Loneliness In Interpreter Of Maladies And Sexy

Throughout both “Interpreter of Maladies” and “Sexy”, Jhumpa Lahiri’s exhibits an ironical emphasis on the idea that while loneliness pushes people towards keeping secrets, it is those secrets that add to their loneliness in return and create greater damage to the highlighted relationships. While both stories hone on an unfaithful marriage, in “Sexy”, the perspective is given through the ‘other woman’ with whom the husband, Dev, cheats his wife. Throughout the story, Miranda seeks a connection to achieve her goal of discarding her loneliness. However, her affair with a married man seems to add more to her loneliness, as “[she] knew how to wait. In the evenings, she sat at her dining table and coated her nails with clear nail polish, and ate salad straight from the salad bowl, and
Knowing that she has little part in Dev’s life, a secret to be kept in the dark and a mistress to be visited only in good weather under the excuse of going out for jogging, Miranda cannot tell about her affair even to Laxmi. Outside the established norms of the society and the sacredness of marriage, she is an outcast as ‘the other woman’. On the other hand, the short story, “Interpreter of Maladies”, features a woman whose unfaithfulness lead to a child. Mr. and Mrs. Das’ relationship lead to Mrs. Das’ inability to express how she feels after all those years of friendship and marriage with her husband without any break and leaving no private space in her life. Therefore, Mrs. Das disregards her family. Mrs. Das “[walks] past her children as if they were strangers” (58). The family’s tour guide observes the disinterest, and she tells how their families almost arranged their marriage, ignoring many things they would normally think improper in their relationship. She does not try to justify herself but puts forward her loneliness which her husband never shares in real means clearly and in a cold