1
Ms. Kray
Name:______________________
Block:_______________
American Literature
Date:__________
Study Packet: INTERPRETER OF MALADIES by Jhumpa Lahiri
** If you loose this packet it will be YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to make copies from a classmate
or to download your own copy from my website.**
1. What do you know about India?
2. Frontline Video – “Pakistan: This is Your Wife - Invitation to an Arranged Marriage”
Discussion questions:
a. Have you heard of anyone having an arranged married before?
b. How does Tabriz feel about arranged marriages?
c. How well do they know each other before their marriage?
d. Why is he getting married?
e. How do the groom and bride say they feel before the wedding?
f. What are the bride’s plans for her education and career?
g. What do they look like they feel?
h. How does Tabriz feel about her?
i. How do they look like they feel after their first time together alone?
j. How long does the ceremony last?
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salon.com > Books July 27, 1999
URL: http://www.salon.com/books/review/1999/07/27/lahiri
"Interpreter of Maladies"
BY CHARLES TAYLOR
In a stunning debut collection about Asians in America, an author casts an empathetic eye on
assimilation.
The impulse that courses through Jhumpa Lahiri's beautiful debut, "Interpreter of Maladies," might be
called the ardor of empathy. In the 10 stories that make up this collection, Lahiri displays a steadfast
curiosity about human behavior and a healthy respect for its mystery. Shrewd but not judgmental, she
has the grace to make us feel close even to foolishness and timidity and naïveté and the wit to make
actions logical without being predictable. (The most hapless of her characters, the maltreated shopgirl
in "The Treatment of Bibi Haldar" who dreams hopelessly of winning a husband, surprises us with her
unexpected tenacity.)
The best humanist artists have the gift of erasing boundaries between character and audience and the
concomitant power to wound us by making us share the characters' tragedies. If Lahiri hasn't yet fully
achieved that kind of power, it may be because she hasn't yet placed her characters in the direst
circumstances. But you can't read "Interpreter of Maladies" without imagining that someday soon
she'll write something that scars us with its beauty of perception.
Her characters are Asians, many of whom have come to America for a job or for school (she's noteperfect on the academic life of Boston and its suburbs) or because of a political crisis. As you might
expect, the way people assimilate is a major theme. In one story, a young girl can't believe that her
American school teaches nothing about the Pakistani civil war that preoccupies her parents and the
gentleman who joins them every night for dinner. But Lahiri doesn't write jeremiads about the loss of
cultural identity; her characters are both relieved when they adjust to their new world and regretful at
the separation from their original cultures.
Food in these stories is a talisman, a reassuring bit of the homeland to cling to. Spices and flavors waft
through like themes in a piece of music:
From the kitchen my mother brought forth the succession of dishes: lentils with fried onions, green
beans with coconut, fish cooked with raisins in a yogurt sauce. I followed with the water glasses, and
the plate of lemon wedges, and the chili peppers, purchased on monthly trips to Chinatown and stored
by the pound in the freezer, which they liked to snap open and crush into their food.
The whole fresh fish that the young woman in "Mrs. Sen's" purchases almost daily from a seafood
store is the only recognizable signpost left in her life. The connection Lahiri makes between that lonely
woman and the friendless American boy she cares for may be too explicit, but it's never calculated or
sentimental.
If I haven't said anything about Lahiri's style, that's because the identification she establishes between
her readers and her characters requires the kind of simple, direct prose whose refinement is invisible.
In the last words of the collection's last story, "As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is
beyond my imagination." Lahiri's gift is to invest the ordinary with an emotion that makes us feel we're
seeing it anew. What is beyond her empathy is not yet apparent.
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Ms. Kray
American Literature
Vocabulary:
1. Ardor
2. Steadfast
3. Shrewd
4. Timidity
5. Naïveté
6. Humanist
7. Concomitant
8. Jeremiads
9. Talisman
Please answer the following study questions in complete sentences.
1. What is the purpose of this article?
2. Who is its intended audience?
3. Describe the tone of this piece. (Use your tone words list)
4. Locate a literary technique Taylor uses and describe its effect.
5. According to Taylor, what is the major theme in Interpreter of Maladies?
6. What aspect of Taylor’s article is most interesting to you?
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WORD
concede
“A TEMPORARY MATTER” Study Guide
DEFINITION
(verb) –
Example: “It’s good of them to warn us,” Shoba conceded after reading the
notice aloud, more for her own benefit than Shukumar’s.
Synonyms:
(adjective) –
agrarian
Example: Since January he’d been working at home, trying to complete the final
chapters of his dissertation on agrarian revolts in India.
Synonyms:
cavernous
(adjective) –
Example: It was the cab he remembered most, a station wagon, which was
cavernous compared to their own car.
Synonyms:
(adjective) –
mediocre
Example: He was a mediocre student who had a facility for absorbing details
without curiosity.
superfluous
Synonyms:
(adjective) –
Example: The cosmetics that had seemed superfluous were necessary now, not
to improve her but to define her somehow.
reciprocate
Synonyms:
(verb) –
Example: He felt that he needed her to talk first in order to reciprocate.
Synonyms:



Prediction: Will the game of telling each other something they have never told before hurt or
mend Shoba and Shukumar’s relationship? Explain.
Shoba and Shukumar have kept their secrets for a long time. Their telling each other gives them
some relief. Write about a time you found relief in letting go of a secret you held. Why did you
decide to let it go? Describe your feelings before, during, and after you told your secret.
At the end of “A Temporary Matter,” Shoba turns off the lights, goes “back to the table and sat
down, and after a moment Shukumar joined her. They wept together fro the things they now
knew,” (22). Continue their story. Write the next twenty-four hours of Shoba and Shukumar’s
lives.
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Directions: Answer the following thoroughly and thoughtfully in COMPLETE SENTENCES.
1. How has Shoba and Shukumar’s relationship changed in the last six months? Explain.
2. Shoba and Shukumar are different people now from whom they used to be. They dress
differently, have new attitudes, and even seem to assume new personalities. Make a
list for each character contrasting who they were to who they are now.
3. There are definite cultural differences between the Shoba’s mother and Shukumar.
There are also differences in the way that Shoba and Shukumar were raised. What do
these differences tell you about the way each of these characters have assimilated into
the United States?
4. How has the lights going out temporarily and playing the game Shoba used to play when
visiting her grandmother’s house in India affect Shoba and Shukumar’s relationship?
Explain.
5. Shoba is the one who comes up with playing the game of telling each other secrets in the
dark. Why does she decide on playing that particular game? What is her ultimate purpose?
6. Shukumar has kept the secret of the baby’s sex to himself “because he still loved her
then, and it was the one thing in her life that she had wanted to be a surprise,” (22).
Why does he decide to tell Shoba this secret on the fifth night?
 Prepare for quiz!
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Interpreter of Maladies – “WHEN MR. PIRZADA CAME TO DINE”
Objectives:
 Students will be able to identify and acquire new vocabulary and use it correctly in
reading and writing.
 Students will be able to demonstrate knowledge of assimilation in the story “When Mr.
Pirzada Came to Dine” through class discussion.
 Students will be able to connect and empathize with Mrs. Croft and the narrator though
writing assignments and discussions.
 Students will be able to interpret deeper meaning within the text by connecting their
lives to their stories.
 Students will be able to assess the impact of assimilation by creating a short story about
it.
Power Point
a. What motives divided India and Pakistan?
b. Who should be blamed for the tension and why?
c. Discuss the tensions felt by Indian and Pakistani immigrants in the United States.
Why do you think they have tension today?
d. Would you recommend that American politicians intervene and come up with a
third party solution to the Pakistan and Indian issue? Why/why not?
e. Could you formulate a theory for why these issues began in the first place and
progressed as they did?
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WORD
ascertain
DEFINITION
(verb) Example: In the autumn of 1971 a man used to come to our house, bearing confections
in his pocket and hopes of ascertaining the life or death of his family.
Synonyms:
autonomy
(noun) –
Example: The eastern frontier, where Dacca was located, was fighting for autonomy
from the ruling regime in the west.
Synonyms: liberty, freedom, sovereignty
imperceptible
(adjective) –
Example: “For the lady of the house,” he said with an almost imperceptible splayfooted bow.
covet
Synonyms:
(verb) –
Example: I coveted each evening’s treasure as I would a jewel or a coin from a buried
kingdom, and I would place it in a small keepsake box.
Synonyms:
synchronize
(verb) –
Example: I had to wear my watch and synchronize it with his.
haphazard
Synonyms:
(adjective) –
Example: All these facts I know only now, for they are available to me in any history
book, in any library. But then it remained, for the most part, a remote mystery with
haphazard clues.
Synonyms:
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Journal Prompts:
1. How do you feel when someone assumes you are something that you are not? Discuss.
2. Think of a time that you had to assimilate to something/some place new. Write a paragraph telling the
story. Be sure to tell how you felt about it. Use specific examples.
3. Make a prediction about what is going to happen next.
4. Mr. Pirzada is glued to the television everyday because he wanted to learn about what is happening
where his family is. He has not heard from them in six months. If you were in another country and
cannot get in touch with your family, what would you do? Write a journal entry describing the feelings
you have and possible routes you will take in order to find your family.
5. Lilia’s father feels that they must make a distinction between Indian and Pakistani even though, to Lilia,
the two have such similarities that they should be considered one. When have you been in a situation
where you feel that two races/ethnicities or conflicts in general have been so similar that there is no
distinction? Was someone insistent on the distinction? How do you feel about it now that you know
about the differences?
6. Lilia’s father is appalled that his daughter knows next to nothing about her ancestral country, so he
teaches her a lot of the history of the region at home. Lilia is curious about that part of the world, but her
teachers teach American history and frown on her looking up the information about Pakistan on her own
because it is not relevant to the work she is doing in school. Lilia’s mother is just glad that her daughter is
allowed a better life in the United States and does not mind that only American history is taught at Lilia’s
school. Who is more right, Lilia’s father, her teachers, or her mother? Why?
“Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine” is not only about a man who is afraid for his family he left back in his war-torn home.
It is also about people who immigrate to the United States and who raise their American-born child in the new
country. Read and analyze the following poem. Discuss how the poem relates to one or more of the characters
from “Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine.”
Fresh from the Island Angel By David Mura
Father, where is the sea? The surf of my heart?
The girls with their twirling skirts of memory,
Who go down to the waves, soaking their garments.
Whose hearts were white. Whose skin was dark.
(Now I live where these colors are reversed.)
The swells were so blue there. And the nights.
Yes, we there sometimes hated our blackness.
But in secret, in secret we loved it even more.
You tell me our life here is new. And I believe you.
It’s just: I believe them too. Their loud loud voices.
On the streets. In my class. On the chalkboards.
In numbers in my notebook. The flag above my desk.
Inside my chest I still hold corridors of sunlight.
Villages where palms and pomegranates and linen blow.
Streets where people simply walk, day by day, into their lives.
The dust beneath their soles. The rain. The mud.
Father, I know I’ll forget all this.
I’ll be different then.
No longer your angel.
No longer yours.
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Directions: Answer the following thoroughly and thoughtfully in COMPLETE SENTENCES.
1. Mr. Pirzada visits during the autumn of 1971 from Dacca. Why is he in America? Why is
he apprehensive about his family back home?
2. Mr. Pirzada speaks the same language, “laughed at the same jokes, looked more or less
the same. … took off his shoes before entering a room, chewed fennel seeds after meals
as a digestive, drank no alcohol, for dessert dipped austere biscuits into successive cups
of tea” (25) just like Lilia’s Indian parents. Why is it that Mr. Pirzada “ is no longer
considered Indian,” (25)?
3. How does Lilia feel about the lack of talk at her school “about the war followed so
faithfully in [her] living room” (32)? What are her mother and her father’s separate
opinions on her American schooling?
4. How does Lilia’s parents’ searching for compatriots in the campus directory each
semester, Mr. Pirzada’s questions of why people say “Thank-you,” (42) and the
Halloween scenes (35) show how they are assimilating to United States culture?
5. Throughout the story, the candy is held in great esteem. Why does Lilia eventually
throw the candy away (42)?
 Prepare for quiz!
 Introduce Short Story Project.
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Interpreter of Maladies – “INTERPRETER OF MALADIES”
SWBAT:
 identify and acquire new vocabulary and use it correctly in reading and writing.
 demonstrate knowledge of assimilation in the story “Interpreter of Maladies” through class discussion.
 connect and empathize with the different characters though writing assignments and discussions.
 interpret deeper meaning within the text by connecting their lives to their stories.
 assess the impact of assimilation by creating a short story about it.
 Add: Setting as primary element, themes, symbols, characterization
Activator:
Read first 2 paragraphs of “Interpreter of Maladies.” What predictions do you
have for the story? What inferences can you make about the characters in the story based on
the descriptions? Are there any clues about the dynamics of the family or their culture?
WORD
relent
DEFINITION
(verb) –
Example: At the tea stall Mr. and Mrs. Das bickered about who should take Tina to the toilet.
Eventually Mrs. Das relented when Mr. das pointed out that he had given the girl her bath the
night before.
intrigue
Synonyms:
(verb) –
Example: As they waited at the tea stall, Ronny clambered suddenly out of the back seat,
intrigued by the goat tied to a stake in the ground.
Synonyms:
punitive
(adjective) –
Example: She was holding to her chest a doll with yellow hair that looked as if it had been
chopped, as a punitive measure, with a pair of dull scissors.
Synonyms:
emaciate
(verb) –
Example: Both the man and the bullocks were emaciated.
Synonyms:
Assiduously
(adverb) –
Example: He found nothing noble in interpreting people’s maladies, assiduously translating their
symptoms of so many swollen bones, countless cramps of bellies and bowels, spots on people’s
palm that changed color, shape, or size.
defile
Synonyms:
(noun) –
Example: Mr. Das headed up the defile with the children, the boys at his side, the girl on his
shoulders, and they crossed paths with a Japanese couple.
Synonyms:
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Journal entries:
1. Finish reading to pg. 56. Write the letter Mr. Kapasi thinks he will receive with the
pictures from Mrs. Das. Pair/Share letter. What is something that popped out at you
from your partner’s letter?
2. Why does Mr. Kapasi see the Dases as distinctly foreign and American even though they
are of Indian heritage? Explain.
3. Many families around the world have different issues and conflicts they must resolve.
The Dases are no exception. Analyze the interactions Mr. and Mrs. Das have with each
other. What seems to be amiss in their relationship? Then write a prediction about
whether or not they will stay together by the end of the trip. Why or why not?
4. Mr. Kapasi’s wife and Mrs. Das have two differing opinions about Mr. Kapasi’s job as an
interpreter of maladies at a doctor’s office. With whom do you agree? Explain.
People can have different facets to their personalities. They may even put on a façade just so
they can show you who they are not. In “Interpreter of Maladies,” the characters are all putting
on different facades. Read and analyze the following poem. Then write about how it relates to
the story or to one or more characters in the story.
Pantoum for These Eyes
By Kristine O’Connell George
Let yourself slide under their spell –
these eyes have something to say.
Write the stories these eyes tell,
look deeply, don’t look away.
These eyes have something to say.
Come, come meet these eyes.
Look deeply, don’t look away,
find their truth, discover their lies.
Come, come meet these eyes,
sketches of shadow, smudge and line.
Find their truth, discover their lies,
look into eyes with faces left behind.
Sketches of shadow, smudge and line,
write the stories these eyes tell,
look into eyes with faces left behind.
Let yourself slide under their spell.
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Directions: Answer the following thoroughly and thoughtfully in COMPLETE SENTENCES.
1. Mr. Kapasi is often assigned to foreign tourists because he can speak English. What
were his first impressions of Indian-American family?
2. How has Kapasi acquired his knowledge of western culture?
3. Mr. Das explains that he and Mrs. Das were born and raised in America and only visits
his retired parents in India every few years. What mannerisms do the Mr. and Mrs. Das
display, especially toward their family, that seem to Mr. Kapasi as distinctly un-Indian
and foreign?
4. Do Mr. and Mrs. Das seem to act more “American” or “Indian”? What does this reveal
about how they have assimilated to their new culture? Cite examples from the story to
support your answers.
5. Mrs. Das says that Mr. Kapasi’s job as an interpreter of maladies at a doctor’s office is
romantic. Why does she think so? What does Mr. Kapasi think about his job? Explain.
6. What was Mr. Kapasi’s dream growing up? When and why did he lose his dream?
7. How does Kapasi feel about Mrs. Das? How do you know that? Cite examples from the
text.
8. What is Mr. Kapasi’s new dream? Why does he think that he has a chance at achieving
this dream?
9. What is the real interest that Mrs. Das has for Mr. Kapasi’s occupation? What is it that
Mrs. Das thinks Mr. Kapasi can actually do for her maladies?
10. From what point of view is “Interpreter of Maladies” told?
11. How would you describe the tone of the story? (Hint: tone is often created through
diction)
12. What kinds of images dominate in the story? Refer to the text.
13. What would you consider to be the climax of this story?
14. What secret does Mrs. Das reveal, and why does she reveal it to Kapasi?
15. How does the Das family act after Kapasi saves Bobby from the monkey attack?
16. The Miriam-Webster dictionary defines an epiphany as “(1) a usually sudden
manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something (2): an
intuitive grasp of reality through something (as an event) usually simple and striking (3):
an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure b: a revealing scene or moment.”
What is the central epiphany that Kapasi has in the story?
 Prepare for quiz!
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Interpreter of Maladies - “A REAL DURWAN”
SWBAT:
 identify and acquire new vocabulary and use it correctly in reading and writing.
 demonstrate knowledge of assimilation in the story “A Real Durwan” through class
discussion.
 connect and empathize with Boori Ma though writing assignments and discussions.
Activator:
Writing assignment – Discuss someone in your life who tells you stories about
their past and why they may choose to do so. Volunteer or pair/share.
WORD
litany
DEFINITION
(noun) –
Example: Whether there was any truth to Boori Ma’s litanies no one could be sure.
Synonyms:
embellish
(verb) –
Example: She embellished almost everything in her story a little more every day.
Synonyms:
punctilious
(adjective) –
Example: She honored the responsibility, and maintained a vigil no less punctilious than
as if she were the gatekeeper of a house in Lower Circular Road, or Jodhpur Park, or any
other fancy neighborhood.
cistern
Synonyms:
(noun) –
Example: Then she ran the tap at the bottom of the cistern and washed her face and
rinsed her feet.
Synonyms:
diaphanous
(adjective) –
Example: She lowered her diaphanous eyelids.
Synonyms:
ruminate
(verb) –
Example: She was ruminating on all the things that happened in the morning as she
swept the stairwell.
Synonyms:
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Journal Entries:
1. Everyone at the building seems to enjoy Boori Ma’s company. However, she is still
treated as an outsider. What are some examples, which show that Boori Ma is not part
of the residents of the building? Why do they treat her this way?
2. Boori Ma tells many stories about her past life. The only items she has left from that life
are her skeleton keys that rattle when she shakes them. Who tells stories of their past
in your life? Record one of these stories and the significance of that story to that
person’s life. Do you believe him/her?
3. At the end of the story, Boori Ma is left alone. The people she safeguarded for years
have turned her out with nothing left but a broom. Write an addition to the story.
What will Boori Ma do next? Where will she go? Make sure to keep to the style of the
story.
“A Real Durwan” is ultimately a story about being an outsider and how Boori Ma handled it.
Read and analyze the following poem. Write about how it relates to Boori Ma and her life
stories.
The Peacock
By Deborah Chandra
The Peacock cries,
he doesn’t quack,
or coo,
twitter,
chirp, or say, “Tu-whit, tu-whoo!”
He cries –
a loud sorrow – so desolate,
the air shrinks back
to make space for it.
But if,
as he unfolds his emerald fan,
his feathers turned
as common as a wren’s,
would he be free of his
parading strut,
and maybe –
make a
soft,
contented,
cluck?
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Directions: Answer the following thoroughly and thoughtfully in COMPLETE SENTENCES.
1. Boori Ma loves to talk about her sorrows, hardships, and easier times. What do her
laments tell the reader about “the turmoil” and how Boori Ma is assimilating to her new
life?
2. Boori Ma takes on many roles for the denizens of the building. Her “services came to
resemble those of a real durwan,” (73). Why do the residents of the building not hire a
real durwan instead of giving Boori Ma that responsibility?
3. The lives and attitudes of the residents changed when Mr. Dalal brought home two
wash basins. Why did the basins have such an effect on the residents? Explain.
4. With all the new improvements to the building, how has Boori Ma’s life changed?
5. The residents decide that they will hire a real durwan after all. How did the decision
affect Boori Ma?
6. Throughout the story, Boori Ma says, “Believe me, don’t believe me,” about the stories
she tells the residents. At the end of the story, she can only repeat, “Believe me, believe
me,” (82). Why do the residents stop listening to Boori Ma?
Summarize – Discuss symbol of broom and how it relates to assimilation. Relate back to
activator of activator of stories of the past.
 Prepare for quiz!
16
Writing Templates (from They Say, I Say)
Surround every major quotation with a frame explaining whose words they are, what the
quotation means, and how the quotation relates to your text. Quoting what “they say” must
always be connected with what you say.
Introducing Quotations










X states, “___________.”
As the prominent philosopher X puts it, “___________.”
According to X, “___________.”
X himself writes that, “___________.”
In her book, _________________, X maintains that “___________.”
Writing in the journal Commentary, X complains that “___________.”
In X’s view, “___________.”
X agrees when she writes“___________.”
X disagrees when he writes “___________.”
X complicates matters further when he writes, “___________.”
Explaining Quotations
Do not assume that quotations speak for themselves. Because the meaning of a quotation is
obvious to you, do not assume that the meaning is also obvious to your readers, when often it
is not.






Basically, X is saying __________.
In other words, X believes __________.
In making this comment, X argues that __________.
X is insisting that __________.
X’s point is that __________.
The essence of X’s argument is that __________.
17
Write a claim about the story that relates to the overall theme of assimilation in the book.
Then, choose a quotation from the text that supports your claim or use the one below. Finally,
explain how the quotation relates to and/or supports/proves your claim. Your explanation
should have at least two sentences (Ratio of 1CD:2CS). Remember to embed the quotation into
your own writing.
I. Claim:
Evidence (Reference to the text):
“Whether there was any truth to Boori Ma’s litanies no one could be sure. For one thing, every
day, the perimeters of her former estate seemed to double, as did the contents of her almari
and coffer boxes” (72).
Explanation (at least 2 sentences):
II. Claim:
Evidence (Reference to the text):
[Mrs. Dalal says]
“‘Boori Ma, how long have you slept on this bedding?’
Boori Ma put a finger to her lips before replying that she could not remember.
‘Then why no mention of it until today? Do you think it’s beyond us to provide you with clean
quilts? An oilcloth, for that matter?’ She looked insulted.
‘There is no need,’ Boori Ma said. ‘They are clean now. I beat them with my broom’” (75).
Explanation:
III. Claim:
Evidence (Reference to the text):
“After a few days Boori Ma moved her baskets and her cooking bucket to the rooftop as well.
There was no need to use the basin downstairs, for she could just as easily wash, as she always
had, from the cistern tap” (80).
Explanation: