When Mr Pirzada Came To Dine Analysis

Historically, Western and American literature have been dominated by white authors exploring white issues and culture. In the past few decades, more and more authors are emerging with their own novels and texts exploring the issues of minorities and their interactions with a societal-system that is historically white-dominated. Whether or not these new voices have been successful of accurately capturing and portraying the lives of these previously unrepresented people is another debate. While some scholars argue Jhumpa Lahiri’s collection of short stories both accurately portrays and defies stereotypes, Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies shows how separate, in this case, Indians and Indian-Americans need to be from society and the amount of work left for the writing community and society as a whole. Individually, the short stories tell of the struggle of Indian-Americans trying to find a balance with no avail between their identities as Indians and as Americans. In “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine,” Lilia, for all intents and purposes, is American. She was born in America, lives in America, “[learns] American history, of course, and American geography,” (Lahiri 27)

Interpreter of Maladies send the message that while individuals that can’t be labeled aren’t hopeless causes, they are still fighting uphill battles, and at the end of they day no matter how “American” they act, they will still always look ethnically different and no matter how similar they look, they will still act different. As Indian-Americans, it makes sense that the characters are all products of both their familial culture and societal values. It is up to the entire community to accept any mixture of cultural and societal values and that at the end of the day, not being defined isn’t