'Interpreter Of Maladies And I Stand Here Ironing'

“Interpreter of Maladies” and “I Stand Here Ironing” have different historical backgrounds that influences the authors’ narrative choices. In “Interpreter of Maladies”, Jhumpa Lahiri writes about the difficulty of reconciling an Indian heritage with life in the United States at the beginning of the 21th century. On the other hand, Tillie Olsen refers to the period of World War II which played an important role in her life and writing career. As a matter of fact, these stories differ in characters’ cultural and historical backgrounds, but it is definitely possible to compare them according to realism. The realistic approach is analyzed through three sections: the narrative point of view, the character and the setting. In terms of point

Indeed, the narrator is internal and uses a particular singular narration, the interior monologue. The mother is the mediator between the reader and the family, and provides insights into the characters’ behaviors and thoughts by using the stream-of-consciousness, a technique which explains the flow of thoughts in the character’s mind. “She was too vulnerable for that terrible world of youthful competition, of preening and parading, of constant measuring of yourself against every other, of envy, “If I had the copper hair, “If I had that skin….” She tormented herself enough about not looking like the others, there was enough of the unsureness, the having to be conscious of words before you speak, the constant caring- what are they thinking of me?” The mother reveals her daughter’s thoughts through an explanation coming from her own thinking, and this allows the reader to understand the concerns of the young age at that time. However, as results of her own mind, readers cannot take the daughter’s thoughts for granted. It is commonly called “unreliable narrator”, a first person narrator which may exaggerate or make distorted judgements as cause of its own