Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies Essay Example for Free

Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies Essay The Third and Final Continent is the last short story in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies; and is probably the most memorable one. A newly married young man makes his way from India to England and then to the US where he is making arrangements to call his wife from back home. Lahiri’s tone from the very beginning sounds distant, but equally engaging, her style is painfully simple; and the structure of the story is as clear as the title. Lahiri gives an account of one man’s journey through three different continents. The story becomes captivating from the very first paragraph. She describes the narrator’s experiences in England where he lives with other â€Å"penniless Bengali bachelors all struggling to educate and establish themselves abroad [1].†   But our protagonist is offered a job at M.I.T and decides to settle down in the U.S. Here is when the story truly picks up momentum. Even with her simple style, Lahiri has also employed a strong underlying sense of humor. On his way to America, the narrator discovers that â€Å"President Nixon had declared a national holiday: two American men had landed on the moon [1].† The line is almost comical; the narrator is most uninterested in one of the greatest achievements in American history. Lahiri succeeds in describing America through the eyes of a foreigner to a new land. The narrator’s experience in America is a totally alien. Lahiri describes the new life and world around him in great detail, giving long descriptions of the food, clothes and the general attitude of people. And then the story moves on to Mrs. Croft. The relationship that follows is humorous yet endearing and heart-warming. In fact, here is where Lahiri’s genius lies. Mrs. Croft and the narrator come from two different diverse cultures and lives, yet no culture, race or color seem to come in between their friendship. Lahiri also brings forward the custom of arranged marriages, largely prevalent in India. â€Å"I regarded the proposition with neither objection nor enthusiasm. It was a duty expected of me, as it was expected of every man [1].† Even though he does not know his wife when the two get married, they begin to understand each other slowly. In fact, their first moment of understanding is in Mrs. Croft’s parlor, where the old woman calls Mala â€Å"A perfect lady [1].† â€Å"I like to think of that moment in Mrs. Crofts parlor as the moment when the distance between Mala and me began to lessen [1].† The style and structure of Lahiri’s story are effortless and straight-forward. The words used too are simple. But it is exactly this simplicity which makes the story so close to life. The narrator’s tone is so disengaged from the story that it seems like a bland narration. Yet the events in that narration are so moving and heartening that it makes the reader feel like a part of the story. The forms a deep bond with his wife, initially, a complete stranger; and through the two the reader can see and experience the pain of losing one’s cultural identity and heritage. Their son is completely Americanized and has no interest in his Bengali roots. They wish that would â€Å"eat rice with us with his hands, and speak in Bengali, things we sometimes worry he will no longer do after we die [1].† Lahiri ends the story beautifully, describing the narrator’s journey through life in a few simple lines â€Å"Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have travelled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination [1].† Works Cited: Lahiri, Jhumpa, The third and final continent, retrieved from http://www.dequinix.com/a/continent.php

Schizophrenia Essay -- essays research papers

I have always been interested in my pattern of thinking. Often I have always thought that people don’t use their imagination as much as I do. I have always been into the darker side of life, watching horror movies and listening to heavy metal etc. Obviously this is all fantasy though; demons aren’t really going to rip me to pieces like in the movies. Some people can’t differentiate reality from fantasy though. I know in my head that I am able to think like most psychopaths but I am able to tell the difference between right and wrong. What I mean by that is I understand where they’re coming from and how they see the world because at times I feel that way. I want to why I am able to control my thoughts (as sick as they may be) and actions as to where they can’t Fear plays a major role in the actions of most people. People who have psychotic episodes tend to be less fearful of the world around them. For example whereas most people would scream at a horror movie they wouldn’t even flinch. That’s how I seem to be (although I’m used to horror movies since it’s the more creative genre of films). Does fear actually help someone to maintain his or her sanity? If they had no fear would that mean that they would be able to do anything no matter how crazy it sounds? Better yet, does everyone who lacks fear turn out to be psychopath? I lack most of the fears that other people have but I’m not clinically insane. These are the questions I will try to answer in determining what causes someone to become completely detached from the world around them. A lack of fear isn’t enough to determine if someone is a potential psychopath. Freud believes that our fears are stored in our unconscious mind. We never actually know what our fears are and yet they’re there. He believed that â€Å"each of us has a censor operating somewhere within or nervous systems, whose chief task is to prevent sexual or other types of threatening impulses or memories from breaking through to consciousness to embarrass us† (Human Behavior 291). I think that theory is complete nonsense since I am aware at all times what is going on in my head. To simply put it, if you know you’re afraid of something then it’s not unconscious. A theory with more credibility comes from Pavlov. His theory is based on conditioning. Conditioning is when the fear is learned over time through certain key events. Pavlov describes this ... ...reactions and I enjoy acting weird.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  I believe that the reason why I am not a schizophrenic is because I am able to control my fears and anxiety. The key word here is control. Without it you’re nothing but a machine made up of flesh and bone. Schizophrenics don’t have control over their thoughts or actions and that is why they seem out of touch with reality. Most of this control has to do with fear and anxiety. For example: any normal person would be scared if the F.B.I. was after them but people with a disorder seem devoid of any emotion. They do however acknowledge the content of the event but still seem oblivious to the world around them.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Instead of using medication or seeing a psychotherapist, the best way to treat this disorder might be to detect it from an early age. Naturally we will still have to administer medication and send them to a professional. Too often though people without schizophrenia are being diagnosed with having it and vise versa. Along with the drugs I think we should treat them the same as we would someone with high anxiety or any type of phobia. That is if doctors are willing to take the time to.

Romanticism in El Matadero

Esteban Echeverria, who spent five years in Paris before returning to Buenos Aires in 1830 when he became a political agitator against the tyrant Juan Manuel de Rosas, is credited with bringing romanticism to Spanish America. As a poet, he is remember for his narrative ballad La cautiva, the story of a white girl’s escape from enslavemente by nomadic Indians. Echeverria inaugurated the theme of the pampas as an archetypal landscape – a place of barbarism; but also the crucible of national identity for Argentina. He also wrote El matadero (‘The Slaughterhouse’, 1838), a short satirical prose piece in which a slaughterhouse becomes a powerful symbol of Rosas’s oppression of liberals in Buenos Aires. In 1839, Echeverria helped to found the Asociacion de Mayo, a group of young anti-Rosas activists, many of whom were to become important writers and future liberal leaders of Argentina. The gauchesque genre had its origins during the wars of independence in the River Plate area. It was influenced by the Spanish tradition of the cuadro de costumbres. Gaucho costumbrismo appealed to the romantics because it seemed to reflect a truly American way of life. By transforming the gaucho into an ambivalent national symbol, Echeverria crystallized the problem of national identity which all the Latin American republics would experience. Echeverria's renown as a writer rests largely on his powerful short story El matadero (â€Å"The Slaughterhouse,† written in 1839 but not published until 1871), a landmark in the history of Latin American literature. It is mostly significant because it displays the perceived clash between â€Å"civilization and barbarism†, that is, between the European and the â€Å"primitive and violent† American ways. Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, another great Argentine writer and thinker, saw this clash as the core of Latin American culture. Read in this light, â€Å"The Slaughterhouse† is a political allegory. Its more specific intention was to accuse Rosas of protecting the kind of thugs who murder the cultivated young protagonist at the Buenos Aires slaughterhouse. Rosas and his henchmen stand for barbarism, the slain young man for civilization.

The Protestant Break Leo X 1513-21 - 1605 Words

This resumà © will detail a single chapter of Barbara Tuchman’s work The March of Folly, which is â€Å"The Protestant Break: Leo X 1513-21.† The topic of Tuchman’s discussion in the chapter is the nature of Leo X’s reign as the pope and the effect that it had on history. Following the examination of other renaissance papacies in previous chapters, Tuchman continues a study of how the era’s popes provoked the Protestant secession. â€Å"The Protestant Break: Leo X 1513-21† is a salient chapter, however, in that it is during Leo X’s reign that Martin Luther nails his 95 theses to the church door and indirectly launches the Reformation. Tuchman’s main argument in the chapter is that the worldly and extravagant nature of Leo X’s papacy failed to prevent, and rather was complicit in, the sparking and proliferation of the Protestant Reformation. It is important to note that Tuchman accurately states it was not Leo’s ti me as pope alone which caused the reformation, it simply exacerbated existing discontent and provided a rallying revolt. The supporting arguments are broken into two subsections of the chapter. Tuchman first generally shows that Leo X was a hedonist far removed from the supposed holiness of his position, and that his fervent spending frequently required him to turn to unscrupulous methods of paying his debts. Thus, there was a growing massive pressure for reform. Secondly, Tuchman argues that indulgences specifically are to blame for provoking open revolt. Friar Tetzel’sShow MoreRelatedEssay about Renaissance Figures2969 Words   |  12 Pageswound, and the plot collapsed. In spite of the attacks of Girolamo Savonarola, Lorenzo allowed him to continue preaching. Lorenzos historical significance was being a patron of Bottielli and Michaelangelo. His second son later became pope as Leo X. ? Henry VIII lived from 1491--1547, and he reigned from 1509--1547. He married his brother Arthurs widow, Katharine of Arogon, who bore him a daughter, MARY I. His chief minister, Thomas Wolsey, concluded an alliance with Francis I of FranceRead MoreHenry Viii and the English Reformation4950 Words   |  20 Pagesresult of a state policy driven by Henry VIII? It is indeed simplistic to consider Henry VIII as the sole reason for the English Reformation. According to A.G. Dickens, the movement towards reformation began before the actions that lead to the official break from the Roman Catholicism. Henry VIII’s desire for a male heir drove his desire for separation. This fact coupled with the political, religious, and social factors of the day converged resulting in what became the English Reformation. Haigh states