The following is my first paper assignment for my English class. I decided to write about "Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri because her story was especially well crafted, and not many these days are.
Mr. Kapasi is a middle-aged married Indian man. He's worked as a tour guide for five years and during that time he has become used to encountering English-speaking tourists, like Mr. and Mrs. Das, in his line of work. The assumption on the part of his employer is that language is not a significant barrier between Mr. Kapasi and the English-speaking people that are assigned to him. Mr. Kapasi reveals that he enjoys his position as a tour guide to Mr. Das. It gets him where he wants to go and seeing the sites he likes to visit. It is also established that he has a second job in a doctor's office. To clarify what he actually does there he says, "I am not a doctor. I work with one. As an interpreter" (Lahiri 240). Though this is a rather choppy way of putting it, his carefully chosen and concise sentences seem to provide Mr. Das with not only an explanation, but also a demonstration of his work. Mr. Das hasn't considered why a doctor might be in need of an interpreter. That shows that he doesn't think language could be a barrier, either, just like Mr. Kapasi's boss. His function is "interpreting what the patients say" (240). Mr. Kapasi thinks that his job is just like any other job, very mundane. "He found nothing noble in interpreting people's maladies, assiduously translating the symptoms[…]" (241). Not only did Mr. Kapasi not consider his profession important in the grand scheme of things, he was actively scornful of it. "The job was a sign of his failings" (242). He had high aspirations. They included "resolving conflicts between people and nations, settling disputes of which he alone could understand both sides" (242). All Mr. Kapasi perceives himself empowered to do with his vast inventory of languages and assemblage of assorted dictionaries is exchange one word for another. The doctor could learn how to do that himself, just like Mr. Kapasi did, if that was all there was to his job. Mr. Kapasi's boss and Mr. Das were on to something: language is not the main barrier to communication; something else must be.
Mr. Kapasi attempts to categorize the Das family using his observations. According to Mr. Kapasi, "The [Das] family looked Indian but dressed as foreigners did[…]" (236). Their appearance leads Mr. Kapasi to assumes that since they look like him in one regard they must be at least somewhat like him in others. The encounter with the goat shows just how un-Indian these folks are (237). Mr. Kapasi overheard a vendor sing a line from a love song in Hindi after Mrs. Das made a purchase and was making her way back to the vehicle (238). He realized by her lack of a reaction that she did not know enough of that language to understand that the vendor was coming on to her. Even if she did have fluent command of Hindi that doesn't guarantee that she would have understood the significance of the incident any better; it was also the cultural context that was lost on her and not just the language. The Das family is Indian, but not really, so their tour guide has difficulty in not only categorizing them, but also in communicating with them. They would probably be best described as second-generation Americans. Mr. Kapasi is limited to categorizing the Das family with what he already knows about American culture. Mr. Kapasi made a mental note while watching an episode of the television show Dallas that the steering wheels in American cars are on the opposite side from what they are in India (239). This is an outdated show that the Das' daughter, Tina, has never even heard of before. Mr. Kapasi compares Mr. and Mrs. Das to other American broadcasts he has seen when he observes that though they sound different from the Texans featured on Dallas their accents still sound familiar to him (240). It was good that he was focused on language, since that is the nature of his profession, but what accent a person has does not have a whole lot to do with interpreting what a person says. About all you can learn from an accent, and only if you are experienced enough, is what areas of a country someone has lived in and Mr. Kapasi has Mr. and Mrs. Das generalized to the entire continent. "Sometimes he feared that his children knew better English than he did, just from watching television" (242). While television may be a pretty effective tool for learning a foreign vocabulary it is not so well suited to educating someone in a foreign culture.
Mr. Kapasi does tend focus on culture, but he clearly doesn't understand how important it is to communication. Based on physical attributes he determines that he shares an Indian heritage with the Das family. He also surmises by their manner of dress that they clearly are American, but he doesn't perceive just how different they really are. They are somewhere in between, an amalgamation of the two cultures. What Mr. Kapasi shares in common with the Das family is purely superficial. He can never hope to understand them on a deeper level because he fails to appreciate just how different they are from one another.
Mr. Kapasi also fails to appreciate just how important his job at the doctor's office is. Mrs. Das quickly determines that the patients are totally dependent on him and "In a way more dependent on [Mr. Kapasi] than on the doctor" (241). They rely on him to tell the doctor what really is wrong with them. Patients come to him "glassy-eyed and desperate, unable to sleep or breathe or urinate with ease, unable, above all, to give words to their pains" (249). Mr. Kapasi gives these people the words that they need, but language is not the only barrier between the doctor and the patients. When Mr. Das prompts him to explain why a doctor would need an interpreter he tells him that, "He has a number of Gujarati patients in this area. My father was Gujarati, but many people do not speak Gujarati in this area, including the doctor" (240). Gujarati is a region located on the other side of India. Mr. Kapasi has a familiarity with more than just the language: he was also extensively exposed to the culture since one half of his family is Gujarati. Translating for the doctor is so natural to him he just doesn't see the advantage he has that the doctor does not. That is why Mr. Kapasi thinks that "it is a job like any other" (240). This is what in turn makes his other job as a tour guide so exciting. He regularly comes into contact with English-speaking tourists, but their cultures are so far removed from his own that misunderstandings arise. Language alone is insufficient for the higher level of communication Mr. Kapasi aspires to.
Mr. Kapasi is not a complete failure. He is quite successful with his job at the doctor's office. Ironically, he feels that "the job was a sign of his failings" (242). He is in fact a great man who helps people, but he'll never understand that as long as he remains tied up with the insignificant aspect of his job. What makes Mr. Kapasi so effective in translating for the doctor and why he is not so easily replaced is that he has the cultural context for those interactions. It is so native to him he is not even cognizant of it. Cultural understanding is impossible to garner from a dictionary or even from outdated television shows. Though he doesn't see it, he is in a perfect position to act as an ambassador to other countries in his other role as a tour guide. His big dream for himself was "[…] resolving conflicts between people and nations, settling disputes of which he alone could understand both sides" (242). Mr. Kapasi is not as effective at this as he could because he lacks the foundation that he has for language in his other job. He thinks that language is the only element of communication that one has to learn in order to avoid or resolve misunderstandings that arise between people and nations, when in actuality there's more to it than that, culture plays a significant role in interpretation. Toward the end of the story "Mr. Kapasi felt insulted that Mrs. Das should ask him to interpret her common, trivial little secret. She did not resemble the patients in the doctor's office […]. Still, [he] believed it was his duty to assist Mrs. Das" (249). In order to be of any help to her he must first understand where she is coming from. In order to fully actualize his dream he must strive to understand people from other countries in terms of their own cultural contexts.