A Real Durwan

by

Jhumpa Lahiri

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Themes and Colors
Truth and Memory Theme Icon
Materialism, Status, and Contentment Theme Icon
Social Division and Alienation Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Real Durwan, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.

Truth and Memory

Jhumpa Lahiri’s “A Real Durwan” captures a snapshot of life in a small Bengali apartment building. Boori Ma, a 64-year-old woman with no other options, works and lives in the building as a housekeeper and unofficial durwan, or “doorkeeper.” She never officially applied for the position, but rather assumed the role years prior. Throughout the story, Boori Ma’s past gradually emerges as she recounts her past life to the building’s residents, detailing the…

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Materialism, Status, and Contentment

Overwhelmed by the deep and all-consuming losses that she’s experienced throughout her life, Boori Ma lives squarely in the past, before the Partition of India and Pakistan left her destitute as a refugee. In contrast, the building’s residents, armed with a little more money and marginally better social standing than the poor doorkeeper, live in the present and the future. Instead of lamenting over their pasts, the residents focus on how they can better their…

read analysis of Materialism, Status, and Contentment

Social Division and Alienation

“A Real Durwan” focuses on the simple life and tragic turn of events for Boori Ma, a poor durwan, or “doorkeeper,” in a Bengali apartment building. She is introduced from the first sentence living out her days by cleaning the building for the other residents and reciting details about the life of luxury she used to live. From the first line, in fact, she is identified as “Boori Ma, sweeper of the stairwell.”…

read analysis of Social Division and Alienation
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