A temporary matter - Jhumpa Lahiri

Nilanjana Sudheshna Lahiri, commonly known as Jhumpa Lahiri is a contemporary writer born in 1967, in London, England. Her parents are Bengali, from Calcutta and they immigrated to the United Kingdom. When she was three, they moved to the USA. After all, Lahiri considers herself American.

Jhumpa’s debut was a collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000. In her writings she mainly discusses themes of immigrants’ experiences, especially of East Indians, cultural assimilation and new ways of life in other countries. Her characters are invariably trying to find their identity, with the feeling of not belonging and suffering the clash of cultures.

A temporary matter is one of the short stories from her first book and is about a couple – Shoba and Shukumar. Shoba had lost her baby recently and they face difficulties after that, getting more and more distant from each other.

One day, they receive a note from the electricity company that there would be a blackout in the neighborhood. Shoba proposed, then, that they played a game in the dark: to tell things they had never told each other. They both told some important situations that they had hidden from one another, yet, Shoba didn’t react (in a bad way) to anything Shukumar told her, except for the final night.

On the fifth night, Shoba told her husband that she had signed for an apartment and she was leaving him. Therefore, Shukumar decided to reveal his biggest secret: he actually held their dead baby before the little one was cremated; he had met their son, even though the child couldn’t breathe. He not only met him, but also paid attention to his details and told Shoba about them. This, and only this, made her feel really appalled.

This way, the conflict lies in the love between Shukumar and Shoba that seems to have disappeared after Shoba’s miscarriage: they emotionally walked away from each other. After the announcement from the energy company the story is developed as they start exposing their secrets, memories never told etc.

Although they started with small talks and memories with not much importance, it gets serious as the week advances, bringing some of their relationship issues. On the last night of that week the power was reestablished, but Shoba insists on keeping the conversations. Finally, she said she was looking for an apartment to move out.

Concerning the characters, the story has only two (relevant ones): an American Indian couple. Shukumar is 35 years old and a doctoral student who had been researching the agrarian revolts in India. The couple were expecting a baby six months before the story takes place and Shoba went to labor too early so the baby was born as a stillbirth and Shukumar was working away. He felt very guilty for that and dealing with grief makes him sad, isolated, and even incapable of working.

Shoba, 33, works as a proofreader. Since the loss of her baby, she has been working a lot more in the attempt to fill her time and take her mind off the grief. She also experiences a great change in her personality: before her loss, Shoba was very good at planning everything, cared for her looks and loved cleaning the house and keeping the kitchen stocked. Now she has lost interest in those things and just like her husband, starts avoiding him.

A temporary matter takes place in the suburban Boston home of Shoba and Shukumar, mainly in the kitchen. Lahiri uses the kitchen as a setting which allows the readers to get personal information about how the food, space and emotions are connected to the protagonists. This way, the setting is full of reminders of busier, hopeful days bygone, which contrasts with the present scenario, which is now defined by the characters’ actions.

However, something changes as the lights go off. It seems like a timeless world that goes back and forward in time, when Shoba and Shukumar were able to talk to each other about things they never mentioned before. Throughout the story, the conditions of the setting build tension even without direct conflict.

That happens since the couple has difficulty in communicating, but the darkness is a factor that sets a comfortable moment without making them vulnerable in face of their mistakes. Three meaningful features in the text are the title, the baby and the concept of leaving. All these elements are represented in the form of metaphors, irony and foreshadow. A temporary matter shows the degradation of a relationship.

With the title, the author prepares the reader to see that what’s written in the following pages is nothing but a temporary journey for the characters. The loss of the baby is metaphoric and predicts the future of the couple. The marriage was dead, lifeless like the baby. The concept of leaving is represented by the feeling of abandonment that Shukumar experiences when Shoba tells him she is moving.

As mentioned, the title suggests a reflection about the “temporary matter”. This sentence appears on the note of the light company: the blackout is going to be a temporary matter. So, the electrical failure alludes to the end of the marriage, which is also a metaphor for life and relations: just a temporary matter.

REFERECES

JHUMPA LAHIRI. A Temporary Matter. Disponível em: http://djrabb72.weebly.com/uploads/2/2/6/9/22696388/a_temporary_matter.pdf. Acesso em: 11. nov. 2021.

The Editor of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Jumpa Lahiri American author. Britannica. Disponível em: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jhumpa-Lahiri. Acesso em: 11. nov. 2021.

THE SETTING in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Short Story A temporary matter. Literatureessaysamples, 2021. Disponível em: https://literatureessaysamples.com/the-setting-in-jhumpa-lahiris-short-story-a-temporary-matter/. Acesso em: 17. nov. 2021.

Imagem da capa: Jhumpa Lahiri - Bio. Disponível em: https://www.randomhouse.com/kvpa/jhumpalahiri/bio.php