Wednesday, May 6, 2015

A Temporary Matter: Change in Gender Roles



One of the first things I noticed in “A Temporary Matter” from Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri is that Shoba and Shukumar seem to have reversed gender roles. Typically, the man would be the breadwinner going to work while the wife would stay at home completing chores around the house like cooking and cleaning. In “A Temporary Matter” we see that Shukumar is the one who does the cooking every night while his wife Shoba is the one working. Though Shoba is “working” on his dissertation, he seems to have taken over the role of the housewife while Shoba has shouldered the responsibility of the breadwinner.

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