Managing Multiple Characters

    In the two short stories, A Real Durwan and This Blessed House Lahiri manages multiple characters through character interactions. For instance, A Real Durwan follows the life of Boori Ma (and the other tenants/characters in the background,) and at every point where she speaks we learn both about her and the characters that surround her. One of the many times this happens is when the Dalal’s buy two basins and Boori Ma uses it the one in the hallways for the first time:

“Our bathwater was scented with petals and attars. Believe me, don’t believe me, it was a luxury you cannot dream.” (Lahiri, 78-79.)

    At this instance we could infer that maybe Boori Ma came from a more luxurious time and place or that she boasts about things she’s never had for whatever reasons. For certain, as readers we are forced to engage in the story through the dialogue and a personal moral compass. The moral compass appears because as readers we are put in a dilemma of either believing Boori Ma or not and how that can reflect a variety of prejudices either way. As readers we are put in this place multiple times throughout interactions with Boori Ma, she always seems to have experienced more luxuries than anybody else. Sometimes characters respond to Boori Ma and sometimes they don’t. In this particular scene Mr. Dalal continues with his presentation of the basin and ignores what Boori Ma says. Through this interaction, I am also caught in a dilemma with whom Mr. Dalal is or where his moral compass is with Boori Ma. In one hand Mr. Dalal can be seen as someone who is irritated with Boori Ma and may see her words as insignificant (because of her role in the community/building,) but Mr. Dalal could also be viewed not responding because he may be insecure of his purchase (as if not good enough) because of Boori Ma’s reaction to the basin. In this scene, Lahiri gives a lot of detail about Boori Ma, Mr. Dalal and other characters/tenants without bias (forcing the reader to decide on their own.)

Overall, by leaving the reader with no bias the author was able to manage multiple characters throughout the story because much of character interactions revealed various things about the characters. The character interaction revealed class, culture, age, character routines/habits and morals. The same things could be said for This Blessed House as well. The author is able to keep her audience/readers in moral dilemmas that may or may not alter the story at hand while also giving insight about the characters Twinkle and Sanjeev. Both of these stories by Lahiri force the reader to engage/participate in the story by withholding information and distributing small pieces of info about different characters through character interactions. This forces the readers to be an active participant in the story by filling in gaps and connecting information by characters, character relations and/or setting. Using this approach/craft allows the reader to make their own moral decision about the characters and story especially because both stories end without large conclusions to sway thoughts about the story or characters in any large way.


    I

Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 31, 2017 at 9:41 AM

    I really liked what you had to say about crafting Boori Ma as a potentially unreliable character who the reader could opt to believe or not. I think there's an additional layer of either believing IN someone or not--that it's possible to dismiss specific details of someone's story without dismissing the integrity of their story. Managing multiple characters with disparate identities yet similar life circumstances is incredibly difficult. Well done for analyzing how Lahiri accomplishes that. I know I learned a lot about that.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ElmazwritesOctober 31, 2017 at 4:19 PM

    The moral dilemma is centralized in each of these stories as you point out The non central characters are foils for the goodness of the protagonists. Nicely done

    E

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousNovember 1, 2017 at 12:15 PM

    Hello,

    I enjoyed the way you talked about learning about the character through their interactions with other characters. We could definitely see this clearly with Boori Ma's character who we didn't know much about until she spoke with another character in the short story. I believe through character interaction is when an author has the opportunity to really bring said character to life. Very well said!

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousNovember 1, 2017 at 5:39 PM

    You make a very interesting point here! I was mainly focused on the ways in which the author showed her character's personalities so I didn't really notice how unbiased the other was about the morals of the characters, and in extension, her readers. I think it's really intriguing and wonderful that she let her readers come to their own conclusions about the morality of the characters in her stories. And, of course, it goes even beyond morality. The way in which the author writer allows the reader to determine almost everything about the characters, besides the few concrete details she provides. It's funny how I didn't notice that before you mentioned it, but it seems so obvious now.

    -Erin

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"The Stuff That Dream Are Made Of" and "Death of a Mannequin"

The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of             Before anything else, I just have to say – wow. Azar Nafisi is one hell of an inspirational writer. She starts off talking about her sense of home. That Iran had always been the home that she wanted to go back to when she was studying abroad and that classic novels and poetry became a sort of home for her. Then she tells us that she finally did go home to Iran only to find that it was not the home she remembered. She arrived to witness the stripping of rights and freedom, of creativity and imagination. Lastly, Nafisi challenges her readers to ponder our own humanity.             Her words are eloquent and impactful. They’re the type of words you’d expect to hear from a great leader. She started slow and worked her way up to a profound ending. I didn’t expect the beginning, where Nafisi describes herself as a spoiled brat running...
Read more

"Death of a Mannequin" and "The Stuff that Dreams are Made of" Response

Arya Samuelson Both stories challenge the idea of a “singular historical moment.” Nafisi makes it clear that every action of the regime pointed backwards. Ayatollah Khomeini claimed to be “restoring women’s dignity and rescuing them from the degrading and diabolical ideas that had been thrust upon them by Western imperialists and their agents, who had conspired for decades to destroy Iranian culture and traditions” (3). In other words, Ayatollah Khomeini insisted that he was trying to make Iran great again. As Nafisi counters, “in formulating this claim, the Islamic regime not only robbed the Iranian people of their rights, it robbed them of their history” (3). She goes on to discuss the powerful “process of self-questioning and transformation” that comprised the acquisition of rights for women throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century.   By the time of the revolution, “women were active in all areas of life in Iran.” This section prompted me to consider the distin...
Read more

"My Sister, Guard Your Veil; My Brother, Guard Your Eyes" Response

By Lila Kalick "The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of" and "Death of a Mannequin" I thought a lot this week about the role of artists and writers in society and about the notion that the things these individuals make can last beyond their historical moment. With all that is happening these days -- in the news, in the world -- it can be hard to keep perspective beyond the present day. It seems me that there is a hard question that we need to ask ourselves as artists: Can we live in our imaginations exploring the space of what things "can be?" Should we? A lot of what I'm learning is that we don't have to disengage fully with the world in order to make things that last, but it is somewhat helpful. Ultimately, if we disengage enough in the current moment, ignore minutia, and focus on the bigger picture, I think we'll (or at least I'll) be more effective at making art that is transformative and that creates the change we want to see in the ...
Read more