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Jhumpa Lahiri's Short Story 'Temporary Matter'

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In reading the short story a Temporary Matter written by JHUMPA LAHIRI my thesis on this would be that when people are vulnerable or hit rock bottom is when they become aware of what really matters and will properly communicate. Many times in life people will allow things to build up and where on them and have that final explosion when they have had enough. That trigger that can set things off may be so minor to some that they may think a person is acting irrational about what happened, yet when they sit down and discuss these issues with their partner, co-worker, friend, etc. they begin to realize that it wasn’t this minor event that set them off it was a serious of occurrences the other person had let slip by. The story begins with two …show more content…

They sit in silence at the beginning of dinner the first night. She remembers a game her and her family used to play in India sort of like truth or dare. They decide that they should start telling each other things they have never told one another. (Lahiri, 1999) This is where we begin to see the change in their relationship as they begin to open up to one another about seemingly trivial things they have done in the past. A sort of confessional which brings them closer. The husband looks forward to each evening as his relationship with his wife begins to rekindle. “She hadn 't appeared so determined in months” (Lahiri, 1999) Every passing evening Lahiri describes how they would become closer, spend more time with one another, and even make love which they have not done in sometime. They shared many secrets with one another, all trivial in some way shape or form, and the last night the power came back one yet the husband is enjoying the candle light dinners and his wife turns the lights on and proceeds to tell him that she found an apartment. (Lahiri, 1999) All this time the husband has held back what he probably should have told his spouse in the beginning of this conversation. He confessed trivial things to her and she did to him, but the author has him hold back the most relative thing until the end of the

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