Mrs. Sen’s

by

Jhumpa Lahiri

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Themes and Colors
Isolation and Loneliness Theme Icon
Assimilation and Foreignness Theme Icon
Femininity, Gender Roles, and Culture Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Mrs. Sen’s, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Assimilation and Foreignness Theme Icon

Throughout “Mrs. Sen’s,” the Sens struggle to assimilate to American culture after they emigrate from India to the U.S. for Mr. Sen’s job as a professor in a small college town. The couple’s life in the United States is different than they or their family in India expected it to be: while Mrs. Sen’s family assumes that living in the U.S. automatically guarantees happiness and a lavish lifestyle, the Sens’ standard of living is actually lower in the U.S. than it was in India. Mrs. Sen also has trouble connecting with others in the community, partly because Americans (like the mother of Eliot, the young boy Mrs. Sen babysits) make her feel foreign rather than accepted. These challenges make it difficult for the Sens to assimilate to American culture, showing that the American Dream that many immigrants pursue when they move to the U.S. is largely illusory.

While Mrs. Sen’s relatives back in India assume that the Sens are wealthy simply because they live in the U.S., the Sens actually have a lower standard of living than they did in India. Mrs. Sen can’t tell her family about her life in the U.S. because she knows they expect it to be glamourous and happy in a way it hasn’t turned out to be. She tells Eliot that “they think I live the life of a queen […] They think I press buttons and the house is clean. They think I live in a palace.” In reality, the Sens live in a shabby university apartment. When Eliot and his mother come to meet Mrs. Sen and see the apartment, Eliot’s mother asks if all of the Sens’ wealth is in India. In response, Mrs. Sen “look[s] around the room, as if she noticed in the lampshades, in the teapot, in the shadows frozen on the carpet, something the rest of them could not,” and says, "Everything is there.” Eliot’s mother’s rude comment suggests that contrary to their family’s expectations, the Sens live a modest lifestyle that well-off Americans look down upon. Furthermore, Mrs. Sen’s response implies that she left “everything” that matters to her—namely, her loved ones and cultural traditions—behind in India. The dejected way she looks at her surroundings and replies to Eliot’s mother speaks to her dissatisfaction with her lifestyle and economic circumstances in the United States. The difference in the Sens’ economic situation since they immigrated is further evidenced by the issues Mrs. Sen has with transportation. In India, the Sens were well-off enough to have a chauffeur—but now, Mrs. Sen has to either learn to drive (which frightens her) or take the bus, and she finds it difficult to get around. The dramatic change in lifestyle, from having a chauffeur to being reliant on public transportation, indicates that life in the U.S. isn’t what the Sens imagined it would be.

In addition to having fewer luxuries, the Sens (especially Mrs. Sen) struggle to become a part of their new community. This is partly because Americans like Eliot’s mother treat Mrs. Sen as foreign rather than accepting her. Before she moved, Mrs. Sen lived in a tight-knit community in India. She tells Eliot how she spent time with her family and a community of women in India: on the nights her mother invited other women to help them cook for celebrations, it was "impossible to fall asleep […] listening to their chatter.” In the U.S., on the other hand, she “cannot some­ times sleep in so much silence.” Here, unlike in India, she has no friends and no easy way to connect with others. In her few interactions with Americans, Mrs. Sen is treated as foreign rather than welcomed and accepted. Eliot’s mother is an example of this: when she comes to pick Eliot up from Mrs. Sen’s apartment, “she tended to hover on the far side of the door frame, calling to Eliot to put on his sneakers and gather his things.” Mrs. Sen invites her in and serves her traditional Indian food, but Eliot’s mother resists this hospitality and tells Eliot that she doesn’t like Mrs. Sen’s food (the implication being that it tastes foreign). Eliot’s mother’s rejection of Mrs. Sen is indicative of the exclusionary way Americans tend treat immigrants more generally.

As a result of these difficulties, Mrs. Sen is unable to assimilate to American culture, and she eventually gives up. Mrs. Sen is only happy when she can connect with the culture and community she has left behind in India, because she finds life in America difficult and alienating. Eliot notices that only two things make Mrs. Sen happy: a letter from home or a whole fish, the latter of which allows her to make the food she ate in India. Mrs. Sen’s need to connect with home shows her inability to assimilate and make a new life and community for herself. At the end of the story, Mrs. Sen seems to have given up on assimilation entirely. She gets into a minor car accident, and this failure at driving—an essential skill in her new culture that she did not need in India—causes her to completely retreat from the world. She loses her job taking care of Eliot (because she was driving without a license with him in the car), and with it, her only connection to other people in her current environment. After the accident, Mrs. Sen retreats to her bedroom and shuts the door, symbolically giving up on making any connection with the country where she now lives.

In the end, the Sens are worse off than they were in India: their class status has fallen, they’re alienated from their new community, and Mrs. Sen is unable to function in the way that American society expects her to. Their immigrant experience is implied to be a common one, and it directly contradicts the message of the American Dream: that the U.S. is a land of opportunity for everyone who lives there.

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Assimilation and Foreignness Quotes in Mrs. Sen’s

Below you will find the important quotes in Mrs. Sen’s related to the theme of Assimilation and Foreignness.
Mrs. Sen’s Quotes

“At home, you know, we have a driver.”

“You mean a chauffeur?”

Mrs. Sen glanced at Mr. Sen, who nodded.

Eliot’s mother nodded, too, looking around the room. “And that’s all…in India?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Sen replied. The mention of the word seemed to release something in her. She neatened the border of her sari where it rose diagonally across her chest. She, too, looked around the room, as if she noticed in the lampshades, in the teapot, in the shadows frozen on the carpet, something the rest of them could not. "Everything is there.”

Related Characters: Mrs. Sen (speaker), Eliot’s Mother (speaker), Eliot, Mr. Sen
Related Symbols: Driving
Page Number: 113
Explanation and Analysis:

“Whenever there is a wedding in the family,” she told Eliot one day, “or a large celebration of any kind, my mother sends out word in the evening for all the neighborhood women to bring blades just like this one, and then they sit in an enormous circle on the roof of our building, laughing and gossiping and slicing fifty kilos of vegetables through the night.” […] "It is impossible to fall asleep those nights, listening to their chatter.” She paused to look at a pine tree framed by the living room window. “Here, in this place where Mr. Sen has brought me, I cannot some­ times sleep in so much silence.”

Related Characters: Mrs. Sen (speaker), Eliot, Eliot’s Mother, Mr. Sen
Related Symbols: Food and Cooking, Driving
Page Number: 115
Explanation and Analysis:

“Eliot, if I began to scream right now at the top of my lungs, would someone come?”

"Mrs. Sen, what’s wrong?”

"Nothing. I am only asking if someone would come.”

Eliot shrugged. “Maybe.”

“At home that is all you have to do. Not everybody has a telephone. But just raise your voice a bit, or express grief or joy of any kind, and one whole neighborhood and half of another has come to share the news, to help with arrangements.” […]

“They might call you,” Eliot said eventually to Mrs. Sen. “But they might complain that you were making too much noise.”

Related Characters: Eliot (speaker), Mrs. Sen (speaker), Eliot’s Mother
Page Number: 117
Explanation and Analysis:

It gave [Eliot] a little shock to see his mother all of a sudden, in the transparent stockings and shoulder-padded suits she wore to her job, peering into the corners of Mrs. Sen’s apartment. She tended to hover on the far side of the door frame, calling to Eliot to put on his sneakers and gather his things, but Mrs. Sen would not allow it. Each evening she insisted that his mother sit on the sofa, where she was served something to eat: a glass of bright pink yogurt with rose syrup, breaded mincemeat with raisins, a bowl of semolina halvah.

"Really, Mrs. Sen. I take a late lunch. You shouldn’t go to so much trouble.”

Related Characters: Eliot’s Mother (speaker), Eliot, Mrs. Sen
Related Symbols: Food and Cooking
Page Number: 118
Explanation and Analysis:

“Mr. Sen says that once I receive my license, everything will improve. What do you think, Eliot? Will things improve?”

“You could go places,” Eliot suggested. “You could go any­ where.”

"Could I drive all the way to Calcutta? How long would that take, Eliot? Ten thousand miles, at fifty miles per hour?”

Related Characters: Eliot (speaker), Mrs. Sen (speaker), Eliot’s Mother, Mr. Sen
Related Symbols: Driving
Page Number: 119
Explanation and Analysis:

"My sister has had a baby girl. By the time I see her, depend­ing if Mr. Sen gets his tenure, she will be three years old. Her own aunt will be a stranger. If we sit side by side on a train she will not know my face.” She put away the letter, then placed a hand on Eliot’s head. "Do you miss your mother, Eliot, these afternoons with me?”

The thought had never occurred to him.

"You must miss her. When I think of you, only a boy, sep­arated from your mother for so much of the day, I am ashamed.”

“I see her at night.”

“When I was your age I was without knowing that one day I would be so far. You are wiser than that, Eliot. You already taste the way things must be."

Related Characters: Eliot (speaker), Mrs. Sen (speaker), Eliot’s Mother, Mr. Sen
Related Symbols: Driving
Page Number: 122-123
Explanation and Analysis:

‘“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 a 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.”

Related Characters: Mrs. Sen (speaker), Eliot, Mr. Sen
Related Symbols: Food and Cooking
Page Number: 125
Explanation and Analysis:

In November came a series of days when Mrs. Sen refused to practice driving. The blade never emerged from the cupboard, newspapers were not spread on the floor. She did not call the fish store, nor did she thaw chicken.

Related Characters: Eliot, Mrs. Sen, Eliot’s Mother, Mr. Sen
Related Symbols: Driving, Food and Cooking
Page Number: 128
Explanation and Analysis:

"Eliot,” Mrs. Sen asked him while they were sitting on the bus, "will you put your mother in a nursing home when she is old?”

“Maybe,” he said. "But I would visit every day.”

“You say that now, but you will see, when you are a man your life will be in places you cannot know now.” She counted on her fingers: "You will have a wife, and children of your own, and they will want to be driven to different places at the same time. No matter how kind they are, one day they will complain about visiting your mother, and you will get tired of it too, Eliot. You will miss one day, and another, and then she will have to drag herself onto a bus just to get herself a bag of lozenges.”

Related Characters: Eliot (speaker), Mrs. Sen (speaker), Eliot’s Mother, Mr. Sen
Related Symbols: Driving, Food and Cooking
Page Number: 132
Explanation and Analysis:

After taking off her slippers and putting them on the book­ case, Mrs. Sen put away the blade that was still on the living room floor and threw the eggplant pieces and the newspapers into the garbage pail. […] Then she went into her bedroom and shut the door.

Related Characters: Eliot, Mrs. Sen
Related Symbols: Food and Cooking, Driving
Page Number: 134
Explanation and Analysis: