An encounter that the narrator witnesses between an unknown Indian woman on the street and an American woman’s dog is symbolic of the challenges immigrants face in their new homes. The Indian woman is walking down the street with her child in a stroller when the small black dog attacks her sari. Although the dog does not hurt the woman, the incident does make her child cry. The American woman does scold the dog and apologize, but she walks “quickly away” leaving the Indian woman to “fix” her sari and comfort her child alone. The American woman’s behavior seems to subtly imply that the responsibility for the incident rests with the Indian woman, with her foreign way of dressing that confused and irritated the dog. After seeing the incident, the narrator feels that he will have to warn his wife about how to “wear her sari so that the free end did not drag on the footpath” as well as “what streets to avoid.” The incident captures the complicated experience of being an immigrant: the way that having traits or behaviors that are outside the ordinary creates friction that is no doing of your own but makes you stick out even further, causes you discomfort even when it doesn’t cause harm, and leads to a desire to find ways to conform. And it also captures the ways that the United States can be unfriendly to immigrants, even in daily small ways.
The Indian Woman Quotes in The Third and Final Continent
Mala rose to her feet, adjusting the end of her sari over her head and holding it to her chest, and, for the first time since her arrival, I felt sympathy. I remembered my first days in London . . . Like me, Mala had traveled far from home, not knowing where she was going, or what she would find, for no reason other than to be my wife. As strange as it seemed, I knew in my heart that one day her death would affect me, and stranger still, that mine would affect her.
The Indian Woman Symbol Timeline in The Third and Final Continent
