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Summary
Themes
and Colors
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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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.
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
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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.”
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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.”
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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.
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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.”
