Structure and Characterization
This storytelling method in "Interpreter of Maladies" contrasts the characters' backgrounds with their reality, enhancing their characterization.
What is flashbacks?
The resolution
This form of narration focuses on one character and their thoughts, while using third person pronouns, such as he/she/they, overall.
Third person limited narration
The story uses a third-person limited perspective primarily focusing on this character, allowing readers to understand their emotions and perceptions of foreign culture.
Who is Mr. Kapasi?
Lahiri uses this kind of structure to show a progression of events in the story and how the characters develop as the story progresses.
What is chronological structure.
The story uses a significant shift in perspective, between these two main characters, revealing their cultural distance.
Mrs. Das and Mr. Kapasi
Why does the author choose to reveal more information about Ms. Das later on in the story, instead of introducing her completely at the beginning?
This allows the reader to shift their perspective on Ms. Das after forming an initial perception of her.
A conclusion in which readers do not get a definite answer, leaving the reader with unresolved tensions and reflecting the complexities of the characters lives and relationships.
What is an open ended conclusion?
This kind of narrator, as exemplified through Mr. Kapasi, does not always interpret the events of the story objectively, inserting their own bias and affecting the reader percieves the story's events.
What is an unreliable narrator?
How does Lahiri layering small details about the characters from Mr. Kapasi's perspective influence the way in which the reader forms assumptions about their traits?
The reader does not actually know the character's backgrounds other than through the way in which they interact with one another and their surroundings until later in the story. There is some bias towards the way in which Mr. Kapasi views the characters (ex. Mrs. Das asking about Mr. Kapasi's job and him interpreting it as flirting). This highlights the theme of disconnect between the two cultures.
How does the author use parallel plot (a story structure in which the writer includes two or more separate narratives linked by a common character character event, or theme) in order to progress the story?
Mr. Kapasi and Mrs. Das's separate stories are linked through their shared experience on the tour. The way in which they perceive the events of the story differs. Mr. Kapasi and Mrs. Das are dealing with their own separate emotional struggles (Mr. Kapasi with his infatuation with Mrs. Das, and Mrs. Das with her guilt related to her affair), which deepens the idea of the complexities of human relationships.
How is the theme of communication and miscommunication shown through the third person limited narration of the story?
The use of dialogue and internal monologue and the way in which they differ throughout the story enhances this theme, highlighting the gaps in understanding between characters.