The Third And Final Continent

This essay sample on The Third And Final Continent provides all necessary basic information on this matter, including the most common “for and against” arguments. Below are the introduction, body and conclusion parts of this essay.

Each country represents his emotional situation of life. India: His own birthplace; his own roots; London: Away from home, but still living with the Bengali boys, still firmly attached to the culture; and the third and the final country : United States : where he learned to adopt the American culture to such an extent that, in the beginning, he had to try to adjust with his Indian wife, in which he eventually succeeds.

Actually Lair takes the readers on a voyage in the life of an ordinary but an ambitious man.

At first the readers may not sound the narrator ambitious, but on looking deep in to the story, one can easily find the ambition of the narrator In establishing himself on the foreign ground, constantly struggling to ascertain himself between the eastern and western cultures.

In fact, looking at the last paragraph of the story, the narrator himself admits his ambitiousness in the following lines, “In my son’s eyes I see the ambition that had first hurled me across the world. (Lair 663) In spite of being ambitious, the narrator is an ordinary man, coming from a middle class Indian family. His father’s death had left his mother insane and forced his brother to leave the school in order to run the house. As a result, the narrator does not having the luxuries of having a personal apartment in England.

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Instead, ” [he] lived in London, in Funfairs Park. In a house occupied entirely by penniless Bengali bachelors like [himself], at least a dozen and sometimes more, all struggling to educate and establish [themselves] abroad. (Lain 650). In London, the narrator Is, no doubt, far from his home but not far from his culture because he and his roommates were “cooking pots of egg curry, which [they] ate with our hands n a table covered with newspapers” (664) . Some weekends the narrator and his roommates would Invite “stall more Bengali, to whom lately Ana Introduced [themselves] at the greengrocer, or on the Tube, and [they] made yet more egg curry, and played Musses on a Grinding reel-to-reel” (664). Here the storyteller shows his firm attachment to his own culture.

The Third And Final Continent Sparknotes

Listening to Musses (An Indian famous playback singer) or eating egg-curry is typically Indian. The egg-curry is assigned with a significant attachment which is mentioned repeatedly in the story. Whether cooking or the first time for his wife or eating with his son -with hands- at the end of the story. The quest to still move higher and to reach the heights which the narrator might have set for himself were so high that the major events like his own wedding or the historical event of the astronauts planting the American flag on the moon were of least important to him.

He was still struggling to establish himself in America. Lair has beautifully guides her readers to understand the narrator’s state of mind by describing the view outside the windows of narrator’s places of residence. For example, when he looks from the window from the Y. M. C. A. , the narrator describes, “A bare window overlooked Massachusetts Avenue. Car horns, shrill and prolonged, blared one after another. Sirens and flashing lights heralded endless emergencies, , throughout the night. The noise was constantly distracting, at times suffocating” (653).

The above description states the America never sleeps, the is life so fast and noisy that the narrator , “felt it deep in [his] ribs, Just as [he] had felt the furious drone of the engine on the S. S. Aroma. But there was no ship’s deck to escape o, no glittering ocean to thrill [his] soul, no breeze to cool [his] face, no one to talk to” (653). While describing the road which lead to Mrs. Croft’s house, Lair describes , “[The narrator] turned down a street shaded with trees, perpendicular to Massachusetts Avenue” (655).

The author has beautifully used these line to indicate the turning point in narrator’s life. Instead of taking a straight direction or an opposite direction, the narrator take a perpendicular direction to a street shaded with trees. Here the straight and the opposite directions signifies the eastern and the stern culture, where the narrator chooses the perpendicular direction which is in between the both directions. And the shaded trees signifies his relationship with Mrs.. Croft, with whom he found comfort.

Further more the description of the view of outside from the narrator’s room in Mrs.. Croft’s house, “The window was open; net curtains stirred in the breeze. I lifted them away and inspected the view: a small back yard, with a few fruit trees and an empty clothesline. I was satisfied. ” (657), nicely explains the contentment of the story teller. Now here is something what the orator wants from his life; and which also Justifies that even though, he is ambitious, the narrator is an ordinary man.

He does not want too much from life. He just wants a small back yard- a place for himself- , few fruit trees -few fruitful achievements in life -, and an empty clothesline -which he can fill according to his will-. This argument is proved in the end of the story where the narrator says, “Mall and I live in a town about twenty miles from Boston, on a tree-lined street much like Mrs.. Croft’s, in a house we own, with room for guests, and a garden that saves us room buying tomatoes in summer” (663).

The above lines proves that, in fact, this was what the narrator actually wanted – a tree lined street much like Mrs. Croft – and a garden that saved them from buying tomatoes in the summer- his own and unique way of living; an American lifestyle with an Indian touch. Lair has not only shown ten narrators amontillado In ten story, out NAS also excellently woven ten eastern Ana the western cultural aspects, guarding its own beauty respectively. Each character designed by Lair, represents its own culture in the unique way.

For example, the really between the dressing style between Mall(narrator’s wife) and Mrs.. Croft: Both of them trying to be a perfect lady according their own cultures respectively. The parallelism between the narrator and Helene, daughter of Mrs.. Croft : Both of them have a different point of view in taking care of their mothers. The narrator “worried that something would happen to her in the middle of the night, or when [he] was out during the day'(660) Where as, according to the narrator, “Helen didn’t seem concerned. She came and went, bringing soup for Mrs..