The Third and Final Continent

“The Third and Final Continent,” the final chapter in Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri. The story is set in 1964 and follows the journey of an Indian man who immigrates to Boston, Massachusetts. Prior to his emigration from India, the narrators’ marriage had been arranged and he flew from London, where he had been studying economics, for his wedding. Because it was an arranged marriage he had not known the woman who was to be his wife, and after their marriage he had left for Boston because he had been offered a job at MIT. He finds living at the YMCA to be too noisy and distracting for him, so he moves into a new home, owned by an elderly woman named Mrs. Croft. The narrator forms a close relationship with Mrs. Croft; is the first person he is able to form a close relationship with in America. The narrator, however, must rent a new, furnished apartment and leave Mrs. Croft when his wife, Mala, finally comes to live with him. They are complete strangers and the narrator finds it difficult to form a connection with her until he brings her to meet Mrs. Croft, who give her approval of Mala and refers to her as “a lady.” It is the style of the relationships between characters and the setting of this story that are the most important aspects of what makes this story as powerful as it is.

In India, it was traditional and normal for a husband and wife to have never known one another before they were married. It is one of the many cultural differences one might experience when traveling from India to America in the nineteen sixties, and that alone had a profound impact on the narrators life. Mala was a complete stranger to the narrator, as was he to her, and all of a sudden she had to move away from her family, which deeply upset her, to live with a man she did not know. Living together was awkward and uncomfortable for them, in the beginning, though they behaved in manners with one another and did things for one another that were typical for a husband and wife. He gave her money and she bought things to make their home their own. The first time the narrator truly has a chance to open up and allow his wife into his life is when he introduces her to Mrs. Croft.

When the narrator suggests that he and Mala go for a walk, they end up going to Mrs. Crofts house, where Mrs. Croft finds that she approves of Mala, and the narrator and his wife exchange a smile for the first time. This encounter between Mrs. Croft, her daughter Helen, Mala, and the narrator, triggered an increase in the time the narrator and his wife spent together and was the catalyst for positive change in their relationship. They were truly able to connect and begin forming their relationship because of their time with Mrs. Croft. Later on, Mala is the one who consoles the narrator when he learns of Mrs. Croft’s death, and the two eventually decide to stay in America and have a son, who later went on to study at Harvard University. Had the narrator never moved to Boston and found solace in the home of Mrs. Croft, his relationship with his wife could have gone along a different path, one which may have taken much longer for the two to grow closer together or never have formed at all. They used their time in Boston as a sort of honeymoon and explored the city together; they shared the experience of moving to a new country as a couple, and that, and the death of the narrators’ first American friend, brought them closer together.