Interpreter of Maladies Narrator:

Third Person (Limited Omniscient)

With the exception of three stories, this book's all about showing how limited our main characters are through their third person narrators.

And by limited, we mean flawed. Deeply flawed.

Like Shukumar—yeah, we're in his head so maybe we can kind of feel sorry for him when the narrator notes that:

In the beginning [Shukumar] had believed that it would pass, that he and Shoba would get through it all somehow. She was only thirty-three. She was strong, on her feet again. (ATM 13)

The "it," by the way, just so happens to refer to his and Shoba's stillborn baby. Shukumar thought "it" would "pass." You know, like the flu or something. All of a sudden, feeling sorry for him maybe isn't our reaction to him.

Especially after this next scene: "It was often nearly lunchtime when Shukumar would finally pull himself out of bed and head downstairs to the coffeepot, pouring out the extra bit Shoba left for him, along with an empty mug, on the countertop" (ATM 13).

We're just wondering: who's the one who had to go through pregnancy and labor only to deliver a stillborn baby? Why does it seem like Shukumar, not Shoba, who went through the delivery?

That's the power of the limited third person. It lets us get the main character's perspective without being persuaded by that perspective. It lets us have the freedom to be a little judgmental of these characters.

This occurs with most of the other third person stories:

• Mr. Kapasi and Mrs. Das are both limited in how they view each other (through stereotypes, both romantic and not).
• Boori Ma is a "victim of changing times" (ARD 11), but then, she doesn't make herself seem all that reliable either since she embellishes stories so much.
• Miranda wholeheartedly pursues a relationship with a married man without giving much thought to his wife.
• Sanjeev turns out to be a class-driven, superficial man who can't appreciate his beautiful, endearing wife.

The one exception might be Mrs. Sen and Eliot, but Eliot's also eleven. He's like Lilia: as kids, they've got a special perspective on the ways adults act, so think of them as characters with sort of a free pass from our judgmental eyes.

First Person: Peripheral Narrator

Telling another person's story is kind of cool because you don't have to live that person's drama…that is, until you start to get emotionally involved.

Take Lilia in "When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine." She doesn't even remember "his first visit, or of his second or his third" (WMPCTD 4). But she goes from disinterested observer of Mr. Pirzada to being so attached that she learns "what it mean[s] to miss someone who [is] so many miles and hours away" (WMPCTD 78).

Then there's the collective first person narrator—"we"—in "The Treatment of Bibi Haldar." Although "in [their] private moments [they] were thankful" that Bibi "was not [their] responsibility" (TBH 21), they can't help but be horrified by how Haldar and his wife run Bibi out of their house and then abandon her.

In response to Haldar's treatment, they become a part of Bibi's story: "To express our indignation we began to take our shopping elsewhere; this provided us with our only revenge" (TBH 37).

They also teach Bibi how to raise a child: "one evening in September, we helped her deliver a son. We showed her how to feed him, and bathe him, and lull him to sleep. We bought her an oilcloth and helped her stitch clothes and pillowcases out of the fabric she had saved over the years" (TBH 52).

Maybe we should all have someone else telling our stories for us…

Central Narrator

Then there's the last story, which has the most standard central first person narrator. Even though he's nameless, we get to know him well because he very candidly "talks" about himself and the ways in which other people affect his feelings and his life.

Take for example the details of his memory of his mother's last days: "Before we cremated her I had cleaned each of her fingernails with a hairpin, and then, because my brother could not bear it, I had assumed the role of eldest son, and had touched the flame to her temple, to release her tormented soul to heaven" (TFC 39).

The narrator can't help feeling responsible for Mrs. Croft and what her final story—her death—might become: "That this person was a widow who lived alone mortified me further still" (TFC 92). And when he sees an Indian woman getting harassed by a little dog, he's reminded that "It was [his] duty to take care of Mala, to welcome her and protect her" (TFC 99).

The narrator shows us how incredibly burdensome it is to carry your own story. The reason for that? Your story isn't just yours. It's also about the people you come in contact with and ultimately are responsible for.