The Motif of Isolation in the Short Stories of Jhumpa Lahiri

I think that isolation is one of the most important motifs in all of Jhumpa Lahiri’s short stories. In all of the stories, people feel isolated and lonely where they are, whether it is because of a move away from their country, or because they feel that they have nothing in common with some other person or people. In “A Temporary Matter”, the marriage between Shoba and Shukumar is in shatters, and they both find that they have nothing in common with each other.

In fact, during the power outage that forces them to try and communicate with each other, shukumar is so frustrated at having nothing to say to Shoba that he tries to will her to go away so that he can go use his computer. “She would rest her hands on his shoulder and stare with him into the blue glow of the computer screen. ‘Don’t work too hard,” she would say after a minute or two, and head off to bed.

It was the one time in the day she sought him out, and yet he’d come to dread it he knew it was something she forced herself to do.” Shoba is trying to force herself to maintain a facade of a good relationship with Shukumar, but they both know that they just don’t really like each other that much. “One hundred and twenty people had crammed into the house — all the friends and the friends of friends they now systematically avoided.” Now, Shoba and Shukumar try to avoid other people because they don’t want anyone to see what their relationship has come to.

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In “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine”, Mr. Pirzada is stranded in the US. He is separated from his wife and two children, who are still in Dacca. In the beginning, he is all alone, until he finds Lilia’s family, who saves him from his loneliness and worry.

They help him learn what is going on in Dacca, and if his children are all right. Originally, Mr. Pirzada is completely isolated from everything, as he does not have a TV or anything to find out what is going on in the world. But, because of the generosity of Lilia’s family, he then could see the conditions that his children were living in. In “Mrs. Sen 5, Mrs. Sen is very lonely she misses her home country of India and wishes that she could go back. For her, India represents wealth and prosperity, where she doesn’t have to learn to drive, and she had servants who would try to fulfill her every want. But in America, she is just like everyone else. She has to drive or take a bus in order to get fresh fish from the supermarket. She is no longer special even though she is with her husband in this new land, Mrs. Sen feels incredibly isolated from everything, because she cannot go anywhere.

She is trying to drive, but has trouble doing it, and hates it as well because it reminds her of all the good things of her old life. Also, everyone is so different from India that everything that she sees and does remind her of all the things that she left behind, such as the fresh fish that she could get in one piece, or all the beautiful dresses that she could pick and choose to wear. Now, as they sit and get eaten by moths in her closet, Mrs. Sen can do nothing but wither away as she thinks of the life she left behind. In all of these stories, the main characters are often ones who are stranded from someone or someplace. They want to go back but find that they cannot, for they have left that old life behind, and must now face the future.