INTERPRETER OF MALADIES: ESSAY ASSIGNMENT

As is usually the case in English class, we are going to write about the literature we have been reading. We are going to do this a little differently, so pay close attention to the instructions.

Please analyze at least three stories using one of the following questions:

• Many characters struggle when they are separated from their homes while others thrive once they leave. What does home mean in these stories? What is the relationship between the place we have come from and the place we are now living? How do these places change us as people?

• Growing up is an issue that appears in several of Lahiri’s stories. What statement are the stories making about maturity and the process of becoming an adult? What does she say about adult’s and children’s characteristics?

• Marriage and family are two topics that are in almost every story. What makes a good marriage? What makes a family healthy? How do these subjects connect to the other issues that Lahiri addresses?

• Almost all of Lahiri’s stories deal with either Indians in America or Indian-Americans in India. The issue of the experience of coming to America or returning to India is clearly important. What is the relationship between the older world of our ancestors and the new world to which we have immigrated? What happens to people when they leave the homeland or return to it?

• What maladies are interpreted in these stories? What are the “maladies” and how do we see their interpretations? Who or what is responsible for the maladies? What do the narrators think about the causes and/or cures for these maladies?

• What statements are the stories making about gender? What do they say about the way men and women do and should relate to each other? What are the reasons for this?

For the first step: Please write a strong thesis and provide at least three quotes ( at least one from each story) that prove it. Please write a connecting sentence or two that demonstrate how the quote proves the thesis. Print out three (3) copies of this outline and bring it to class on the due date on your assignment calendar. DO NOT PUT YOUR NAME ON THE THREE COPIES!

A trip to the WERCS might be a great idea for all steps in this writing process!