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Summary
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Sexy, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Cultural Difference and Attraction
Marital Infidelity and Male Power
Self-Deception and Honesty
Social Isolation, Passivity, and Loneliness
Summary
Analysis
Miranda’s coworker, Laxmi, tells Miranda that her cousin is distraught over an affair that the cousin’s husband is having with a much younger woman. The cousin’s husband met the woman — “an English girl, half his age” — on a flight from Delhi to Montreal, and he’d gotten off the plane with her at Heathrow. He told Laxmi’s cousin that he’s staying in London to figure things out, and Laxmi’s cousin has stayed in bed ever since. Laxmi says she feels worst for her cousin’s boy, who’s been missing school because of his mother’s condition.
The story begins with an affair, one that Miranda learns about secondhand through her coworker, Laxmi. In Laxmi’s telling, the blame for the affair rests solely on the husband, who—seemingly on a whim—leaves his wife for a (much) younger woman. Although the language the husband uses in explaining himself makes it seem as if he has been unhappy or unsettled in his marriage, it mostly reads as a cliched attempt to justify his own impulsive actions. The emphasis is placed on the harm he has done to his wife and child, who are presented as innocent victims of the affair.
Active
Themes
Although Miranda comments that the situation sounds awful, she is preoccupied with an affair that she herself is having with a married man named Dev. Although Laxmi, her cousin, her cousin’s husband, and Dev are all Indian (Dev is Bengali), Miranda is not. Miranda has very little knowledge of India. She thought Bengali was a religion until one day Dev pointed out the region of Bengal on a map in an issue of The Economist that he had brought to her apartment with him. Miranda continued studying the map and the borders of Bengal after he left.
Miranda’s perfunctory comment to Laxmi’s story suggests that she is little interested in drawing a larger lesson from the story about her own affair with a married man. The fact that both adulterous men are Indian might serve as an additional point of reflection, but Miranda is mostly interested in reflecting on how Dev’s cultural background has expanded her understanding of India, and specifically of Bengal. Miranda’s interest is such that the magazine left behind with its feature piece on Bengal becomes a kind of totem for Miranda’s desire to better understand her lover.
Active
Themes
Miranda flashes back to the day when she met Dev. He is dressed in stylish clothes is making purchases at a cosmetics counter at the same time as her. Miranda notices him lingering and watching her and she thinks he’s handsome, so she makes an excuse to buy wrinkle cream and some other makeup. He approaches Miranda after they leave the store and introduces himself, commenting that part of her name is Indian (“Mira”). When Miranda playfully questions Dev about the items he purchased, he tells her that they are for his wife and that his wife will soon be traveling to India for a two-week visit.
At this point, since Dev’s wife isn’t home, an affair “[doesn’t] seem so wrong” to Miranda. Dev and Miranda spend nearly every night together while Dev’s wife is in India, although he leaves Miranda’s apartment very early every morning so that he doesn’t miss his wife’s 6 a.m. call. Miranda tells Dev that she left Michigan for Boston in order to live in a place where she doesn’t know anyone. Dev says he knows what it’s like to be lonely, and Miranda begins to feel that Dev understands her. On one occasion Dev flatters a naked Miranda by telling her that “[You are] the first woman I’ve known with legs this long.”
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Dev lavishes Miranda with attention and affection. Miranda wishes she could tell her one friend, Laxmi, about the relationship but keeps it a secret, in part because Laxmi is still preoccupied with trying to comfort her distraught cousin. Dev and Miranda go to various places around town and on one memorable occasion visit the Mapparium, a three-story globe at the Christian Science center in Boston. Dev points out interesting details on the map, and Miranda notices London (where Laxmi’s cousin’s husband is) and wonders which city in India Dev’s wife is in. Miranda has never traveled farther than the Bahamas.
Active
Themes
At work, Laxmi tells Miranda that her cousin has decided to give her husband another chance, “for the boy.” Laxmi comments that she would never do the same if her own husband cheated on her. Miranda just nods in agreement, thinking that Dev’s wife is coming home tomorrow. She changes the subject, asking Laxmi about her trip to the Taj Mahal with her husband. Laxmi says it’s “The most romantic spot on earth [...] An everlasting monument to love.”
Miranda goes shopping for clothing that she imagines a mistress might wear; when she tries a cocktail dress on in the dressing room, an older woman admiringly tells her that “He’ll want to rip it right off you.” Miranda imagines wearing the dress while going out to dinner with Dev, but Dev’s visits to Miranda are limited to Sundays now that his wife is back from India, and Miranda never takes the dress out of the closet.
Miranda and Dev spend all their time together in her apartment when he visits, eating foods that Miranda purchases and making love. The only questions Dev seems to ask her are about past lovers. Dev takes brief naps before returning home, feeling a contentment upon waking up that Miranda “wishe[s] she felt herself.” Miranda observes Dev as he cleans himself up before leaving. She occasionally can smell herself on him when kissing him goodbye but considers that his wife never will, since he will take a shower as soon as he arrives home. (Dev tells his wife he goes jogging during these visits.)
Active
Themes
Miranda thinks about her limited experience with Indians. The only other Indians she has known were a family, the Dixits, who lived in the neighborhood she grew up in. The Dixits were considered strange and the three children were friendless. On one occasion Miranda went to a birthday party for one of the Dixit children and was terrified by a picture in the house of a woman “wearing a necklace composed of bleeding heads.” Mrs. Dixit told Miranda that it is the goddess, Kali. Mira was so shaken by the experience that she avoided walking past the Dixit house for months afterward.
Active
Themes
When Miranda and Dev make love, Miranda’s imagination is filled with exotic images of India such as “deserts and elephants, and marble pavilions floating on lakes beneath a full moon.” Miranda, now deeply interested in India, samples food at Indian restaurants, attempts to learn the Bengali alphabet, and practices writing her name in Bengali with limited success.
Miranda and Laxmi begin eating lunch together. Over lunch, Laxmi updates Miranda on her cousin’s strained marriage. Miranda tries to change the subject without success. Miranda spends her weekday evenings waiting for Dev’s visits on the weekend. Dev calls Miranda late one Saturday night and, with noise and laughter in the background, asks her if she misses him. During Dev’s visit the next day, Miranda asks him about his wife, and Dev tells her that she looks like an Indian actress, Madhuri Dixit. Miranda seeks out videos of the actress at a video store attached to an Indian grocery store. There’s a video playing in the store, and Miranda assumes that Madhuri Dixit is beautiful like the Indian girls dancing on the video.
Active
Themes
Laxmi tells Miranda that her cousin’s husband is seeking a divorce after a failed attempt at reuniting with his wife. Miranda agrees to look after the cousin’s son one Saturday while Laxmi and her cousin have an outing. The boy, Rohin, has dark circles under his eyes “as if he smoked a great deal and slept very little,” and is quite precocious. He is attempting to learn as many capitals of countries as he can and asks Miranda for coffee. Afraid of upsetting him, Miranda complies. Miranda sits with him while he draws; when she begins to put polish on her nails, he “protests” and asks her to quiz him on national capitals.
Later that day, Miranda is surprised to find him waiting outside the bathroom and looks on as he goes through the items on her bathroom shelf. He then explores her bedroom and, finding the cocktail dress on the floor of her closet, urges her to put it on. When she does so, he tells her, “You’re sexy.” When Miranda presses him to tell her what he thinks the word “sexy” means, Rohin tells her that it means “loving someone you don’t know.” Then the boy takes a nap on Miranda’s bed. While he sleeps, Miranda cries, thinking of the boy’s mother and her own affair.
The following day when Dev calls, wanting to visit, Miranda tells him that she has a cold. Miranda is in fact congested from crying. Miranda imagines telling Dev that they need to break off the relationship, but after several failed attempts to see each other, the relationship fades of its own accord. One Sunday, Miranda goes for a walk and finds herself sitting on a bench across from the Mapparium, “gazing at its giant pillars and its massive dome, and at the clear-blue sky spread over the city.”
