Interpreter of Maladies
question
Defining Home
MFAH Facilitator
Mar 26, 2018 12:49PM
The idea of "home" seems to be somewhat of a fluid concept for many of us. There are those who have relatively straightforward ideas of home, associating the notion with where they come from, or the house where they grew up, or where their families reside. For others, the concept is a bit more convoluted.
Consider the passage below from Jhumpa Lahiri's short story, "Mrs. Sen's." Reflect on Eliot and Mrs. Sen's two different perspectives on home. What does home mean to you?
**Come out to the MFAH this Thursday evening, 6:00 p.m., and engage in discussion on this topic, with an exclusive viewing of a collection of prints by artist Zarina Hashmi, entitled "Home is a Foreign Place." Don't forget to RSVP through the event page, space is limited!**
"Eliot, if I began to scream right now at the top of my lungs, would someone come?
"Mrs. Sen, what's wrong?"
"Nothing. I am only asking if someone would come."
Eliot shrugged. "Maybe."
"At home that is all you have to do. Not everybody has a telephone. But just raise your voice a bit, or express grief or joy of any kind, and one whole neighborhood and half of another has come to share the news, to help with arrangements."
By then Eliot understood that when Mrs. Sen said home, she meant India, not the apartment where she sat chopping vegetables. He thought of his own home, just five miles away, and the young married couple who waved from time to time as they jogged at sunset along the shore. On Labor Day they'd had a party. People were piled on the deck, eating, drinking, the sound of their laughter rising above the weary sigh of the waves. Eliot and his mother weren't invited. It was one of the rare days his mother had off, but they didn't go anywhere. She did the laundry, and balanced the checkbook, and, with Eliot's help, vacuumed the inside of the car... When, by evening, the crowd on the neighbors' deck began dancing, she looked up their number in the phone book and asked them to keep it down.
"They might call you," Eliot said eventually to Mrs. Sen. "But they might complain that you were making too much noise."
[pg. 116-117, "Mrs. Sen's"]
Consider the passage below from Jhumpa Lahiri's short story, "Mrs. Sen's." Reflect on Eliot and Mrs. Sen's two different perspectives on home. What does home mean to you?
**Come out to the MFAH this Thursday evening, 6:00 p.m., and engage in discussion on this topic, with an exclusive viewing of a collection of prints by artist Zarina Hashmi, entitled "Home is a Foreign Place." Don't forget to RSVP through the event page, space is limited!**
"Eliot, if I began to scream right now at the top of my lungs, would someone come?
"Mrs. Sen, what's wrong?"
"Nothing. I am only asking if someone would come."
Eliot shrugged. "Maybe."
"At home that is all you have to do. Not everybody has a telephone. But just raise your voice a bit, or express grief or joy of any kind, and one whole neighborhood and half of another has come to share the news, to help with arrangements."
By then Eliot understood that when Mrs. Sen said home, she meant India, not the apartment where she sat chopping vegetables. He thought of his own home, just five miles away, and the young married couple who waved from time to time as they jogged at sunset along the shore. On Labor Day they'd had a party. People were piled on the deck, eating, drinking, the sound of their laughter rising above the weary sigh of the waves. Eliot and his mother weren't invited. It was one of the rare days his mother had off, but they didn't go anywhere. She did the laundry, and balanced the checkbook, and, with Eliot's help, vacuumed the inside of the car... When, by evening, the crowd on the neighbors' deck began dancing, she looked up their number in the phone book and asked them to keep it down.
"They might call you," Eliot said eventually to Mrs. Sen. "But they might complain that you were making too much noise."
[pg. 116-117, "Mrs. Sen's"]
reply
flag
all discussions on this book
|
post a new topic
