Object of the Study

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CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY

This chapter will be divided into three parts. The first one is the Object of the Study. It describes the short stories that will be analyzed. The second is the Approach of the Study. It discusses the approach employed in the analysis, the description of the approach, the reason of selecting the approach and the procedure of the application of the approach. The last part is Procedure. It explains the steps in analyzing the three short stories chosen.

A. Object of the Study

The three short stories explored in this study are entitled Mrs. Sen’s, This Blessed House and The Third and Final Continent written by Jhumpa Lahiri, an Indian American author. Those stories can be found in a compilation called Interpreter of Maladies which contains nine short stories in total. It was published in India by HarperCollins in 1999. This compilation of short stories received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2000. Mrs. Sen’s tells the story of an Indian woman who takes a job as a babysitter for eleven-year old boy named Eliot while her husband is busy working. She defines herself as a ‘professor’s wife, responsible and kind, I will care for your child in my home 111’. She cares for Eliot when he is at her place. The only problem is that she cannot drive. Mr. Sen, who teaches mathematics at PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 22 the university, urges her to have her driving lessons. Mrs. Sen, however, hates driving. The ‘driving-matter’ then triggers a multitude of problems. As an Indian living in America, Mrs. Sen feels she lives in exile. Only two things make her happy, when she receives a letter from India and finds fresh fish. However, she is a bit depressed with his new life in the new land. “’Send pictures,’ they write. ‘Send pictures of your new life.’ What picture can I send?” She sat, exhausted, on the edge of the bed, where there was now barely room for her. “They think I live the life of queen, Eliot.” She looked around the blank walls of the room. “They think I press buttons and the house is clean. They think I live in a palace.” 125 This Blessed House depicts a story about the Indian couple named Twinkle and Sanjeev who have just bought a new house in Connecticut, US. When they begin arranging their house surprisingly they find ‘treasures’ hidden in every corner of their house in a form of Christian effigies and its paraphernalia, such as a white porcelain effigy of Christ, a 3-D postcard of Saint Francis done in four colors, a wooden cross key chain, a plaster Virgin Mary and others. The ‘treasures’ findings somehow surprise them since they are good Hindus and still hold the Indian tradition even though they live and work in US. The problem arises when the two religions meet in one house belonging to Indian immigrants. Behind an overgrown forsythia bush was a plaster of Virgin Mary as tall as their waists, with a blue painted hood draped over her head in the manner of an Indian bride… “No, silly Sanj. This is meant for outside. For the lawn.” “Oh God, no. Twinkle, no.” “But we must. It would be bad luck not to.” “All the neighbors will see. They’ll think we’re insane.” “Why, for having a statue of the Virgin Mary on our lawn?”… “We’re not Christian.” 146 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI 23 The suspicious feeling of being the part of religion-converting effort and mixed feelings of excitement, denial and rejection of religious beliefs color this young couple’s life. The Third and Final Continent tells about an Indian man who leaves his homeland and seeks for better life in Europe, then in America. He begins his life in the New Land and tries to adapt with his new surroundings. He rents a room in a house belonging to an old woman named Mrs. Croft. Even in their first encounter the old woman demands he comments about the America’s great leap into space: the first moon landing by Apollo 11. The women bellowed, “A flag on the moon, boy I heard it on the radio Isn’t that splendid?” “Yes, madame.” But she was not satisfied with my reply. Instead she commanded, “Say, ‘splendid’”…I said nothing. “Say splendid” the woman bellowed once again. “Splendid,” I murmured. I had to repeat the word a second time at the top of my lungs, so she could hear 179-180. The attempts to survive in three continents while does not forget the roots of cultural identity become the main problems in this short story.

B. Approach of the Study