Cultural Difference and Attraction Theme Analysis

The affair that Miranda has with Dev in “Sexy” is shaped by her fascination with his cultural difference as an Indian man living in America. The story suggests that Miranda’s attempts to first understand and then appropriate Dev’s cultural identity follow from her perception that he has a rich sense of identity that she personally lacks. This lack is reflected, in part, by the absence of detail concerning her own identity and background. In one revealing passage, Miranda tells Dev that she moved to Boston from Michigan, the place where she grew up and went to college, in order to live in a place where she isn’t known. She appears at the same time to relish being alone, spending her evenings going to movies and bookstores by herself. Nor is there any indication in the story of how she has been shaped by the past, what her interests are in the present, or what her hopes are for the future.

If one were to pinpoint the moment when Miranda falls for Dev, it is when he playfully ascribes to her a specific identity: “Part of your name is Indian,” he tells her upon first meeting her. From this moment onward, the focus of her relationship with Dev is weighted heavily on the side of her fascination with his cultural identity. However, this fascination seems unreciprocated by Dev, apart from his interest in her as a sexual partner. Arguably the most personal thing Dev ever says to Miranda, in fact, is that she is “sexy,” suggesting that he values her primarily as a lover and not as an interesting individual in her own right. Miranda, on the other hand, imagines Dev as possessing an exotic, vivid identity. His exoticism is in part a function of her ignorance; she at first imagines that Bengali is a religion, not an ethnicity, and has little understanding of India’s politics or geography. She is inspired to understand Dev and his cultural identity as their relationship deepens, even to the point where she attempts to learn the Bengali language and to write her name in Bengali. By the end of the story, however, Miranda’s fascination with Dev’s cultural identity and Dev’s interest in her as a sexual partner aren’t enough to sustain the relationship, suggesting that relationships based upon shallow perceptions of difference or sexual appeal are finally doomed to failure.