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Definition of Setting
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or it can be an imagined... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the... read full definition
Setting
Explanation and Analysis:
“Interpreter of Maladies” is set in Odisha, India, likely in the 1990s (when Lahiri wrote the story). The story is centered on a tourist outing that an Indian American family (the Dases) take to different sacred sites in Odisha, including the Konarak Sun Temple. Their driver and tour guide—Mr. Kapasi—is native to that region of India and the story explores the complex social dynamics between native Indians (like Mr. Kapasi) and Indian Americans (like the Dases) who were born abroad and have little connection to their ancestral home. The following passage captures some of these complex dynamics:
Mr. Kapasi found it strange that Mr. Das should refer to his wife by her first name when speaking to the little girl. Tina pointed to where Mrs. Das was purchasing something from one of the shirtless men who worked at the tea stall. Mr. Kapasi heard one of the shirtless men sing a phrase from a popular Hindi love song as Mrs. Das walked back to the car, but she did not appear to understand the words of the song, for she did not express irritation, or embarrassment, or react in any other way to the man’s declarations.
Here, Lahiri communicates to readers how, despite their shared heritage, Mr. Kapasi and the Dases come from very different cultures. Mr. Kapasi finds it “strange” that Mr. Das refers to his wife as “Mina” when speaking to their daughter Tina, presumably because in Indian culture a father would refer to his wife more informally or affectionately in such a moment.
It is also notable that Mrs. Das does not “express irritation, or embarrassment” when the vendor from whom she bought a snack flirts with her by singing a well-known Indian love song—she either doesn’t know the song, doesn’t speak Hindi, or both. Whatever the reason, her lack of awareness communicates that, despite her ethnicity and ancestry, she is a foreigner in her ancestral land. This is one of many moments in which Lahiri highlights the gap between native Indians and diasporic ones.
Related Themes:
