Interpreter of Maladies

849 Words4 Pages
Plot/Structure Timed Writing In the short story “Interpreter of Maladies, an Indian resident, Mr. Kapasi, meets an Americanized Indian family visiting India, the Das family. Both Mr. Kapasi and the mother of the family, Mrs. Das, are unsatisfied in their marriage and develop a connection; the story examines the struggles within the human relationship. With both Mr. Kapasi’s unhappy fate, as well as the Das family’s indeterminate fate, “Interpreter of Maladies” proves to be an excellent example of literary fiction. The story’s conclusion suggests that Mr. Kapasi and the Das family go separate ways; naturally, it is only appropriate that both Mr. Kapasi and the Das family acquire separate types of endings. Before meeting the Das family, Mr. Kapasi is a lonely man living an unfulfilling life, trapped within a loveless marriage; after meeting the Das family, he is the same man. As the paper with his address on it soars away in the wind, all hope of befriending the attractive woman who romanticized his mundane profession was lost; he observes the family together, “knowing that this was the picture of the Das family that he would preserve forever in his mind.” (303). This picture of the family does not include him, and chances are that he will go back to his lonely, unfulfilling, loveless life. Although Mr. Kapasi’s future remains in the dark, a potential hope shines down on the Das family. After Mr. Das reveals that she in an unfaithful wife who loves neither her children, nor her husband, chaos breaks loose as monkeys, symbolic for Mrs. Das’s guilt, attack the very boy who was conceived out of her infidelity; the more Mrs. Das raged, the more the monkeys raged. Mr. Kapasi, although unable to literally exterminate Mrs. Das’s guilt, he is able to shoo away the monkeys, figuratively eliminating her guilt. Once the monkeys are gone, the family joins together around
Open Document