Jhumpa Lahiri's Women in "Interpreter of Maladies": A Feminist Perspective

<p>The objective of this paper is to analyse some of the women<br>characters of Jhumpa Lahiri’s book, “Interpreter of Maladies”<br>and infer whether her stories could be termed as feminist<br>literature. The trials and tribulations of her women characters,<br>some of who left their country due to marriage or political<br>reasons have been carefully examined in this article, and<br>compared with the tenets of Feminism as outlined in Mary<br>Wollstonecraft's “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman”. A<br>sincere attempt has been made to study the characterization of<br>six female characters of six stories in Jhumpa Lahiri’s<br>compilation of short stories in this book. These women are<br>diverse in age, education, financial status, marital status,<br>country of origin, and attitude. They are prosperous<br>immigrants in Boston, like Mrs.Sen in “Mrs.Sen’s” or a poor<br>refugee from Bangladesh like Boori Ma in “A Real Durwan”.<br>Some of her women are highly educated like Twinkle and<br>Shobha or educated enough to get a “good husband” like<br>Mrs.Sen and Mala, or uneducated like Boori Ma and Bibi<br>Haldar. Though apparently different, they share some traits in<br>common. They are emotionally fragile, dwell in their ‘glorious’<br>past to avoid loneliness and to attract attention, and are seen to<br>be observed and valued mostly for their physical appearance<br>and demeanour, by their men. In short, they exhibit the<br>characteristics and live a lifestyle which Mary Wollstonecraft<br>discusses in her seminal book, A Vindication of the Rights of<br>Woman. It is for these reasons that Lahiri’s debut Pulitzer<br>Prize winning book can be considered as an example of<br>Feminist Literature, which will be my humble attempt to<br>explore in this article.</p>