In the short story “This Blessed House” by Jhumpa Lahiri was a very interesting story to me. I was expecting the story to have a climax or to have some type of surprising ending. But to my surprise there wasn’t. It seemed to mainly show each character’s personalities and traits, which they had complete opposite personalities, (talk about opposites attract). The two characters, Sanjeev and Tanima (also known as twinkle) are a newlywed couple from India living in America. They are from a Hindu religious background. In their new house Twinkle stumbles upon various Christian relics that were left in the house by the previous owners. Sanjeev is very unhappy with the Christian relics being left up in their house by his wife and is trying to remind her that they are not Christian but in fact Hindu. It seems that the main root of the conflict is the clashing of their two very different personalities in an awkward situation that forces them together. Which seems like a good thing to me because, they have only known each other for four months and have been finding it difficult to adjust to the married life.
I really seemed to like the story. I must say it was very disappointing to find out that this story that kept on building and building, didn’t build up to a climax or an exciting ending. It was a peaceful story unlike the previous story we read for class about the two couples that had very different points of views of what true love is. Even with their baggage and chaos. Also in this short story “this Blessed House,” because they were Hindu they didn’t seem to realize the sacredness of the Christian relics. So it made me think if the roles were to be reversed, would I have been respectful of Hindu relics or would I have made fun of them or just threw them away or perhaps made them into just simple house decorations?
I like the notion that being forced into conflict is good for them. I hadn't considered that before, but I think that I agree with you.
ReplyDeleteThe story doesn't have a "big" ending (though, in some sense it does, though it's subtle). Instead, it is open-ended. But by being open-ended, it requires more work from us as readers--and allows more possibilities.