The field of artistic expression is a broad one, a world which features as many unique styles as it has artists; literature is no exception. One writer discovers the possibilities of an American bachelor discovering romance and lust while living in modern-day Haiti, and another writer sets a work in the fictional town of Therapoli where magical creatures distort the work’s reality until, at least in the author’s world, nothing is quite as it seems. There is no correct or proper way to create literature-the two aforementioned authors have simply employed dissimilar means to meet their literary ends-just as there is no proper way to taste an apple or laugh at a joke. Authors do, however, fashion their means carefully, making sure these means will allow their work to meet the desired literary end. For example, Jhumpa Lahiri, author of the short story collectionInterpreter of Maladies, creates a work of realism which is set in modern times in order to complement the realistic themes featured in the work while Toni Morrison, author of acclaimed novel Beloved, uses magical realism to add an element of fantasy to her work set around the end of slavery in mid-late 19th Century America. Jhumpa Lahiri, in Interpreter of Maladies, chooses to represent the modern world through realism for the simple fact that her themes-Indian men, women and children struggling as they find themselves caught between cultures. They are real-life concerns of a group of people, and in order to be effectively portrayed through literature, the stories require characters which look, sound and live as do their real-life counterparts in the modern world.
Toni Morrison in Beloved uses magical realism to mix reality and fantasy in her portrait of the lives of Sethe, Denver, Paul D and Beloved, who are former slaves living in America just after the Civil War. Morrison adds a supernatural element to the work in the character of Beloved in order to extract and even enhance a sense of spirituality found in each main character. Denver despises Paul D for chasing away the ghost which was haunting 124 when the work explains, “Now her mother was upstairs with the man who had gotten rid of the only other company she had. Denver dipped a bit of bread into the jelly. Slowly, methodically, miserably she ate it” (23). Denver’s spirituality causes her to unknowingly reach into the past, bringing up thoughts of her absent brothers before longing for the company of the ghost, her deceased sister. Paul D, too, is caught up in the supernatural as Beloved seduces him sexually, opening up the array of emotions from his past which he keeps contained in a tobacco tin. When Beloved’s supernatural seduction overtakes him he finds his tobacco tin cracked open as he repeats the phrase “Red heart, red heart” over and over again, signifying that his emotions have been unlocked and brought to the fore (138). Without Morrison’s use of magical realism, it would not have been possible for Morrison to account for the rebirth or return of Beloved, who is integral to the work as a symbol of the past (literally as well as figuratively) haunting the present, of the past institution of slavery haunting the blacks’ present, and of past emotions depressing the thoughts of the characters’ present. The past in this work recurs time and time again, and the supernatural element so expertly employed in the character of Beloved requires the use of magical realism as the actions of this work far exceed the reach of reality.
Unlike Morrison’s Beloved, Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies constructs themes which require a world and characters that are parallel to the modern world in order to be portrayed accurately and effectively. In the first story of the work, A Temporary Matter, the married couple of Shoba and Shukumar deal with realistic, everyday themes which most Americans can relate to: electricity outages and trying to locate candles, the daily work routine, exchanging pleasantries with neighbors, the premature death of an infant, and the dissolution of a once-strong relationship. “‘I’ve been looking for an apartment and I’ve found one,'” she said, narrowing her eyes on something, it seemed, behind his left shoulder. It was nobody’s fault, she continued. They’d been through enough. She needed some time alone…She had signed the lease that night before coming home” (21). Where Morrison may have had the deceased infant reincarnated in order to play a more central role in the story, Lahiri sticks to reality in order to keep her work as grounded in reality as possible. This theme and others are ones with real-life significance devoid of fantasy because fantastic elements would only draw from the realistic elements of the work, making the death of the infant child seem or the end of the relationship between Shoba and Shukumar seem less real, like they don’t exist, and therefore less heart-wrenching.
Another powerful story in the work, Mrs. Sen’s, finds an Indian woman coping miserably with her newfound life in America. She is given the task of learning to drive, a relatively basic skill in American society which proves stressful and ultimately too much for Mrs. Sen when Eliot could see “how that stream of cars made her knuckles pale, her wrists tremble, and her English falter. ‘Everyone, this people, too much in their world'” (121). Mrs. Sen’s passion is waiting for letters from her family back in India, and is obsessed with the idea of being back with her family, her home. Eliot suggests that Mrs. Sen, once she receives her license, can go anywhere she wishes, to which she replies, “‘Could I drive all the way to Calcutta? How long would that take, Eliot? Ten thousand miles, at fifty miles per hour?'” (119). Mrs. Sen’s longing for home and struggling to find happiness is a strange, unfamiliar land is experienced by real people in the modern world, and any element to contradict the story’s reality would spoil the author’s intention of portraying Mrs. Sen as a character who is as non-fiction as a fictional character can be.
Not only are the characters and settings made to feel as realistic as possible but specific issues and events brought up in the work in stories such as When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine are, in reality, issues and events which face America as well as nations around the world. The first issue to appear in the story deals with the American education system and its tendency to teach students about its own history and little more: “We learned American history, of course, and American geography. That year, and every year, it seemed, we began by studying the Revolutionary War…During tests we were given blank maps of the thirteen colonies, and asked to fill in names, date, capitals. I could do it with my eyes closed” (27). The issue of poor American education is one which is, in reality, a problem for American society, and is brought up with a necessary amount of gravity and seriousness in the work. The story also deals with something Lilia’s parents and Mr. Pirzada are very concerned with: an impending war between India and Pakistan, a real-life event which led to thousands of deaths and altered the lives of millions across the globe. “War was declared officially on December 4, and twelve days later, the Pakistani army, weakened by having to fight three thousand miles from their sources of supplies, surrendered in Dacca” (40). The real-life event adds to the necessity for reality in the story, as any element of fantasy or altering of facts would lead readers to discredit the author and see the work as a sort of fairy tale instead of focusing on the affect of a real-life occurrence. Where Morrison’s book works to create as well as enhance a century-and-a-half old world through fantasy and elements of the supernatural, Lahiri works to place characters in an already-existing world through reality and relatable fiction.
Jhumpa Lahiri, in Interpreter of Maladies, chooses to represent the modern world through realism for the simple fact that her themes-Indian men, women and children struggling as they find themselves caught between the culture of their ancestors and the culture of their current home, America-are real-life concerns of a group of people and their stories, in order to be effectively portrayed through literature, require characters which look, sound and live as do their real-life counterparts in the modern world. And while Toni Morrison’s Beloved is no less a work, elements of fantasy and the supernatural are necessary for the themes to be portrayed effectively. Jhumpa Lahiri and Toni Morrison are two authors whose works employ different literary means in order to achieve different literary ends, but both works are examples of great artistic genius and are irreplaceable in their own right.
Works Cited
Lahiri, Jhumpa. Interpreter of Maladies. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Vintage International, 2004.
