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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Mrs. Sen’s, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Isolation and Loneliness
Assimilation and Foreignness
Femininity, Gender Roles, and Culture
Summary
Analysis
The year before Eliot started going to Mrs. Sen’s after school, a college student looked after him until she eventually graduated and moved away. Then, an older woman named Mrs. Linden took over—until Eliot’s mother discovered that she was drinking on the job. After this, Eliot’s mother finds Mrs. Sen’s advertisement on a bulletin board at the supermarket: “Professor’s wife, responsible and kind, I will care for your child in my home.” When she calls Mrs. Sen, Eliot’s mother explains that Eliot is 11 and that he just needs an adult present in case of an emergency. She tells Mrs. Sen that the previous babysitters came to their house—but Mrs. Sen can’t, because she doesn’t know how to drive.
Eliot’s string of babysitters over the past year clues readers into the fact that Eliot’s mother is likely a working woman who isn’t available to take care of Eliot after school. Notably, Eliot is babysat by strangers (and not particularly trustworthy ones, judging by the woman who drank while looking after him) rather than relatives or family friends. This hints that Eliot and his mother may be isolated from their extended family, and that they perhaps struggle to find people with whom they can form close, trusting relationships. Meanwhile, Mrs. Sen’s description of herself as a “Professor’s wife, responsible and kind” immediately characterizes her as someone who centers her identity around her role as a housewife—and someone who may be able to give Eliot the maternal care that his other babysitters (and perhaps his own mother) have failed to provide him with. Mrs. Sen’s inability to drive, however, subtly hints that she may struggle with isolation and loneliness as well.
Themes
Eliot and his mother go to meet Mr. and Mrs. Sen at their university apartment, which is clean but old and shabby, with mismatched carpet squares and furniture wrapped in protective plastic. The Sens both take off their shoes inside and wear flip flops around the house. Mrs. Sen introduces Mr. Sen by saying that he teaches mathematics at the university, “as if they were only distantly acquainted.” Eliot admires Mrs. Sen’s sari and traditional Indian makeup, and he thinks that his mother’s conservative outfit looks out of place in the apartment.
Mrs. Sen’s traditional Indian dress and makeup are clues that the Sens have only recently immigrated to the U.S. and haven’t fully assimilated into American culture. Mrs. Sen’s appearance, combined with the fact that the Sens wear flip-flops in the house, are small but significant cultural differences that set them apart from Americans like Eliot and his mother. Eliot doesn’t seem to mind this—he admires Mrs. Sen’s appearance and thinks that his mother is the one who looks odd in her typical American work clothes. The Sens’ small, shabby university apartment indicates that they aren’t particularly well-off, which begins to challenge the common notion that people who immigrate to North America are automatically met with prosperity and opportunity. Furthermore, the way Mrs. Sen introduces Mr. Sen—“as if they were only distantly acquainted”—hints that she does indeed feel lonely and isolated in her new life in the U.S., even though she has her husband.
Themes
Mrs. Sen repeatedly offers Eliot’s mother some biscuits, but she refuses each time. She asks Mrs. Sen questions about her babysitting experience and how long she’s lived in this country. Above all, she’s concerned that Mrs. Sen can’t drive, since Eliot’s mother works 50 miles north and his father lives 2,000 miles away. Mr. Sen assures Eliot’s mother that he’s teaching Mrs. Sen, and that she should have her license by December. Mrs. Sen explains that they had a chauffeur when they lived in India. Looking around the modest apartment, Eliot’s mother seems skeptical of this.
In Indian and other non-Western cultures, offering guests food is a common show of hospitality—and it’s generally considered rude for the guest not to accept, even if they aren’t hungry. With this in mind, Eliot’s mother’s refusal of the biscuits likely makes Mrs. Sen feel embarrassed, alienated, and perhaps even a bit offended. This immediately starts Mrs. Sen and Eliot’s mother's relationship off on the wrong foot, and the divide between them widens as it becomes clear that they two women lead entirely different lifestyles. Mrs. Sen is a housewife, while Eliot’s mother is a single mom who works miles away from home. Both women, though, seem to have loneliness in common: Mrs. Sen’s inability to drive isolates her in the apartment, and Eliot’s mother doesn’t seem to have any close friends or family members she can depend on to watch Eliot. Meanwhile, the fact that the Sens could afford a chauffeur in India indicates that their socioeconomic status has actually diminished since they immigrated to the U.S. Their downward trajectory doesn’t align with the stereotypical “American Dream” narrative that promises immigrants boundless opportunity and success.
Themes
Eliot doesn’t mind going to Mrs. Sen’s after school. The beach house that he and his mother live in is cold this time of year, and the beach is empty now that tourist season is over—there’s no one for him to play with. The Sens’ apartment, in contrast, is warm. Eliot likes watching Mrs. Sen chop up vegetables for dinner each evening, but she never lets him help. She uses a traditional Indian blade to prepare the food. One day, Mrs. Sen tells Eliot how her mother would have all the women in her neighborhood cook together before celebrations—during those times, it would be so loud that it was hard to sleep. Here, Mrs. Sen finds it hard to sleep in silence.
Eliot and his mother are clearly isolated at home, particularly when tourist season ends in the beach town where they live. The cold temperature in their apartment more figuratively represents the lack of familial warmth between Eliot and his mother. The Sens’ apartment, on the other hand, is both literally and figuratively warm, as Mrs. Sen’s presence offers Elliot the companionship and care that seems to be missing from his home life. But Mrs. Sen is also isolated: she likely uses a traditional Indian blade to prepare food because it reminds her of the community-oriented life in India that she misses. Just as Eliot feels lonely in his cold beach house, Mrs. Sen feels lonely in the U.S., where she seemingly has no extended family or community to support her. Mrs. Sen’s use of an Indian knife also hints at her lack of desire to assimilate into American culture—she would rather keep small traditions from her home country alive than change her ways to seem more American.
Themes
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On another day, Mrs. Sen asks Eliot if anyone would come to help her if she screamed. She says that in India, people would always come to help or celebrate if a neighbor made a noise of joy or distress, even though not everyone had telephones. This makes Eliot think of a time when his neighbors had a Labor Day party (which he and his mother weren’t invited to). This was one of the rare days his mother had off work, but they did chores all day rather than going anywhere. That evening, his mother had called the neighbors during their party and asked them to quiet down. Presently, Eliot tells Mrs. Sen that someone might call, but it might just be to complain that she was making too much noise.
Mrs. Sen’s uncertainty about whether anyone would come if she screamed in the apartment suggests that she’s worried about her lack of community in the U.S. compared to the close-knit neighborhood where she lived in India. She clearly feels lonely and isolated in her new life, as she’s not even sure that her American neighbors would care if she were in trouble. Eliot’s thoughts in response to this show that he’s isolated as well, which begins to suggest that loneliness is a common (and perhaps even inevitable) part of the human condition. His comment that someone might call if Mrs. Sen screamed, but just to tell her that she’s making too much noise, indicates that he thinks of his neighbors the same way—both he and Mrs. Sen lack a supportive network of people to look out for them. In addition to feeling alienated from his community, Eliot also lacks quality time and deep connection with his mother, his only close family member. His mother is so exhausted from work that she has little energy she has left to spend on Eliot, which implies that her role as a single mother is more draining than it is empowering.
Themes
Mrs. Sen always hides all the evidence of her food preparation before Eliot’s mother comes to pick him up, which makes Eliot feel like they are disobeying a rule. When Eliot’s mother arrives, she hovers outside and tries to avoid coming in, but Mrs. Sen won’t allow this. She always serves Eliot’s mother traditional Indian food, but Eliot’s mother never eats much and says that she had a late lunch, which Eliot knows isn’t true. (She’s told Eliot that she doesn’t like the taste of Mrs. Sen’s food.) When they get home, she immediately drinks wine and eats bread and cheese. Then, she orders Eliot pizza for dinner and leaves him to clean up while she smokes a cigarette.
Mrs. Sen likely feels the need to hide her food preparation from Eliot’s mother because the way she cooks (cutting food on the floor with a traditional Indian blade) is a marker of her foreignness as a new immigrant. Mrs. Sen does try to offer Eliot’s mother food, however, perhaps in an attempt to plant the seeds of friendship. But Eliot’s mother rejects Mrs. Sen’s hospitality and offerings—and given that Mrs. Sen’s traditional dishes are central to Mrs. Sen’s identity as an Indian woman, Eliot’s mother’s refusal to eat is a rejection of Mrs. Sen’s foreignness as a whole. Whereas Mrs. Sen puts a lot of work into making elaborate meals and snacks, Eliot’s mother has no energy left to cook after work. There’s clearly a large gap between Mrs. Sen’s role as a housewife and Eliot’s mother’s role as a working woman, but it doesn’t seem like either of them are particularly happy or fulfilled.
Themes
Every afternoon, Mrs. Sen waits for Eliot at the bus stop—she seems to arrive early, and she always brings Eliot a snack. Mrs. Sen then practices driving with Eliot in the car for 20 minutes. She says that she feels strange leaving Eliot alone in the apartment, but Eliot knows that she takes him along because she’s afraid to drive alone. She says that Mr. Sen tells her “everything will improve” once she gets her license, and she asks Eliot if he thinks so too. Eliot points out that she’d be able go places, but Mrs. Sen is only interested in going to Calcutta.
The way Mrs. Sen waits for Eliot and eagerly greets him with a snack shows she has a certain amount of affection for him. Eliot seems to be the only person she interacts with besides her husband, and she values his company. Indeed, Eliot’s presence is seemingly the only thing that gives her the courage to practice driving. Driving alone, the way Eliot’s mother commutes to work, is an important marker of independence—and given how common it is for Americans to drive their own cars everywhere they go, driving is symbolic of the U.S.’s individualistic culture. Mrs. Sen’s dislike of the exercise thus indicates her lack of desire to assimilate into American culture and gain independence by driving. Mr. Sen wants her to learn, believing that “everything will improve” for her when she can drive, because she will be able to get around independently. This is an essential part of life in most American cities, but Mrs. Sen says that she would only want to drive to Calcutta. She doesn’t want to move forward with life in the U.S., like her husband wants her to—she’d rather return home to India, where having a close-knit community meant that she didn’t need to be so independent.
Themes
Driving practice makes Mrs. Sen nervous: she makes slow circles around the apartment complex and continuously gets distracted by pedestrians or birds in the road. Eliot tries to explain how to turn onto the main road with other cars, but she’s too afraid. He thinks how easy it looks when his mother drives. Seeing the other cars makes Mrs. Sen’s hands shake, and her English falters as she says, “Everyone, this people, too much in their world.”
Eliot notices that Mrs. Sen’s driving anxiety is very different from how his mother reacts to driving: for Eliot’s mother, driving is an easy and mundane task that she does to sustain her independent lifestyle. Mrs. Sen, on the other hand, has never needed to drive on her own before, and she finds it very frightening. The way her English falters as she says, “Everyone, this people, too much in their world,” shows that the difficulty of driving is so intense for her that she can hardly speak to Eliot. The entire situation is “too much” for her—in part because being surrounded by so many strangers in their cars compounds her sense of social alienation as a new immigrant. Her lapse in English and her struggle to drive both indicate that she’s having a difficult time assimilating into American life, which requires immigrants to adapt to many changes at once.
Themes
Eliot learns that two things make Mrs. Sen happy: the first is receiving letters from home. She has Eliot check the mail while she waits with great anticipation, and when Eliot finds a letter one day, she hugs him. When they get back to the apartment, Mrs. Sen quickly reads the letter and calls Mr. Sen to tell him what it says. She’s too excited to stay in the apartment, so she takes Eliot to the university to walk around campus.
Mrs. Sen’s excitement at getting a letter from home shows how much she values her connection to her family in India. It makes her almost giddy with joy, and she wants to share her excitement with Eliot. To do this, she hugs Eliot and calls her husband—her only social connections in the U.S. That she only has two people to share exciting news with shows how isolated she has become in her new home.
Themes
Mrs. Sen repeatedly takes the letter out of her purse, rereading it and sighing to herself. Finally, she tells Eliot that her sister has had a baby girl, and that she thinks the child will three years old by the time she meets her—she and her niece will be strangers. She asks Eliot if he misses his mother in the afternoons, but it’s never occurred to him to miss her. Mrs. Sen tells Eliot that he’s wiser than she was at his age, because he already knows that he’ll be separated from family one day.
It disturbs Mrs. Sen that she won’t know her niece for years, because her family is changing while she’s away, and she is becoming even more distanced from them and from her culture in India. Staying in the United States and fully assimilating comes with a loss: Mrs. Sen will no longer be there for her family’s important life events. Eliot, by contrast, isn’t particularly close with his mother and doesn’t miss her when she’s at work. This perhaps suggests that it’s typical for people in the U.S., where the culture is very different from India, to be disconnected from their families—even when they live near each other. Indeed, when Mrs. Sen says that Eliot is wiser than she was at his age, she’s making a pessimistic statement about family relationships. She believes that life inevitably forces people to distance themselves from their families, and that Eliot has already adapted to this reality.
Themes
The second thing that makes Mrs. Sen happy is a whole fish from the seaside. One evening, she tells Eliot’s mother that she finds it hard to get the fresh fish she likes in American supermarkets, so she gets it from a fish market instead. She wants the fish because she ate it twice a day when she was growing up in Calcutta. Every few days, Mrs. Sen calls the fish market to ask if there’s fresh fish—and if there is, she sends Mr. Sen to get it.
Again, Mrs. Sen’s desire to make food from her home country is a way for her to connect to her old life in India. Her intense commitment to acquiring the fish shows that this is one of the most important things in her life—she is willing to put a great deal of time and effort into getting it. However, she has to send Mr. Sen to pick up the fish because she isn’t able to drive to get it on her own, which again speaks to her lack of independence. Eliot’s mother, for instance, wouldn’t need to ask for help to get something she wanted, but Mrs. Sen does. She has not yet adjusted to life in the U.S., which largely requires people to get what they need entirely on their own.
Themes
One day, Mr. Sen tells Mrs. Sen that he can’t go to get the fish anymore because he needs to hold office hours for his students. Mrs. Sen cooks chicken instead for a few days—but soon, the market calls and tells her that they have fresh fish available for her. She calls Mr. Sen to go get it, but he refuses. Mrs. Sen is very upset, and she asks Eliot if it’s too much to ask of Mrs. Sen.
Mr. Sen refusing to drive Mrs. Sen to the market shows the disconnect in their relationship. Mr. Sen is busy with his job as a professor, and he doesn’t seem to understand how important the fish is to his wife—which indicates that he’s also overlooking her general struggle to assimilate and find community in the U.S. Mrs. Sen’s question to Eliot—whether she’s asking too much of her husband—implies that she feels undervalued by Mr. Sen, given everything she does for him as a housewife. Mrs. Sen isn’t just upset because she can’t get the fish, but also because she doesn’t feel like her husband understands or appreciates her.
Themes
Mrs. Sen then takes Eliot into her bedroom and shows him all the saris she has never worn in the U.S. and tells him that her family thinks she lives “the life of a queen” simply because she lives in America. Eventually, Mr. Sen calls back and agrees to take Mrs. Sen and Eliot to the fish market; he tries to get Mrs. Sen to drive there, but she refuses.
By showing Eliot the unworn saris, Mrs. Sen emphasizes how lonely and alienated she feels in the U.S, where she doesn’t feel comfortable wearing traditional Indian garments in public. Her life in the U.S. has not turned out the way she expected: her financial circumstances are worse in here than they were in India, which contradicts the common narrative that immigrants to the U.S. are guaranteed opportunity and success. Although Mr. Sen eventually agrees to take Mrs. Sen to get the fish she needs, he still demonstrates a misunderstanding of his wife’s feelings when he tries to get her to drive there. He doesn’t show much empathy about how difficult and frightening driving is for her, and he’s frustrated by her refusal to practice. And given that driving symbolizes acclimation to American culture, Mr. Sens’ frustration about this represents his more general frustration with Mrs. Sens’ refusal to assimilate.
Themes
Mr. Sen takes the same roads that Eliot’s mother does when she drives them home in the evenings, but the usual route seems unfamiliar in the Sens’ car. When they arrive at the fish market, Mr. Sen waits in the car and tells Mrs. Sen and Eliot to hurry. Inside the store, Mrs. Sen chats and laughs with the man behind the counter; she asks him to confirm that the fish is fresh and requests that he leave the heads on. Later that evening, back at the apartment, Mrs. Sen carefully cuts the fish and divides it up to get three meals out of it.
The usual routes that Eliot’s mother takes seem unfamiliar in the Sens’ car, which speaks to how different everything seems to Eliot when he’s with the Sens. Mr. and Mrs. Sen, as foreigners, behave differently and see the world differently than Eliot’s mother, and Eliot senses that difference when he is with them. Mr. Sen’s urging Mrs. Sen to hurry shows once again that he doesn’t understand how important the fish is to her. The careful and deliberate way Mrs. Sen buys and prepares the fish speaks to how much value she places on the task as a means of connecting with the culture that she’s homesick for.
Themes
In November, Mrs. Sen refuses to cook or practice driving for several days. She silently prepares Eliot peanut butter on crackers and then sits reading old letters from a shoebox. Eliot’s mother notices and asks Eliot if she’s been different lately. Eliot says that he hasn’t noticed a change, even though he has: Mrs. Sen paces the apartment, turns on the TV but doesn’t watch it, and makes herself tea that she doesn’t drink.
Cooking Indian food is one of Mrs. Sen’s favorite pastimes, and it’s the main way she connects to her family and culture—so her refusal to cook makes it clear that she has given up on functioning as she normally does. She has become very sad for some reason, but Eliot doesn’t yet know what it is—and he doesn’t feel comfortable asking Mrs. Sen, which perhaps suggests that the two of them haven’t grown all that close despite being each other’s only company. Still, Eliot refuses to tell his mother about the changes he notices in Mrs. Sen, which is both a show of loyalty to her and evidence of his disconnection from his mother.
Themes
One day, Mrs. Sen plays a tape of her family’s voices for Eliot—it’s a recording of her relatives narrating things that happened in their village on the day that she and Mr. Sen left. She tells Eliot that she received a letter over the weekend telling her that her grandfather had died.
For Mrs. Sen, the news that her grandfather has died is another sign that she’s been cut off from her family and home country. Her family members’ lives have continued to develop and change without her, and she can’t get back the time she’ s lost with them while she’s been in the U.S. She listens to the tape of her relatives’ voices because it’s essentially frozen in time, making it seem as though nothing has changed since the day the Sens left home. In reality, though, events like her grandfather’s death make Mrs. Sen feel farther and farther away from her family and her community in India.
Themes
Mrs. Sen starts cooking again a week later. One evening, as she’s preparing dinner, Mr. Sen calls and takes her and Eliot to the seaside. Mrs. Sen dresses up, and they buy a lot of fish from the market and eat at a seafood restaurant. When they’re done eating, they walk on the beach and take pictures together using the camera that Mrs. Sen brought along. Then, Mr. Sen insists that Mrs. Sen drive home, despite her objections. She drives for a while but panics and pulls over when there are too many other cars on the road.
Mrs. Sen’s renewed interest in cooking suggests that she’s beginning to recover from the shock of her grandfather’s death. The moment of happiness and connection between Mr. and Mrs. Sen and Eliot at the seaside shows their potential to have a relationship and relieve each other’s loneliness—but they never really connect with each other on a deep level. This sense of disconnect is illustrated when Mr. Sen forces Mrs. Sen to drive home and doesn’t understand that she’s too afraid to do so—a conflict that puts a damper on an otherwise enjoyable evening. Furthermore, Mrs. Sen’s failure at driving more broadly symbolizes her failure to assimilate and claim her independence in the way Mr. Sen wants her to.
Themes
Mrs. Sen stops driving after this—when she wants fish, she avoids calling Mr. Sen and takes the bus instead. The bus stops at the university and at a nursing home; one day, Mrs. Sen and Eliot see some elderly women from the nursing home going to buy lozenges. Mrs. Sen asks Eliot if he’d put his mother in a nursing home, and he says that he might, but that he’d visit every day. Mrs. Sen tells Eliot that he’ll get busy with his own life, and eventually his mother will be like these women and have to take the bus to get lozenges.
Mrs. Sen taking the bus also symbolizes her refusal to assimilate and become more independent by learning to drive. She avoids calling Mr. Sen to take her to the market, which makes it clear that she has given up on him understanding her struggle with driving (and, by extension, her struggle to assimilate); she doesn’t want to disappoint him again by failing. Her discussion of nursing homes with Eliot is yet another indicator that her isolation from her family and alienation from her husband deeply trouble her. She thinks that Eliot will never be able to keep his mother from being alone in the end, because he will get busy—just like Mrs. Sen feels lonely because her husband has gotten busier with his work. This attitude is rather pessimistic, as it suggests that Mrs. Sen isn’t hopeful that she’ll ever be able to overcome her own social isolation. And in telling Eliot that his mother will become like the old ladies taking the bus to get lozenges, she implies that loneliness is inevitable for everyone.
Themes
Mrs. Sen and Eliot ride the bus to the market, pick up fish, and then take the bus home. A woman on the bus complains to the bus driver about the smell of the fish. The driver asks Mrs. Sen what’s in her bag, which startles her, and he asks if she speaks English. When she tells him that she has a fish, he asks Eliot to open the window.
The woman and the bus driver are uncomfortable with Mrs. Sen’s foreignness—they react to the smell of her food and ask if she speaks English because her behavior seems strange and unfamiliar to them. This scene illustrates the difficulty of assimilating to the U.S., as many people are unwilling to tolerate immigrants like Mrs. Sen, who often look and act differently from people who grew up in American culture.
Themes
The next time the fish market calls, Mrs. Sen calls Mr. Sen to ask him to drive them to the market, but he doesn’t answer. She keeps trying to reach him, and when he still doesn’t answer, she decides to drive herself and Eliot there. But when Mrs. Sen tries to exit the apartment complex, she turns into oncoming traffic and has to swerve out of the way. A horn from a passing car startles her so much that she hits a telephone pole. A police officer soon arrives at the scene of the accident, but Mrs. Sen doesn’t have a driver’s license to show him, so she just tells him that Mr. Sen teaches at the university. Mrs. Sen and Eliot aren’t badly hurt (Mrs. Sen has a cut lip and Eliot’s ribs are sore), and the car isn’t seriously damaged.
Mrs. Sen’s inability to contact her husband, despite making multiple efforts to reach him, shows how unavailable (both practically and emotionally) he is when she needs him. Mrs. Sen realizes that she will need to act independently in order to get the fish she needs to make traditional Indian dishes—but she fails to drive properly, showing that she has yet to achieve the independence that’s second nature to American women like Eliot’s mother. Mrs. Sen’s car accident represents her final failure to assimilate, as this major step she takes to step outside of her comfort zone only ends in trauma and disappointment.
Themes
Mr. Sen picks Mrs. Sen and Eliot up. When they get back to the apartment, Mrs. Sen throws away the food she was preparing for dinner. She makes Eliot a snack and turns on the TV for him, and then she goes to her room and shuts the door. When Eliot’s mother arrives, Mrs. Sen doesn’t come out to speak to her. Instead, Mr. Sen reimburses Eliot’s mother for the month’s babysitting fee and apologizes on his wife’s behalf. He says that she’s resting, but Eliot hears Mrs. Sen crying.
After the car accident, it’s implied that Mrs. Sen is giving up on trying to assimilate or connect with others in America. She goes into her room and shuts the door to avoid talking to Eliot’s mother, indicating that she has stopped trying entirely. Rather than Mrs. Sen acting independently on her own behalf, Mr. Sen interacts with Eliot’s mother for her, making the decision that Eliot won’t come to the Sens anymore. Eliot was Mrs. Sen’s only companion, and their time together is ending on a rather traumatic and abrupt note, which implies that Mrs. Sen doesn’t have much hope of making social connections in the future.
Themes
This is the last day that Eliot spends with Mrs. Sen. On the way home that evening, Eliot’s mother tells him that she’s relieved he won’t be going back to the Sens’ anymore. Instead of hiring a new babysitter, she gives Eliot a key to the house and tells him to call the neighbors if there’s an emergency. The first day that Eliot stays home alone after school, his mother calls to make sure he’s okay. Gazing out the kitchen window at the dreary ocean waves, Eliot tells her that he’s fine.
Eliot’s mother admits she’s relieved that she doesn’t have to deal with Mrs. Sen anymore, which speaks to her ongoing rejection of Mrs. Sen and discomfort with her foreignness. She doesn’t seem to recognize or care that she likely played a role in Mrs. Sen’s fear of independence and assimilation, which fed into her driving anxiety. Eliot’s mother was judgmental and cold to Mrs. Sen from the start, which has likely made Mrs. Sen even more hesitant to try to connect with other people and adapt to American culture. Meanwhile, Eliot gets a key to the house rather than a new babysitter, which socially isolates him even further. He and Mrs. Sen have been fond of each other throughout the story—but ultimately, they failed to connect on a deeper level, and it’s unlikely that they’ll ever see each other again. In the end, they’re both alone, without even each other for company. That the story ends with Eliot and Mrs. Sen’s mutual isolation suggests that loneliness is a central and inescapable part of the human experience.
Themes
