Interpreter
of Maladies is about a vacation trip that a family takes to India. They hire a
taxi driver to show them around and to enjoy their time overseas. Mr. Kapasi,
the taxi driver, realizes that this family is not as you would expect. The
father is completely absorbed into his tour book and captivated by his camera,
more willing to capture on film the good times with his family versus actually
taking the time to enjoy it physically. The mother goes further out of the norm
when she seems to show no outward feelings towards her husband and kids,
especially when one of her kids become endangered later on in the plot. Mr.
Kapasi manages to strike her fancy when he starts to talk about his past and
his job. Because of the miscommunication between the two (Mr. Kaspasi thinks
this sudden attention is love, Mrs. Das thinks Mr. Kapasi is skilled enough,
possibly even qualified to be a counselor) Mrs. Das goes ahead and tells him
her darkest secret; she had an affair and one of their kids isn’t Mr. Das’s.
The song “Just a Friend” describes a situation where a
guy tried to date a girl but throughout his efforts, she had less and less time
for him. Her excuse was that “she only had a friend”… At the end of the song
the guy finds out in person that she was having relations with her so called “friend”
and was only using him for attention.
“Just a Friend” is similar to the story “Interpreter of
Maladies” because Mrs. Das had an affair with one of Mr. Das’s friends. At
first it was a surprise but she let it happen. She has his son and pretends it
was her husband’s all the while letting Mr. Das still think that his friend was
still a “friend” of the family. Eventually this secret and being in a married
she feels trapped in causes her to lose all interest in her family, just like
how, in the song, the girl has no interest in the guy and would rather be with
her “friend”.
I love this song!! My favorite version is the remix by the singer Mario. I thought it was actually entertaining how you connected the lyrics of the song to this story. I never would have thought of that! When we read this story it actually made me sad to see how unhappy the wife was with her family. It is even ironic how disconnected she was from her children, yet society has this idea that mothers love their children dearly. I was grateful that Mr.Kapasi snapped into reality at the end because throughout the story it seemed as if he was blinded by love. Great job!
ReplyDeleteThe usage of the song to establish its relationship to Mrs. Das’ shallow and selfish character is original. However, the overall criticism that I have towards the connection is that I thought her attitude towards Mr.Kapasi is more relatable to the song than that of the mysterious “friend” of her husband. She was interested in Mr.Kapasi’s skill of interpretation only because she wanted to use his knowledge of assisting others to her advantage, but his aid did not relieve her problem. She distanced herself from him after discovering that he cannot take away the unwanted emotions that she feels towards her family, especially the children.
ReplyDeleteYou made a good connection with the "Just a Friend" song. I like how you connected how the women had lost connection in the men at the end because they just wanted to be friends. Also how both of the men were getting used for attention. The only thing that I can say that I did not like about your media response was you told too much information from the short story. We all read the short story so we had a familiar connection with it but not everyone was familiar with the song so I thought you should have went into more detail of the song. But that’s just my perspective to your response. But overall you did a good job with your connection I would have never thought of a connection like this.
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