Interpreter of Maladies | Quotes

This hint of paradox suggests the increasing barriers that Shoba and Shukumar experience in communicating with each other. Since the loss of their child, alienation between the two has steadily increased.

The quotation eloquently expresses the child Lilia's empathy and compassion for Mr. Pirzada, who has missed his wife and daughters for months. Her first-person narrative recounting his dinner visits reflects her own increasing powers of observation and understanding.

The quotation concisely sums up Mr. Kapasi's increasing infatuation with Mrs. Das. Just as he is trapped in a loveless marriage, he falls prey to the fantasy that she, too, may be unhappy with Mr. Das—and susceptible to his romantic attentions.

This apparently trivial event signals the definitive end to Mr. Kapasi's romantic fantasies about Mrs. Das. There will be no further communication between the two characters.

Boori Ma habitually rants about her luxurious life in days of yore. She often uses the colloquial expression, "Believe me, don't believe me."

Mr. Chatterjee, regarded as a sage by his fellow residents, pompously voices an "eviction notice" for Boori Ma, thus ensuring her expulsion from the apartment building.

This key line at the beginning of Miranda's affair with Dev comes back to haunt the lovers when Dev can't remember it some months later. His memory lapse solidifies Miranda's sense of disillusionment.

Lahiri's figurative language in this passage draws attention to the comforting role of food in the lives of many Indians attempting to assimilate into American society.

Mrs. Sen defiantly refuses to continue her driving practice—thus conveying her tensions about the process of assimilation into American culture, which is so different from the Indian cultural milieu she knows.

Twinkle's happy approach to the discovery of so many Christian artifacts in her house strongly contrasts with her husband, Sanjeev's, consternation.

In this passage, Lahiri amplifies a sense of farce, as the housewarming party morphs into a treasure hunt for Christian artifacts.

The quotation crystallizes Sanjeev's sense of irritation with his own wife, Twinkle, on the cultural issue of religion.

Lahiri's elegant, parallel style in this passage produces a tension with the content, which emphasizes Bibi Haldar's "malaise"—thus suggesting yet another case of "malady."

Mrs. Croft repeats these words several times in the story, drawing attention to her eccentricity and advanced age.

The narrator's concluding words in the story emphasize his own sense of wonder at the long and ultimately successful journey of cultural assimilation he has made—from India to England to the United States.