Bahmanpour: Female Subjects and Negotiating Identities in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies

Bahareh Bahmanpour's article, "Female Subjects and Negotiating Identities in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies," analyzes four of Lahiri's nine stories in Interpreter of Maladies: "Mrs. Sen's," "This Blessed House," "The Treatment of Bibi Haldar," and "Sexy." The way Bahmanpour intends to use these stories is described in the abstract as "...findings revolve around the fact that by allowing the female subaltern to be voiced, Lahiri’s stories prepare a space through which the subaltern can speak," (Bahmanpour). Bahmanpour intends to speak about female voice in Lahiri's work and how women in these stories are "Dealing with the trauma and the possible success, failure or resistance of female subjects who in their confrontations with the culture of the Other negotiate their new identities," (Bahmanpour). The author organizes her essay in a simple manner and divides the essay up with section headers telling her audience what she will be writing about in that section. Before starting her discussion of Lahiri's stories, Bahmanpour has a section where she writes about "theoretical background." In this background paragraph, she mentions some key terms that must be kept in mind throughout the article, such as "diasporic identity," "hybridity," and "liminality." She begins her body section with her analyzation of the story "Mrs. Sen's." Bahmanpour discusses how Mrs. Sen has trouble adjusting to her future "hybrid identity" in America. The next story analyzed is "This Blessed House," where Bahmanpour discusses how the couple, Sanjeev and Twinkle, are different in how they are at "different stages of their transformative identities," because Twinkle is an American with Indian heritage and Sanjeev had been born in India. The next story discusses is "The Treatment of Bibi Haldar," where Bahmanpour discusses that this story is a commentary on the Indian view of femininity.  The final story analyzed is "Sexy." This story takes a different approach by being told in the point of view of a white woman, Miranda, has an affair with a married Indian man, Dev. This is a native Self/immigrant Other relationship according to Bahmanpour but it is a failing one because the immigrant Other is not as open as the native Self.
The way this article is structured is a great example of what we have aiming at for our own articles in class. Bahmanpour is very clear about what she wants to discuss and excellently executes her argument.