"The Third and Final Continent:" A Splendid Journey


Lisa Patten                                                                                                           November 6th, 2017

Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri
 “The Third and Final Continent”

In “The Third and Final Continent” a young Bengali man recalls his journey from India, to London and finally to Boston as he seeks a new life in the western world.  Throughout his journey, he learns to adapt to each culture and adjust his daily life to the local norms, while still maintaining his cultural identity.  For him, it is not a struggle but a kind of adventure that he accepts without complaint and with an explorer’s curiosity.  His growing understanding of this new world and his ability to work, live and thrive in it become a source of pride for him, and he looks forward to helping his wife learn and adjust to this culture as he has.
Some of the ways he adapts to his new world are by choosing iconically western ways to economize. When he first arrives, he lives at the quintessentially American YMCA, and later rents a cheap room from Mrs. Croft.  To save money on food, he eats cornflakes, milk and bananas for breakfast and dinner; it’s inexpensive, simple and easily acquired.  He still enjoys an occasional egg curry, especially when getting together with Bengali friends.  He even eats it with his fingers, the way he is accustomed to at home.  He doesn’t have the need or desire to sacrifice his cultural identity.  But he has learned to compromise to suit the circumstances, by using western ways to save money and establish a sensible, economical lifestyle while he waits for his wife to join him.
He readily accepts the challenge of learning this new culture without complaint and with a certain matter-of-fact openness and curiosity, even if he does find some of its residents rather eccentric.    His attitude is quietly determined, and through his concern for others we see in him a gentle, non-judgmental quality that encourages the reader to see the world through his eyes.  This new life is a journey he has taken upon himself willingly.  It is just as much an adventure as crossing the oceans on the S.S. Roma. 
Lahiri’s authorial voice reflects the protagonist’s matter-of-fact approach to his new life.  Throughout the short story, he presents us confidently with the names of places, stores, restaurants, streets, as if proudly and methodically demonstrating all that he has learned about his new surroundings.  This act of naming secures his place in his adopted world.
Significantly, though, we never learn his name.  By choosing to leave him nameless, Lahiri presents us with a sort of Bengali “everyman”, as he follows the path of so many immigrants before and after him, as they learn to adjust and hopefully prosper in this new world.
By the end of his story, he has achieved that special kind of success that cannot be quantified.  His success comes in the form of his love for his family, his pride in them, and his sense of accomplishment and contentment with the life he has achieved on this “third and final continent.”  In this way, the commonplace has been made heroic.  In his own words, there have been “times when it is beyond my imagination.”  Like the astronauts who, thanks to dreams, hard work and persistence, are able to plant the American flag on the moon, he too has journeyed a long way to leave his own mark and accomplish something “splendid” in this new world.
Note:  I’m curious to find out what anyone else may have learned about the term “third and final continent,” and what its larger relevance might be to this story.  Literally speaking, North America is the “third and final continent” where the main character lives.   However, I also discovered a poem titled “The Third Continent” by Indian poet Mary Erulkar*, which makes me think that the term has particular significance for India.  Any ideas?  Thanks.  – L.P.
* (I tried to attach this poem here but was unable to for some reason.)

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 7, 2017 at 5:20 PM

    I hadn't realized until reading your blog post that the narrator of "The Third and Final Continent" is never named. I think it does two things: one, it hammers home that this is an immigrant story and an experience that so many people coming to the United States go through. Two, I think it gives the narrator the power of telling his own story. Often, immigrants to the US have power taken away from them, economically and socially. But by allowing him to tell his story in a first person narration, especially in such detail, the narrator wields his own power.

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  2. AnonymousNovember 7, 2017 at 7:09 PM

    Hi Lisa,
    Thank you for pointing to the poem "The Third Continent" (1959). This third continent is unnamed in the poem, but given Lahiri's reference to the poem and given that Europe and America are mentioned in the poem, it might be referring to India. In which case Lahiri in her story "The Third and Final Continent" seems to have reversed the order, creating the United States as the third continent, at least chronologically. Also interesting are the images of women in the poem. They seem dreamlike, part statue and part windblown. I find the entire poem to have a haunting, melancholy tone, but especially so for the part about the women of the "third continent." There is this potential for melancholy throughout Lahiri's story but the narrator again and again figures out how to get by and the story ends on a happy note. Likewise, Mala is "happy and strong" in her new home. We are left with a very different mood than in the poem. However, similar between the two pieces is the soft, crisp language.

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    Replies
    1. AnonymousNovember 8, 2017 at 11:17 AM

      Hi Gina,
      Actually Lahiri doesn't reference the poem -- I just did a Google search on the term "Third Continent" and found the poem. Certainly North America is the third continent, literally, that the narrator lives on (Asia, Europe then North America), and North America is evidently the third largest continent. But, as you say, the poem refers to India/Asia as the Third Continent, so there may be a broader cultural significance to the use of the term. I agree -- the poem is very haunting and demands that we look at the contrasts between the so-called Western world and India, and particularly from a woman's point of view. It's interesting that the short story does name the narrator's wife -- suggesting somehow that the woman's perspective/voice on the whole immigrant experience has a personal significance that the narrator's experience does not. Is it just because the author sees the experience more from a woman's point of view? or is there a larger theme at work here? Hmmmm. I'll be interested to hear the class discussion. - L.

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  3. ElmazwritesNovember 8, 2017 at 1:38 PM

    i appreciate your seeing the voice as being an unnamed, matter--of-fact but with deepened details so the specific is universal. great craft observation
    e

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