Happy Endings

The point that stood out to me the most from all the blogs I read was what Stevie (http://stevie-z.blogspot.com/ ) had to say about all of Lahiri’s stories having a happy ending. When reading the stories, I did not come to that conclusion myself. However, after reading Stevie’s blog I realized they really did have a happy ending. Even though each story contained plenty of struggle and difficulty for its characters, Lahiri leaves us with an ending that is open enough to imagine that there could be a better future than what they have experienced. It is true with A Temporary Matter, because the couple could have gone on to repair their marriage after all the truth came out, in The Treatment of Bibi Haldar because now that she has a child and a business her life can flourish even without her family and or the possibility of a husband, in Interpreter of Maladies because Mr. Kapasi didn’t get caught up in a most likely fruitless relationship with the American woman, and in The Third and Final Continent because Lahiri shows us that the narrators life goes on to be happy and full of success. So with each story, we walk through the initial harsh experience that the main characters face, but they always come out clearly on the other side.