our
boredom.
Lately, editor Shoba spends more time at work, leaving before
Shukumar wakes and coming home late. Shukumar had been granted more time
to work on his dissertation, but he finds himself unable to work. He and his wife
have become strangers, experts in avoiding one another. Their relations were on
the border of breaking. Even they could not eat together. Shukumar was
cooking dinner each evening just for the two of them to eat separately.
Shukumar was busy in his study while Shoba in front of the TV with her editing
assignments spread out in front of her. Shukumar pretends to work when Shoba
comes to visit each night, forcing herself to enter the room. Thus they started to
avoid each other. It would be for the first time they ate together in the dark on
that night.
They had no visitors. The only visitor they’d had since their baby
died was Shoba’s mother, who somewhat blames Shukumar for his child’s
death. Shukumar sets the table with potted ivy to hold the candles and glasses of
wine. Just as the meat is ready, the house goes dark.
When Shoba was in India, her family would share jokes or poems
when the power went out. Shoba suggests they tell each other secrets in the
dark. First, she confesses that when they began dating, she looked for her name
in his phone book the first time she went to his apartment. Shukumar tells
Shoba that he forgot to tip the waiter on their first date. He was distracted by the
thought he might marry her.
The next night, Shoba comes home earlier so they can eat together
before the lights go out. When they lose power, they decide to sit outside in the
unseasonably warm winter night. Shukumar wonders what Shoba will tell him
since he feels they know everything about each other. Shoba shares first. When
Shukumar’s mother came for a visit, she lied about working late and went out
for a martini with her friend Gillian instead. Shukumar felt awkward with his
grief-stricken mother. Shukumar admits that, fifteen years ago, he cheated on an
exam. His father had died only a few months earlier.
On the third night, Shukumar confesses Shoba that he
returned the sweater vest she had given him for their third anniversary. He
exchanged it for cash and got drunk in the middle of the day. She tells him that
she once let him speak to the chairman of his department with food on his chin.
On the fourth night, he admits he kept a picture of a woman torn out of a
magazine in his wallet while Shoba was pregnant. The desire for the unknown
woman was the closest he ever came to infidelity. Shoba tells him she never
liked the only poem he had ever published.
Each night bring them close slowly and slowly. Shukumar and
Shoba are able to be intimate in the dark. On the third night, they kiss and on
the fourth night, they make love. The next day, they receive a notice that the
power line has been repaired ahead of schedule. It is the end of their game.
Shoba suggests they still light candles and eat by their glow. After dinner,
Shoba blows out the candles and opens a second bottle of wine. She turns the
lights back on, telling Shukumar that she wants to see his face when she tells
him her biggest secret. Before coming home that evening, she had signed the
lease on her own new apartment. Shukumar is relieved but sickened. Shoba had
been preparing for a life without him and the game had been proposed so she
could work up her nerve to break the news to him.
It is Shukumar’s turn to speak and he decides to confess something
that he swore he would never tell. When she was pregnant, Shoba wanted the
gender of their child to remain a surprise until birth. When the child died, she
did not know if they had lost a son or daughter. When Shukumar arrived at the
hospital, Shoba was asleep. The doctor suggested he hold the child before it was
cremated in order to begin the grieving process. Shukumar recoiled, but then
agreed. He tells Shoba that he held their son. He describes what the child looked
like, how his fingers were curled just as hers curl in the night. Shukumar takes
their plates to the sink, leaving Shoba alone in the living room. He watches their
neighbors walk arm in arm and the lights suddenly go out. He turns to find
Shoba at the light switch. They sit together and weep for their new knowledge.
Individual and Family Strife in the story- Tracing the Roots in Feminism
Jhumpa Lahiri’s feminist approach is somewhat different from the
other female authors. Jhumpa presents women’s marginalization in cultural
context. Her female characters are not subjected to any economic exploitation
by the patriarchy. Most of her women characters belong to diasporic
communities. In some stories women living in India are presented in order to
show the ramifications of patriarchy on the lives of Indian women.
A Temporary Matter’ is a short story of five days in the lives of an
estranged couple, Shukumar and Shobha, settled in Boston being reconciled at
the end by revealing and narrating their secrets to each other during the dark
hours of an electricity failure at night. The ‘temporary matter’ of the title refers
not only to the temporality of their relationship but also to the actual incidence
of an electrical failure that affects them for five days. In the story one finds
many binary oppositions- the working woman/the non-working man, the faded
sexuality/the intimate desires, the light/the dark. Interestingly, the story also
undercuts the traditional associations of these binaries.
The visible tension between the couple is built up till the lights are
cut off. Shobha, the wife, decided to play a game of ‘telling secrets’ with her
husband, Shukumar to pass time and boredom. The revelations begin
continuously till they reach on the fifth day to the subject of their dead child – a
child that was born dead when Shukumar was away attending a conference.
Shukumar’s revelation that he had held the child before its burials opens the
floodgates for remorse and passionate repentance for Shobha till they end up
making love. The narrative reiterates the necessity of darkness again and again.
Secrets can reveal only in darkness; reconciliations can take place only within
the ambit of the un-illuminated self. The public glares of light – the gaze of the
West that confers legitimacy on Shobha and Shukumar and their existence as
conscientious citizens.
There is a difference of gender roles especially as they relate
to husband-wife roles within marriage played in different cultures- whereas in
India one can find a strict set of guidelines dictate how husbands and wives act
both publicly and privately. While in America such guidelines are not as clear
cut and oftentimes are thrown out altogether. Married characters often deal with
confusions of marriage roles in relation to cooking, working outside the home
etc. According to Indian marital culture, women are solely responsible for
cooking and doing household chores, as well as, becoming completely
domesticated with the arrival of children. Men are, according to such guidelines,
responsible for working and providing their families with a monetary income.
But Lahiri’s female character Shobha is trapped between two and try cope with
new and sometimes shockingly different stereotypes and roles in their new
homelands.
The story presents the casual but systematic build-up
towards a crucial revolution of a young and financially independent woman
against an unbearable, loveless marriage. A story of husband and wife,
Shukumar and Shoba whose life was filled with joy and after the death of their
first-born baby both started drifting apart. Each one felt uncomfortable in each
other’s presence and a forced blackout for eight nights to repair damage done by
an ice storm made them unmask their faces and start conversing and confessing
their deepest fears and thoughts.
Her act of walking out of such a marriage is a female
assertion of independence, identity determination and capacity to choose her
own way of life and to get rid of the emotional and physical stress. The title of
the story does not only refer to the temporary power failure alone, but also to
her temporary stay at Shukumar’s home. Their stillborn child has created
distance between them. Shoba is incapable to deal with her pain and frustration
at losing her baby and projected her anger and frustration on her husband
because he was absent during her labour. Shukumar was not there by her side at
the time in the hospital as he was attending an academic conference in
Baltimore that he “hadn’t wanted to go to . . . but she had insisted” as it was
“important to make contacts”. Though she insisted him to attend the conference,
she wishes her husband should be with her in the crucial time when she was
giving birth to their child. However, he had come back in time to hold the child
for few minutes before the child was cremated. Shukumar was neither
indifferent nor irresponsible towards Shoba or the child; rather he looked
forward towards being a father. They lost touch with one another in their
relationship; Shoba silently blames Shukumar for the tragedy. Here the question
is raised that weather Shukumar is really guilty or Shoba misunderstood him.
Definitely her behavior is uncommon in the nature. And both try to avoid each
other slowly and slowly. Within six months of the incident “he and Shoba
become experts at avoiding each other in their three bedroom house, spending
as much time on separate floors as possible”. As they grow increasingly cold
towards each other, the marital relationship becomes a burden for both of them.
The power cuts in their area, force them to spend time
together by candlelight. During these phases of darkness, they could restart
talking and sharing. When we expect a happy reunion after the closeness that
Shoba and Shukumar shared by exchanging untold experiences, it feels like a
douse of freezing cold water, when Shoba announces her decision to move into
a new apartment. The death of the child completely changed the lives of both
the husband and the wife. Somehow, their relationship had reached a stage
where “he didn’t want her to be pregnant again. Shoba’s confession leads to a
further revelation by Shukumar. Both Shoba and her mother assume Shukumar
to be a heartless, absent father”. Shoba’s problem is her inability to deal with
her anger and frustration of losing the baby for whose arrival she plans
elaborately. The child was the only bond that tied them together as couple. The
poignancy of the situation is revealed when he tells his wife that the baby was a
boy and describes him for the grieving mother. He says that he had not told her
because she wanted the sex of the baby to be a ‘mystery’ and now in their
shared grief they “wept together, for the things they know new” Thus, their
separation is over and they are able to regard their gap as ‘a temporary matter’.
This clarification is much more a satisfying ending. The theme of the
‘temporary matter’ means that it is their separation, and not their marriage, that
is temporary. In grief, Shoba stays away from the house as much as she could
and on the other hand, Shukumar had withdrawn himself from the world and
seldom leaves the house. In this story, main plot directly revolves around the
construction of the female identity rather than the male.
Conclusion:Through this story Jhumpa Lahiri has perfectly depicted the
strife that is going on in the mind of Shoba and Shukumar who are crushed
under the pressure of a tragedy. The twist and human touch induced in the story
adds the real - life colour to it. In a nutshell, Lahiri has very well constructed the
matrimonial world of Shoba and Shukumar, proving details of the human life
and of husband – wife relationship and how children- dead or alive affect
couple’s life. She focuses upon the man-woman relationship in context of bond
of marriage, prime issue being the barrenness which has crept into the lives of
the husband and wife. Jhumpa Lahiri does not seem to be contented with the
age-old formula of plot – happily married ever after. In fact, her story begins
after marriage and goes on to analyse the marital maladies that come in the way
of love, sexuality and companionship of her characters.
Jhumpa Lahiri, perhaps, tends to interrogate the gender roles
– the set of social and behavioral norms that are considered to be socially
appropriate for the individuals of a specific sex in the context of a specific
culture. Her female protagonist tries to alter the cultural context by moving out
of their orthodox cultural frame in order to reverse the gender roles. Shoba
seems to question the cultural and social factors that determine the biological
and physiological differences of genders. By doing so, Lahiri and her characters
align themselves to both feminist ideology and to the postmodern agenda of
subverting the cultural practices of gender.
Selected Bibliography
Primary Sources:Lahiri, Jhumpa. “A Temporary Matter” the story published in “The
Interpreter Of Maladies” New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.
Secondary Sources:
1. Bahareh Bahmanpour, “Female Subjects and Negotiating Identities in
Jhumpa Lahiri Interpreter of Maladies” Journal Studies In Literature
And Language Vol. 1, No. 6, 2010, pp. 43-51
2. Guha Rajdeep “Family Relationships In Jhumpa Lahiri’s The
Namesake And Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance Of Loss” A Thesis
Submitted For The Degree Of Master Of Arts At The University Of
Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand 19th December, 2012
3. Lahiri, Jhumpa. “A Temporary Matter” the story published in “The
Interpreter Of Maladies” New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.
4. Mishra Saurabh article on “Man-Woman Relationships: A Bicultural
Syntax In The Short Stories Of Jhumpa Lahiri” ISSN: 0974-892X
VOL. I ISSUE I January, 2007
5. Naik Shamrao “Love, Marriage And Sexual Relations: Man-Woman
Relationship In Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake” Research Spectrum:
Vol: 3, Issue: 2, August, 2012
6. Nayak, Bhagabat, “Multicultural Commitment: A Study of Jhumpa
Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies”. Atlantic Publisher, New delhi-2002
7. Nityanandam, Indira. Broken Indentities : A Comparative Study of
Bharati Mukherjee’s Darkness and Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of
Maladies. Jhumpa Lahiri : The Master Story teller A Critical Response
to Interpreter of Maladies ed. Suman Bala. New Delhi : Khosla
Publishing House, 2002
8. Sharma Priyanka “ Bewildered Relations in Jhumpa Lahiri’s
Interpreter of Maladies” Lapis Lazuli -An International Literary
Journal (LLILJ) Vol.2/ NO.2/Autumn 2012.