Challenging Cultural Integration & Marriage Themes in Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies | Study notes Reasoning

Interpreter of Maladies – Refutation and Response Activity Page 1

Interpreter of Maladies

(1999), by Jhumpa Lahiri

Refutation and Response Activity

What distinguishes argument-centered instruction, more than any other pedagogical feature, is the weight it places

on engaging with, responding to, and in many instances refuting alternative or opposing points of view. It is in the

clash of ideas that your critical thinking is activated, practiced, developed, and tested. If you’re arguing by yourself

in a vacuum, you are not considering the most well-supported, powerful arguments that can be made opposing your

position. When you consider those arguments, you are required to think hard about what evidence and reasoning

supports them, evaluating the support for those arguments (from the Greek root of “critical,” kritikos) and

comparing it to the support for your arguments. Sometimes this necessarily means strategically conceding an

argument opposing your own – accepting its validity, at lease to an extent, while explaining how it is that you can

still maintain your original position. Responding to and often refuting arguments is the essence of argument-centered

teaching and learning. Responding to and often refuting arguments is quintessential critical thinking.

This Refutation and Response Activity asks you to think critically about arguments interpreting Jhumpa Lahiri’s

1999 story collection Interpreter of Maladies, and to respond to and refute them so that a posited original position can

be maintained. For each argument, you will make two responses, one in each of the two categories into which all

counter-arguments or refutation arguments can be placed: the critical and the independent. The critical response

critiques the evidence and reasoning in the original argument. Sometimes this means that it teases out and surfaces

assumptions being made in the argument, assumptions which may be dubious. The critical response homes in on

the most important flaw or flaws in the original argument. The independent response builds a full argument, with

its own evidence and reasoning, to answer the opposing argument. It is termed “independent” because its focus is

on producing new backing in response to the argument, rather than critiquing the opposing argument’s backing.

All of positions and arguments below come out of the five debatable issues that we have been using to organize our

study of Lahiri’s collection of stories.

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Interpreter of Maladies (1999), by Jhumpa Lahiri

Refutation and Response Activity

What distinguishes argument-centered instruction, more than any other pedagogical feature, is the weight it places on engaging with, responding to, and in many instances refuting alternative or opposing points of view. It is in the clash of ideas that your critical thinking is activated, practiced, developed, and tested. If you’re arguing by yourself in a vacuum, you are not considering the most well-supported, powerful arguments that can be made opposing your position. When you consider those arguments, you are required to think hard about what evidence and reasoning supports them, evaluating the support for those arguments (from the Greek root of “critical,” kritikos ) and comparing it to the support for your arguments. Sometimes this necessarily means strategically conceding an argument opposing your own – accepting its validity, at lease to an extent, while explaining how it is that you can still maintain your original position. Responding to and often refuting arguments is the essence of argument-centered teaching and learning. Responding to and often refuting arguments is quintessential critical thinking. This Refutation and Response Activity asks you to think critically about arguments interpreting Jhumpa Lahiri’s 1999 story collection Interpreter of Maladies , and to respond to and refute them so that a posited original position can be maintained. For each argument, you will make two responses, one in each of the two categories into which all counter-arguments or refutation arguments can be placed: the critical and the independent. The critical response critiques the evidence and reasoning in the original argument. Sometimes this means that it teases out and surfaces assumptions being made in the argument, assumptions which may be dubious. The critical response homes in on the most important flaw or flaws in the original argument. The independent response builds a full argument, with its own evidence and reasoning, to answer the opposing argument. It is termed “independent” because its focus is on producing new backing in response to the argument, rather than critiquing the opposing argument’s backing. All of positions and arguments below come out of the five debatable issues that we have been using to organize our study of Lahiri’s collection of stories.

Take a close look at the model. Then for each of the questions, assume you are taking the posited interpretive position, and that you are responding to the argument provided to support an opposing position. You should produce the two strongest responses to the argument that you can, one critical and one independent. The order of the two types of responses is up to you; think through what is the more logical or intuitive ordering. You can include strategic concession in your response, but be sure that you maintain your originally posited position. Attempt to use different transition words or phrases in each one of your responses. Model Your position: Lahiri’s story collection Interpreter of Maladies depicts the alluring but ultimately unachievable aspiration of the immigrant to integrate and satisfyingly blend their native and mainstream American cultural heritages. Opposing argument: The Indian-Americans in Interpreter of Maladies are generally highly successful people, an important societal metric for cultural adaptation. Sanjeev in “This Blessed House” is an upwardly-mobile professional, a new homeowner with other signs too of his and his wife Twinkle’s achievements. “‘You have enough money in the bank to raise three families,’ his mother reminded him when they spoke at the start of each month on the phone. ‘You need a wife to look after and love.’ Now he had one: a pretty one, from a suitably high caste, who would soon have a master’s degree. What was there not to love?” (148). The narrator, too, in the collection’s final story, “The Third and Final Continent,” rises from a lowly position as a poor immigrant in Boston to a highly successful engineer, over the story’s three decades. These characters have professional success that is far higher than the average level of success in this country. The final story’s narrator’s son is even admitted to Harvard University. In the United States, a person’s material, professional success is generally viewed as a proxy for their status in our culture; for this reason, most of the Indian-Americans in Lahiri’s fiction are symbols of an effective immigrant merging into the mainstream America. Through the indicators of some of the leading characters in Interpreter of Maladies , Lahiri seems to imply that Indian-Americans, despite their universally human problems, are exemplars of the American immigrant process of bringing together their prior and current cultural worlds. First response (either critical or independent – circle one) : Transition/counter-claim: It is true that some of Lahiri’s leading characters are materially successful, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that they have been successful in blending their native culture with mainstream American culture. Backing: Sanjeev, for instance, is affluent, but he is noticeably unhappy and socially awkward. His wife, Twinkle, is better able to blend with common American behaviors and norms, but that only serves to separate her from Sanjeev through the course of “This Blessed House.” And the end of the passage above

“What was there not to love?” – is likely intended ironically. The two should be in love, but Sanjeev hasn’t been able to adapt to his surroundings and his Americanized wife. Similarly, the narrator in the collection’s final story experiences interactions with Bostonians that leave both sides fairly perplexed. This country does value material success, but wealth isn’t equivalent to cultural integration, which is something more like feeling at home, at ease, comfortable, contented. Sanjeev, the final story’s narrator, and other

Backing: Second response (either critical or independent – circle one) : Transition/counter-claim: Backing: 2 Position: Jhumpa Lahiri’s depiction of Indian-Americans is overall and on balance positive, even admiring.

Opposing argument: Lahiri’s Indian-American characters are often characterized as distinctly selfish, self- interested individuals. For instance, the Indian-American couple in the title story are described as being too self- absorbed to be good parents. After Mrs. Das tells her daughter to “leave me alone” (48), the narrator’s free indirect discourse reveals: “Mr. and Mrs. Das behaved like an older brother and sister, not parents. It seemed that they were in charge of the children only for the day; it was hard to believe they were regularly responsible for anything other than themselves” (49). It is revealing that these characters are unable to take seriously anyone other than themselves, even their own children. There is something similar at work in the story “Sexy.” Dev is an attractive, successful Indian-American man, but his affair with Miranda is quite evidently self-gratifying and self-serving. Miranda begins to feel that after she and Dev make love, Dev is absent, he is no longer interested in her in any meaningful way (94). These characters’ self-absorption undermines the admirable traits that they have: the Das’ family togetherness rings hollow because they cannot truly think or care about others; Dev’s success rings hollow as a result of his vanity and egotism. These young and otherwise attractive Indian-Americans leave the reader with a bad taste because of their selfishness, and convey Lahiri’s critical appraisal of her ethnic peers. First response (either critical or independent – circle one) : Transition/counter-claim: Backing: Second response (either critical or independent – circle one) : Transition/counter-claim:

First response (either critical or independent – circle one) : Transition/counter-claim: Backing: Second response (either critical or independent – circle one) : Transition/counter-claim: Backing:

Challenging Cultural Integration & Marriage Themes in Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies, Study notes of Reasoning

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Interpreter of Maladies (1999), by Jhumpa Lahiri

Refutation and Response Activity