Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Third and Final Continent, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Ordinary and Extraordinary
Immigration
Isolation and Connection
Fragility and Resilience
Summary
Analysis
In 1964, the narrator leaves India to study in England. There he lives with other Bengali bachelors, working in a university library. Then, in 1969—when the narrator is 36—he earns a job at the library at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and his older brother arranges a marriage for him. He flies to Calcutta for his wedding, and then leaves his new wife in India to board a plane to Boston.
The opening of the story shows the places the narrator has lived: India, England, and soon, America, the “third continent” of the title. For several years, the narrator’s been living comfortably in London, finding a sense of community among other Bengali bachelors, who are all hoping to “establish themselves abroad”—all of them wish to make it not in India, but in the Western world to which they have immigrated. Now, the narrator undertakes three new adventures at once: a new job, a new city, and a new marriage. In 1969, it was traditional for marriages in India to be arranged by the husband’s family. The narrator’s parents are dead, so his older brother is the head of the household and thus, arranges the marriage. Oftentimes, Indian brides and grooms didn’t know each other at all before the wedding. The narrator hardly knows the woman who is his wife so he easily departs from his new bride, eager for his new life in Boston, working at MIT, one of the most prestigious universities in Massachusetts.
Themes
On the flight across the Atlantic, the narrator reads a guidebook to North America, learning that Americans drive on the right side of the road, are too ambitious, and do not take time for English tea. As they land, the captain announces that Americans have landed on the moon, to which the narrator does not react, even as some people around him cheer.
As a librarian, the narrator is comfortable learning things from written accounts and the guidebook becomes a treasured tool for navigating America. His careful reading of the guidebook again hints at the narrator’s desire to successfully fit in, to assimilate. The narrator is also emotionally reserved and is unsure of how to respond to actual situations, shown by his non-reaction to the first ever moon landing, an event which most people throughout the world thought was extraordinary. Like the astronauts on the moon, the narrator is exploring new territory, although he doesn’t himself make this correlation.
Themes
The narrator initially lives at the YMCA, where he is overwhelmed by the sights and sounds at night: car horns, buses, flashing sirens. He begins going to work at his job in the MIT library, and he gets a bank account, rents a post office box, and learns about American currency. Since he can’t cook in his room, he buys a bowl and spoon for cornflakes and milk. Buying milk at the grocery store is new for him, since in London, his milk was delivered in bottles each morning. He starts having cornflakes for every meal.
New environments can feel disorienting and Boston is filled with things for the narrator to get used to: a new diet, new currency, new traffic. Although London is a major city as well, the narrator finds Boston to be noisier and hotter. He is also far more isolated. He doesn’t have companions like the other Bengali students to share his experience, or with whom he can behave in traditional Bengali ways. He must adjust to going to the post office box and the grocery store alone. He also must learn new terms to function in daily life. A lift, for example, is called an elevator in America. Because he can’t cook in his room, he must give up his traditional meal of rice at breakfast for cornflakes. This part of the story shows both the difficulties of adjusting and assimilating to a new culture, but also his willingness to adjust.
Themes
The narrator uses the Boston Globe to learn about life in his new country, reading the entire thing each day, even the advertisements. This is how he discovers a room for rent in a house on a quiet street. Struggling to sleep in his hot and noisy room at the Y.M.C.A., he calls the number in the advertisement.
The narrator again turns to reading material for guidance, using the Boston Globe to “grow familiar with things.” His reserved nature is shown here as he only decides to move when he sees the ad, not because he finds himself uncomfortable. Before seeing the ad, he was “resolved to stay.” This shows the narrator’s stubborn streak. Despite his willingness to move across the Atlantic for work, he’s hesitant regarding change.
Themes
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The woman on the phone tells the narrator she only rents the house to boys from Harvard or MIT, and when he assures her that he works at MIT, she makes an appointment to show him the room. Eager to make a good impression, he dresses up and uses Listerine for his interview. He has never lived with anyone who is not Indian before.
Enrollment in MIT and Harvard is important to the woman who rents the room. Since both are known prestigious colleges, she uses this as a “code” to discover her renter’s level of intelligence and responsibility. Although the narrator does not say he is nervous about being accepted, he shows concern about assimilation here. He wears a suit, uses mouthwash, and tries to be polite. This is a new experience for him, never having lived with a non-Indian before. This new arrangement will force the narrator to be less isolated.
Themes
The landlady, Mrs. Croft, proves to be very old, dressed in outdated Victorian style. Though her face is “ancient,” battered by age, she also looks “fierce.” She shouts at the narrator to lock the door immediately, instructing him to do this each time he enters. The house is old-fashioned—there’s an abandoned cane, a closed-up piano, old-fashioned table coverings, claw-footed furniture. Mrs. Croft does have a telephone and a radio. She remarks that he was on time for their appointment, and she expects that he will also be on time with the rent.
This scene introduces Mrs. Croft, a very elderly woman, although it’s unclear exactly how elderly at first. She seems to be living both in the present—indicated by her possession of a radio and telephone—and in the long ago past. Her ties to the Victorian era are indicated by her dress, the old-fashioned table coverings and claw-footed furniture. Her fragility is shown by the cane, but its abandonment shows that she resists using it, suggesting either stubbornness or a “fierce” will. Mrs. Croft’s penchant for rules and order is show by her treatment of the narrator whom she both shouts at to lock the door and compliments for his punctuality.
Themes
As they chat, Mrs. Croft asks the narrator to check the lock again. She informs him that the American flag is flying on the moon, which is something he hasn’t thought much about, despite it being all over the newspapers. The astronauts spent a few hours exploring and gathering rocks; one astronaut described the moon’s landscape as “magnificent desolation.” Mrs. Croft insists that the narrator call the moon landing “splendid,” making him feel a little insulted as she forces him to repeat the word.
Mrs. Croft’s repetition of requests or information reveals what is important to her. The lock represents safety and order while the moon landing is “splendid,” or special to her. The narrator is aware of the moon landing but not particularly interested in it. When he describes the landing, he focuses on the tangible and ordinary work of the astronauts over their extraordinary achievement, noting simply how they “gathered rocks.” The description of the moon’s landscape as a “magnificent desolation” can also be seen as a description of the new landscapes the narrator encounters during his immigrant experience: Mrs. Croft’s house feels both magnificent and desolate, as does Boston. The city is thrilling in its newness, but the narrator still feels like an outsider and alone. When Mrs. Croft insists he call the moon landing splendid, it’s clear the narrator hasn’t made up his mind about any of these new locations. He only calls the moon landing splendid because he wants to please his potential landlady and because he respects her as his elder. At the same time, Mrs. Croft’s insistence that the landing is splendid hints at the fact that, despite her age, she still views the world with wonder and delight.
Themes
Pleased, Mrs. Croft orders him to inspect the room. The narrator finds it satisfactory. Mrs. Croft gives him a key, tells him to leave the rent on the ledge above the piano keys each Friday, and she asks him not to have women over. When he protests that he’s married, she seems not to hear.
Mrs. Croft seems to use the discussion of the moon landing as a test of the narrator’s ability to follow her orders. Pleased that he does, she approves him as a renter. Mrs. Croft’s loss of hearing regarding the narrator’s notation of his marriage might be an effect of age or another insistence that he follow her rules, even the outdated ones. Nineteenth-century custom dictated that an unmarried woman could not be alone with a man without a chaperone. By 1969, this custom had long since fallen out of favor. Again, this hints that Mrs. Croft’s is much older than the narrator suspects, tied to a bygone era. This scene is the first time the narrator mentions he is married to anyone, another indication of his isolation and a hint that his marriage doesn’t even seem quite real to him.
Themes
The narrator’s wife’s name is Mala. Their marriage was arranged, and the narrator has neither “objection nor enthusiasm” for it—it’s simply his duty. After the wedding, they spent five nights together, and each night she wept, turning away from the narrator as she did so. He did nothing to console her, and instead read his guidebook in bed. His mother had died six years earlier in the room next to his and Mala’s. He cared for her as she descended into depression, and even as she began to play with her own excrement, until she died. He also performed the rituals of her burial because his brother could not bear to.
It is not surprising that the narrator feels he has little in common with his new wife, who is nearly a decade his junior. He hasn’t spent much time with her. Yet his behavior seems particularly cold, and that he then discusses his mother’s final days in the same part of the story suggests that his emotional coldness and his mother’s death are connected. The implication is that his mother’s emotional fragility traumatized the narrator, and he is wary of outward signs of emotion because of it. This in turn causes his need to self-isolate. He engages in practical activities (reading the guidebook, performing the rituals) to avoid emotion (comforting Mala, confronting his brother’s grief).
Themes
After moving into Mrs. Croft’s house, the narrator notices that she rarely moves from sitting on her piano bench. When he comes home from work the first night, she orders him to sit beside her on the bench. Again, she asks him to check the lock and makes him call the American flag on the moon “splendid.” Although he feels foolish, he does as she asks, and this becomes their routine each night: they awkwardly discuss the moon landing before Mrs. Croft falls asleep. The narrator knows that the flag on the moon fell over before the astronauts left, but he can’t bring himself to say so.
The circumference of Mrs. Croft’s current life is small, centering on daily activities within this part of her house, like listening to music or the news. She is too frail to move, but is powerful in her verbal demands. Though they have little in common, separated by age, culture, and era—it becomes clear that she likes to share the narrator’s company after he returns from his work at the library. While he finds this nightly conversation awkward, he completes the ritual out of respect for her. This passage shows a shift in the narrator’s emotions as he begins to feel tenderly toward Mrs. Croft and her observations regarding the moon landing. He notes he doesn’t “have the heart” to tell her the flag has fallen over on the moon, a consideration for her feelings. The narrator has recognized Mrs. Croft’s own isolation and weakness, and despite their lack of any other similarity beyond their separate isolation, his kindness—even a limited kindness—begins to forge a connection.
Themes
On Friday, when his rent is due, the narrator almost puts the money on the piano ledge, but sees Mrs. Croft is sitting on the piano bench in the hallway. Rather than leaving the money unattended and making her walk with her cane to retrieve it, he puts it straight into her hands instead. When he returns from work, she doesn’t order him to sit next to her as she usually does, but he sits anyway. She tells him twice that “It was very kind of you,” and he sees that she’s still holding the money
This is an important exchange for both the narrator and Mrs. Croft. The narrator breaks Mrs. Croft’s rule of where to put the money, but does so to create a convenience for her. She is moved by this tiny act of kindness, thanking him twice, and holding on to the envelope of money as if it were the kind act itself. The action breaks up her ability to follow routine—she doesn’t order him to sit or talk about the moon—but he sits as usual. This, too, is an act of kindness. Mrs. Croft realizes the narrator is polite without her having to force him to be. Her fondness for him grows.
Themes
Mrs. Croft’s daughter Helen arrives on Sunday. She looks briskly at the narrator’s room, then tells him that she thinks her mother likes him; he’s the first boarder she’s ever called a “gentleman.” From downstairs, Mrs. Croft shouts at them, and as they head towards her, Helen says that her mother slips sometimes, which makes the narrator suddenly think of her as “vulnerable.”
The narrator’s feelings about Mrs. Croft shift again when he realizes several things about her during her daughter Helen’s visit. First, Helen’s age serves to indicate that Mrs. Croft is much older than he thought. When Helen also notes her mother sometimes slips, and should use her cane, he realizes Mrs. Croft might need more care than he imagined. That she may prove to be more fragile than he perceived heightens his anxiety. His worry about her health and well-being increases from this point on. Second, he learns Mrs. Croft likes him. The respect he’s given her, along with his kind actions, make him a “gentleman” in her eyes. This makes him special, as he has achieved something over the other male boarders who have run “screaming.” This helps solidify his growing attachment to his landlady, but it also begins to connect the idea of the ordinary and the extraordinary—that ordinary kindnesses and connections can be marks of extraordinary gentlemanliness, for instance.
Themes
Furious, Mrs. Croft says it’s “improper” for an unmarried man and woman to speak to each other alone. Helen replies that she is 68 years old, and when Mrs. Croft criticizes Helen’s hemline for being above her ankle, Helen reminds her mother that it is 1969 and girls now wear miniskirts.
Mrs. Croft’s childhood was spent in an era when women were not allowed to be in any room with an unmarried man unchaperoned and dresses covered most of a woman’s body. Mrs. Croft seems somewhat muddled here since both Helen, who is 68, and the narrator are married and these customs in behavior and dress have long since fallen away. There are several possible reasons for Mrs. Croft’s confusion here. She is isolated in her house, and despite her awareness of news events, she may not fully realize how much time as passed. Due to her age, she may have trouble with her memory and forgets Helen has grown to have a life of her own. She may be frustrated that her firm rules are not being followed by the narrator as she early insisted that the narrator have no lady visitors. She also could be angry that she must rely on Helen to help her and is frustrated by her own inability to climb the stairs. Helen, for her part, refuses to be ordered about by her mother and helps situate her into the present time period.
Themes
In the kitchen, Helen opens cans of soup for her mother because she can no longer open them herself; her hands were “killed” by the piano lessons she gave for forty years after her husband’s death. Helen serves the narrator tea, and he asks her if the soup is enough food for Mrs. Croft. Helen says she won’t eat anything else; she stopped eating solids three years ago, after she turned 100. The narrator feels “mortified,” as he had assumed Mrs. Croft was in her 80s—he’s never known someone who lived more than a century.
Despite their disagreement, Helen loves her mother. Each week, she comes to prepare her food for her, opening the cans into pans so her mother can reheat the soup. Helen tries to give her mother as much agency as she can to live an active life. Meanwhile, when the narrator learns that Mrs. Croft is 103, he is flooded with embarrassment that he hadn’t realized how old she actually was. When Helen reveals that Mrs. Croft’s hands were damaged by her teaching piano, the narrator is doubly startled. Until now, he hasn’t thought of Mrs. Croft’s personal travails beyond his own encounters. He never imagined her working to support her family nor that she suffered tragedies. These revelations about her age and life give the narrator a new respect for Mrs. Croft. The news also makes him aware that Mrs. Croft’s time on Earth has been very long and her future is limited.
Themes
The narrator cannot believe that, as such an old woman, Mrs. Croft lives alone. After his own father died, the narrator’s mother refused to adjust to being widow, sinking “deeper into a world of darkness.” She began to behave inappropriately and could not be helped by family, friends, nor visits to psychiatric clinics. As a teenager, the narrator looked after his mother while his brother went to work to keep the family afloat.
The narrator is in awe at Mrs. Croft’s ability to fend for herself and to support her family as a widow. His own mother became so depressed in widowhood that she could no longer function. Although he tried to help his mother, she could not heal. His mother’s extreme response and his feelings of failure in helping her have colored the narrator’s view of all relationships. For him, connection brings loss, and loss is something that people are too fragile to cope with. The narrator’s emotional distance now makes sense: it is a defense against forming connections, which he believes will lead to inevitable pain.. However, Mrs. Croft’s longevity and strength challenge the narrator’s notions regarding fragility in the face of crisis, and suggests that resilience in the face of loss is also possible.
Themes
Now that he knows Mrs. Croft’s age, the narrator worries about her constantly. Suddenly, each day that she’s still alive seems like a “miracle.” They pass the summer continuing their routine, although some nights after she falls asleep on the piano bench, the narrator stays by her, marveling at how long her life has been and at how different the world is now from when she was born in 1866. He sometimes checks on her at night, and each Friday he puts the rent directly into her hands, but beyond these “simple gestures” there’s not very much he can do.
After he learns Mrs. Croft’s age and status as a widow, he begins to see her as a source of both worry and wonder. He worries about her physical fragility and begins to check on her nightly to make sure she hasn’t hurt herself. Yet, he is also in “awe” at her ability to survive so many years (no matter how “ordinary” those years might have been), admiring the many changes she must have gone through from the time she was a girl who had “chaste conversations” in a parlor. He imagines what her youthful vibrancy and talent was like. He begins to see Mrs. Croft as having a whole, rich life. She is not just an old woman who asks for his rent. Due to this increase in sympathy, he is driven to continue his acts of small kindness toward her.
Themes
At the end of August, just before Mala is set to arrive, the narrator receives a letter from her. It doesn’t have a salutation, because using his name would have “assumed an intimacy we had not yet discovered.” Written in broken English to practice for Boston, the letter expresses her loneliness and her concern about snow. The narrator doesn’t feel anything because he does not know her; he sees her arrival as something “inevitable but meaningless.” He can’t even remember her face.
Although the narrator has grown more comfortable with, and fond of, Mrs. Croft, he is still a far more stoic personality than his wife, Mala. In her letter to him, she states she is lonely, but the narrator is not moved. Once again, he shows an inability to feel sympathy. In part, this is because the couple has only spent a limited amount of time together—a few days during their wedding festivities. For instance, Mala doesn’t even feel comfortable writing his name in her letter. But the narrator’s extreme emotional coldness once again hints at the deeper trauma of his mother’s death, and that he is not just unemotional but actually scared of emotion. Although the narrator does not see it, though, Mala’s emotionally honest letter reveals her openness to not just the “duty” of marriage but to actually sharing a life with him. She does not hold back from emotion and feels confident in expressing it, even when negative. She is stronger than he thinks, and expressing emotion is not the path to failure and despair that he seems to fear.
Themes
A few days later, the narrator observes a “mishap” with an Indian woman in a sari strolling her child on the street. An American woman’s dog briefly bites the sari, and the narrator suddenly realizes that it’s his “duty” to protect Mala from this kind of thing—to welcome her, care for her, and protect her. Irritated, he remembers that being five miles from her parents had made her cry.
The narrator observes the Indian woman’s sari being bitten but doesn’t offer to help. He watches the American apologize, the Indian woman comfort her crying child, and everybody goes on their way. This shows the narrator’s inability to immediately engage with his surroundings. Yet, the incident also highlights his fears about his new wife’s capabilities. He sees Mala as highly vulnerable, based on her emotional reaction to moving even a small distance from her parents. He worries her emotional vulnerability will increase as well. And, because of his experience with his mother, he thinks that emotional pain will lead to collapse, and that he will then have to care for her entirely. The narrator’s resentment of Mala’s emotion is an expression of his fear that he will have to end up caring for her, just as he had to care for his mother.
Themes
The narrator is used to America by now: his cornflakes and his evenings with Mrs. Croft. Mala will be the only thing that’s unfamiliar, but he nonetheless rents a bigger apartment before she comes. When he moves out of Mrs. Croft’s house, she expresses no emotion, and it disappoints him. But he then realizes that in her long life, their time together is a brief interlude, that “[c]ompared to a century, it was no time at all.”
The narrator is nervous about Mala’s arrival and its inevitable disruption of his now comfortable routine. He is not looking forward to breaking his recent connection to Mrs. Croft, who has become familiar and comforting in her predictability. Yet, he is aware that as a husband he has responsibilities to his new wife. That he sees this shift in his life as a duty rather than a new chapter to enjoy is conveyed when he describe renting an apartment as doing “what [he] had to do.” At the same time, it is interesting that the narrator wishes that Mrs. Croft were sadder to see him go. Despite himself, he did form an emotional attachment with her—a sign that he is capable of emotional attachment, even if he himself doesn’t see it in those terms. The narrator’s thoughts about why Mrs. Croft isn’t sad to see him go also brings him to a revelation about how the length of one’s perspective changes the way one sees life, that looking back on a life is not the same as living it.
Themes
At the airport, Mala is dressed in the way customary for brides. Instead of touching her, the narrator asks if she’s hungry; she is, and he says he has egg curry at home. In Mala’s suitcase, she has two sweaters that she knitted for him (neither fits), new pajamas, and tea. He hasn’t gotten her anything besides the curry, but she compliments the house and the food. He tells her that she doesn’t have to keep her head covered at home, but she keeps it covered anyway.
Mala’s arrival at the airport shows the couple’s awkwardness with each other. As strangers, it’s hard for them to act like a married couple. The narrator, as is his reticent nature, acts practically rather than emotionally, offering Mala a meal over a physical display of affection, though he does try to be kind by preparing a traditional egg curry which would be familiar to her. At the same time, his previous status as a bachelor is shown by the fact that this is the one meal he knows how to make, as the Bengalis in London made over and over. Mala is equally awkward with her new husband. She, too, has tried to be kind, arriving with traditional gifts from home: drawstring pajamas and Darjeeling tea. She has also taken the time to knit him two sweaters, but they are both tight under the arms because she hasn’t been able to measure his size. This tightness also suggests the constriction both feel around each other. The narrator tells her she doesn’t have to wear her sari in the traditional way, suggesting he doesn’t need her to act with traditional deference her in America, but she isn’t yet comfortable enough to break that tradition. The details of these first few moments together show that while the couple seems to be bound to each other only by duty, they are both kind people doing the best they know how.
Themes
After a week, they’re still strangers to each other; he’s not used to coming home to a clean house with fresh food, or to the sight of her toothbrush next to his. At first, she tries to make him a Bengali breakfast, but he tells her that cornflakes will do, and she starts laying out his cornflakes in the morning. One day, she asks for a few dollars, and when he comes home, she’s bought a tablecloth and prepared a curry with fresh garlic and ginger.
The narrator is particularly disconcerted by Mala’s presence as a roommate: she is the first Indian woman he’s lived with since his mother. He can’t get used to her scent and sounds or the “two toothbrushes” rather than one. The narrator’s discomfort on the one hand is a product of a disruption to his previous lifestyle. But that he is particularly uncomfortable with Bengali items and traditions that Mala brings into their apartment suggests also that he wants to be assimilating, to be the self that he created in his time alone in America, and feels constricted by the return of these traditions. At the same time, Mala also adjusts: she prepares the breakfast he likes, while also beautifying their home, and engaging in Bengali traditions. Despite the narrator saying he can’t get used to Mala, there’s a subtle growth of connection here, as the two characters learn to compromise.
Themes
On Friday, the narrator suggests they go out. Mala dresses up as though they’re going to a party. This makes him regretful, as he hadn’t planned anything more than a walk. He leads them to Mrs. Croft’s house to show her where he lived before she arrived. She remarks that it’s a big house and wonders who cares for Mrs. Croft, but the narrator says she seems to care for herself.
The narrator clearly miscommunicates his plans for a night out but Mala doesn’t complain. She is amenable to the shift in plan, showing her flexibility. At first the couple just strolls and window shops, but then the narrator leads Mala “without thinking” to Mrs. Croft’s. Subconsciously, he wants to show Mala something comfortable and familiar to him. Mrs. Croft’s is also an important part of his first American experience. His taking Mala there shows he wants her to understand him better, although he isn’t quite aware of this himself. Mala’s response before going in shows she’s thoughtful and kind. She’s concerned for Mrs. Croft and her isolation. The difference of living communally in apartments in India is contrasted here with the largeness of an American home in which there can be a single resident.
Themes
When the narrator rings the bell, Helen opens the door, explaining that Mrs. Croft has been hurt. He and Mala go to the parlor where she is lying down, and Mrs. Croft treats the narrator as though “no time had passed.” She complains about breaking her hip and asks what he thinks about her calling the police—he says it’s “splendid,” which makes Mala laugh.
Earlier, when living with Mrs. Croft, the narrator worried about her falling, which he felt could be catastrophic. Now he learns that his worst fear for her actually happened, but rather than fall apart Mrs. Croft resiliently handled the moment. As usual, the narrator validates her feelings, telling her that calling the police for help was “splendid.” He knows this familiar phrase will please her, but it also thematically connects her act of calling the police after she well with the moon landing—it connects what might be considered an ordinary act with an extraordinary accomplishment, and suggests that the narrator has begun to see that the ordinary can in fact be extraordinary. Mala’s laughter seems to indicate an appreciation for the same way of seeing the world.
Themes
Glaring at Mala, who has settled on the piano bench, Mrs. Croft asks who she is, and the narrator says she’s his wife. As Mrs. Croft orders her to stand up and examines her, the narrator feels sympathy for Mala for the first time, remembering the difficulty of adjusting to life in London. Mala has moved across the world simply to be with him, and he realizes that when she dies, it will affect him, and when he dies, it will affect her.
Mrs. Croft’s harshness when she asks Mala to stand is typical of her tendency to order people about—but hints of jealousy are present, too, as Mala sits on the beloved piano bench, taking over Mrs. Croft’s usual spot. Mrs. Croft also seems to be evaluating whether Mala is the right choice for the narrator as a wife. The scrutiny she gives Mala, then, can be interpreted as being a function of both her curiosity and her protectiveness. For his part, the narrator changes profoundly in this scene. His wife’s discomfort under Mrs. Croft’s gaze makes the narrator, for the first time, able to equate his own difficulties in adjusting as an immigrant to a new culture to those his wife is now facing. This empathy allows him to be even more profoundly moved by the fact that she has travelled miles, and endured these difficulties, to be with him. In this moment of recognizing his and Mala’s shared experiences and sacrifices, he realizes that they will come to love each other. And he understands that such love also means love—that they will each mourn the other’s death. Rather than avoid that prospect by cutting himself off emotionally, he accepts it. The narrator has moved past his anxiety about the emotional vulnerability of human connection and love.
Themes
The narrator realizes Mrs. Croft may have never seen a woman in a sari before. He assumes Mrs. Croft will find fault in Mala, but instead the old woman declares with delight that Mala is a “perfect lady.” The narrator laughs and he and Mala smile at each other for the first time.
If this is the first time Mrs. Croft has seen an Indian woman in traditional dress, the sight must be extraordinarily different from anything she has known. Earlier she was judgmental regarding her daughter Helen’s clothes as well as disapproving of girls in miniskirts, so the narrator’s expectation of her disapproval makes sense. The elderly woman’s reaction, though, is exactly the same as her reaction to the moon landing. She reacts to Mala with “equal measures of disbelief and delight” just as she had when discussing the flag on the moon earlier. She may have never seen anyone like Mala, with a traditional bindi and sari, but she lets awe and wonder win the day. Mrs. Crofts also calls Mala is a “lady,” a term that is the female match to the narrator, who she earlier described as a “gentleman.” The narrator laughs, seeing Mala as extraordinary through Mrs. Croft’s eyes, just as he once saw himself in the same way. The smile he and Mala share is the first time they bond together in common understanding.
Themes
This moment in Mrs. Croft’s parlor is when the “distance” between the narrator and Mala “began to lessen.” Afterwards, they explore the city together, make friends with other Bengalis, take pictures together that Mala can send home to her parents, and discover physical intimacy. They find Indian spices in local shops but also watch boats rowing crew on the Charles River and eat ice cream in Harvard Yard. The narrator tells her all about his life, about his experiences adjusting to London and Boston. When he tells Mala about his mother, she weeps.
The narrator and Mala blend their lives together. This means not just spending time together, but doing things that literally blend their lives. They find Indian spices and they eat ice cream, things quintessentially Indian and American. Together, they embrace their new definition as Indian-Americans. Meanwhile, they become both physically and emotionally intimate. The narrator, for instance, becomes accepting of Mala’s deep connection to her parents, and helps her document their new life in photos that Mala can send home. The narrator’s growing emotional openness with Mala is most evident in his willingness to tell Mala the story of his mother, something he has previously kept bottled up and looked at with embarrassment. That Mala expresses her sympathy by weeping and he does not object further shows his growth: he no longer worries that deep emotions will lead to collapse, but instead understands that shared emotions can actually forge a stronger union between them.
Themes
Mala also who consoles him when he learns in the newspaper that Mrs. Croft has died. He is deeply sad; this is the first death he has mourned in America, and “hers was the first life [he] had admired.”
By admiring the qualities of longevity and resilience Mrs. Croft possessed, the narrator embraces the traits that have allowed him to escape the fear of emotional fragility that engulfed him after his mother’s death. Now more emotionally resilient himself, he allows Mala to comfort him during his grief. Letting Mala do so is significant for the narrator, who has self-isolated for the majority of his adulthood. It’s also worth noting that Mrs. Croft led a pretty normal life, even with the tragedy of her husband’s early death. The narrator’s admiration for her is also a testament to his growing understanding of the extraordinary that is a part of the ordinary.
Themes
In the thirty years since the narrator arrived in Boston, the narrator and Mala have become American citizens. They own a house on a tree-lined street like Mrs. Croft’s. While they sometimes visit Calcutta, they have decided to grow old near Boston where their son goes to Harvard. Mala no longer covers her head or cries for her parents, but she sometimes cries, missing their son. The narrator and Mala make sure to spend time with him, but both know he may not eat rice or speak Bengali once they die.
On his initial flight to Boston in 1969, the narrator read in his guidebook that in America, “Everybody feels he must get to the top.” Now 66, the narrator has achieved success by American standards: he has a home with a garden on a quiet tree-lined street, a son at Harvard, a job in his field, and a thirty-year-long happy marriage. He and Mala are now fully assimilated into American life. At the same time, the narrator, looking back, can see that all of this joy and success comes with tradeoffs too. Their successful assimilation means that they have lost some connection with their traditions, and that their son has moved even further away from that cultural heritage. This recognition isn’t momentously sad; it’s just an understanding that change—even good change—leads to loss, and the narrator is now able to accept loss.
Themes
Sometimes the narrator shows his son Mrs. Croft’s house and is transported back to that summer of 1969, amazed that he and Mala were ever strangers. Whenever he worries about his son’s future after he and Mala have one day died, he remembers that he himself has survived on three continents. The astronauts spent only a few hours on the moon, but he has persisted for thirty years in “this new world.” While this is a common achievement, he still finds himself bewildered by his own life—by the distances he has traveled and the people he has known. While this is all “ordinary,” it’s still “beyond [his] imagination.”
The narrator continues to honor the way that his experiences with Mrs. Croft changed him. The story comes full circle, as the narrator once more considers the moon landing. In the early stages of the story, the narrator saw no personal meaning in the moon landing, and did not connect that momentous adventure with his own setting out into a foreign land. Now he explicitly makes that connection. Thirty years ago he also thought little of the extraordinary nature of the moon landing, now he recognizes the immensity of that accomplishment. But he also recognizes the immensity of his own extraordinary journey. Like the astronauts earlier, he landed on a new planet. Unlike them, his stay has a longevity that allows for deep connection to his “third and final continent.” Further, the narrator understands that his own journey is not unique; he sees the extraordinary in his own life, and in the lives of other people. He also realizes their son will one day have to face the loss of his own parents, but whereas such a prospect may have once filled him with terror, now he knows from his own life that his son will be able to endure, and to thrive. The narrator ends the story amazed and grateful for his “splendid” life.
Themes
