Interpreter of Maladies: The Negative Ending

Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lihiri, is about a tour guide named Mr. Kapasi, taking a dysfunctional family on a tour around some parts of India. However, during this trip, the mother of this dysfunctional family, Mrs. Das, begins to show an interest in Mr. Kapasi when she hears that he also works as an interpreter at a hospital. At first, Mr. Kapasi doesn’t understand why Mrs. Das has such a big interest in his work, but he is lured into her beauty and begins to have dreams of expanding his relationship with Mrs. Das. However, later in the story, Mrs. Das confesses to Mr. Kapasi that one of her kids, Bobby, has a different father and she asks Mr. Kapasi for an interpretation of her problems. Mr. Kapasi quickly realizes that Mrs. Das’ problem is the source of the dysfunctional relationships within the family and he tells her that her problem is “guilt” rather than pain. Although Mrs. Das is very angry with Mr. Kapasi for saying that she is guilty, she quickly accepts Mr. Kapasi’s interpretation of her pain and she begins to change. Evidence of this change can be seen in the ending scenes of the story where Bobby is getting harassed by a large group of monkeys. Before, Mrs. Das seemed indifferent towards her whole family, and everything the children did seemed annoying to Mrs. Das, however, at the sight of her son’s danger, Mrs. Das screams for help and as soon as Mr. Kapasi saves Bobby from the monkeys, she makes sure that Bobby is okay. Although this may seem like a hopeful ending to the story because the mother finally makes an effort to show some compassion to her child, I think very differently.

At close inspection to the ending of Interpreter of Maladies there is a lot of evidence that can support a negative or sad ending to the story. First of all, none of the family was really interested in saving Bobby from the monkeys, except Mrs. Das. In fact, nobody even noticed that Bobby was missing until Mrs. Das and Mr. Kapasi joined them after their private conversation. Secondly, Mr. Das’ lack of love towards his children is perfectly exemplified when Bobby is put into danger. During this scene, Mr. Das becomes very nervous, but we as readers, can tell that Mr. Das is nervous, not because Bobby is in danger, but because he was put in the uncomfortable situation where he would be expected to act. If a child was put in this kind of a situation, it is quite reasonable to assume that the strong male in the family, who cares for the child’s wellbeing, would help the child. In this case, it should’ve been Mr. Das, but because of his lack of compassion towards his own son, Mr. Das was reluctant to save Bobby. Similarly, his lack of love can also be seen after Mr. Kapasi saves Bobby from the monkeys. Unlike most parents who would say something like, “are you ok?” or “are you hurt?” Mr. Das just assumes Bobby is ok by saying, “He’s fine. Just a little scared, right, Bobby?” (Mr. Das 80) This quote exemplifies Mr. Das’ lack of love and the fact that Bobby’s voice is never heard, shows how little he matters to the rest of the family.

As stated before, readers may consider the ending to be a hopeful ending because of the positive efforts that Mrs. Das makes to get closer to her family, however, even in the ending scene Mrs. Das doesn’t change that much. During the middle of the trip, Mrs. Das had asked for Mr. Kapasi’s phone number and address. However, as Mrs. Das whips out a hairbrush to fix Bobby’s hair in the ending scene, the note that Mr. Kapasi wrote his phone number and address on fluttered away. Although some may argue that this event was coincidental, I think it portrays Mrs. Das’ true personality. The only reason why Mrs. Das asked for Mr. Kapasi’s phone number was to show a fake interest in him, and the only reason why she showed a fake interest in him, was because she thought he could interpret her family problems. Therefore, because Mr. Kapasi had already helped Mrs. Das with her family problems by the time of the ending scene, Mr. Kapasi was about as good as nothing to her, which is why she was so negligent about keeping Mr. Kapasi’s phone number and address well-contained.