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Similes
Style
Explanation and Analysis:
Lahiri’s writing style in “Mrs. Sen’s” is primarily straightforward and sparse. She captures Eliot and Mrs. Sen’s interactions in direct and simple ways, focusing on describing the external happenings in a given scene rather than peeking into characters’ inner experiences. Her most lyrical moments come when she uses imagery to bring readers into a scene by engaging their senses. The following passage—which comes as Mrs. Sen walks Eliot through the campus where Mr. Sen teaches—captures these elements of Lahiri’s style:
They ended up in the noisy, chlorine-scented wing of the athletic building where, through a wide window on the fourth floor, they watched swimmers crossing from end to end in glaring turquoise pools. Mrs. Sen took the aerogram from India out of her purse and studied the front and back. She unfolded it and reread to herself, sighing every now and then. When she had finished she gazed for some time at the swimmers.
“My sister had a baby girl. By the time I see her […] she will be three years old. Her own aunt will be a stranger.”
This passage opens with Lahiri using imagery to bring the scene alive for readers. She describes the “noisy, chlorine-scented wing of the athletic building,” helping readers to hear and smell the nearby swimming pool. The description of “swimmers crossing from end to end in glaring turquoise pools” also helps readers to visualize the scene.
Lahiri then uses direct language to describe Mrs. Sen fiddling with and reading the letter (or aerogram) she received in the mail right before leaving for the campus. Rather than having the narrator note the feelings that Mrs. Sen is experiencing in this moment, Lahiri focuses on Mrs. Sen’s actions, trusting that readers will gather from Mrs. Sen’s “studying” of the front and back of the letter, then rereading it while “sighing every now and then,” that she is having a big internal reaction to the contents of the letter.
It is only when Mrs. Sen reveals to Eliot what the letter says—that her sister had a child—that readers understand why she is having such a big reaction. As she says, she worries she will “be a stranger” to her niece after so much time away. Here, as elsewhere in the story, Lahiri highlights the loneliness that Mrs. Sen, as an immigrant, is experiencing.
Related Themes:
