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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in This Blessed House, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Marriage and Social Expectations
Control vs. Whimsy
Multiculturalism and Identity
Conflict and Compromise
Summary
Analysis
Sanjeev and Twinkle are newlyweds moving into their first home. Twinkle discovers Christian icons, starting with a small porcelain statue of Christ in a kitchen cupboard next to an unopened bottle of malt vinegar. She shows both to Sanjeev, who tells her to throw them away. He points out that she has never cooked anything with vinegar. He feels the need to point out the obvious to her by reminding her they are not Christian. She protests, saying that she will use one of their new cookbooks to find a recipe for the vinegar and that she admires the statue, which might be valuable. She places the statue on the mantel, which Sanjeev notes needs to be dusted.
The beginning of the story sets up the power struggle between Sanjeev and Twinkle through their opposite reactions to the porcelain Christ. Sanjeev’s command that Twinkle discard her discovery shows his desire to control the home as a reflection of his image. It also shows that he expects Twinkle to serve his self-image by obeying his command. In his view, his rational justifications are obviously superior to her whimsical appreciation of the statue. He fails to see the moment as an opportunity to connect with Twinkle by engaging with her whimsical way of seeing their new home.It is worth noting that this opening suggests the story’s title is ironic. Hardly a blessing, the porcelain Christ signals trouble for the newlyweds and suggests that their new home will be a battlefield between their potentially incompatible personalities and worldviews. Readers see immediately that this marriage is unlikely to be happy.
Themes
Days later, the undusted mantel holds their growing collection of Christian found objects, including a Saint Francis postcard, a wooden cross keychain, a paint-by-number painting of the three wise men, a trivet featuring a blond, beardless Christ, and a snow globe with a Nativity scene. Twinkle wonders if the people who lived in the house before them were born-again Christians. Meanwhile, Sanjeev organizes his engineering textbooks in alphabetical order. He recalls moving from MIT to Hartford for his job, where he has been very successful. Now 33, he recently learned he might get promoted to vice president. Twinkle interrupts his fond recollections of his college days by wondering if the house’s previous occupants were trying to convert them. Sanjeev replies that this plan has worked on Twinkle, who shakes the snow globe in response.
As time passes, the rift between Sanjeev and Twinkle deepens. The home’s mantel displays Twinkle’s delight in kitsch and whimsy while demonstrating Sanjeev’s loss of the illusion of control over his home and his new wife. The objects have activated Twinkle’s curiosity—she wonders about the house’s previous owners and their intentions in leaving so many of these objects behind. Sanjeev’s thoughts and memories suggest that as he has relinquished control in his home, he has also begun to withdraw from his marriage. His thoughts about his professional accomplishments allow him to cling to his successes outside of his home. And his memories of the simple pleasures of college life suggest his nostalgia for a time when he could be happily alone without feeling pressured to be married.
Themes
Twinkle’s collection puzzles Sanjeev, who finds each object distinctly silly and unsacred. He wonders why they appeal to Twinkle, who usually has good taste. He realizes they are important to her, but they mean nothing to him. He suggests they call the Realtor and demand he come take them away. Twinkle resists and says that removing the items would feel sacrilegious because they were important to the previous owners. She ignores Sanjeev when he points out that the previous owners would have taken the items with them if they valued them and asks him what he thinks they will find next.
Instead of being curious about his wife’s interest in her growing collection, Sanjeev judges this interest as a lapse in taste. It is worth noting the terseness and coldness of Sanjeev’s response to his wife.. He punctuates his confident rejection of the objects with irritation. In contrast, Twinkle comes across as affectionate as she tries to engage Sanjeev in her adventure. This exchange exposes the growing distance between Twinkle’s apparent affection and Sanjeev’s barely concealed aloofness. The story’s emphasis on Sanjeev’s perspective becomes important here because readers don’t know what Twinkle is thinking or feeling or if she is even experiencing the conflict that looms in Sanjeev’s thoughts about their marriage.
Themes
A week passes before they find the next item, an enormous poster of Christ wearing a crown of thorns and weeping that Sanjeev thought was a window shade. He tells Twinkle that he has tolerated her discoveries but refuses to have this poster displayed in his home. As Mahler’s Fifth Symphony plays dramatically from the stereo on the first floor, Twinkle lights a cigarette and tells him that she will hang it in her study. When he reminds her of their upcoming housewarming party for people from his office, she tells him she will hang it behind the door out of view from the hallway.
Their discovery of the poster confirms what readers have suspected: Sanjeev’s understanding of himself as rational and organized ironically fails to take into account his shortcomings. He is often inattentive, which makes him a poor observer of his home, his wife, his marriage, and his life. When he reminds Twinkle about their upcoming housewarming party, she offers to compromise for the first time in the story. While she does not submit to his desire to rid their home of the poster, she offers to display it in her own space in the home, away from his view and out of view of their future guests. This moment of begrudging compromise suggests that Twinkle is willing and able to respond to Sanjeev when he communicates his concerns. It also reveals how infrequently Sanjeev tells her what he is feeling and why, which bodes poorly for their marriage.
Themes
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Twinkle leaves, and Sanjeev stoops down to pick up ashes that had fallen from her cigarette. The intensely emotional third movement of Mahler’s Fifth ends and the tender fourth movement begins. Sanjeev remembers reading in the liner notes that Mahler sent his wife the manuscripts of this part of the symphony when he proposed to her. He recalls the liner notes explaining that this music mostly conveyed love and happiness. Twinkle disrupts these thoughts by flushing the toilet and yelling to him that the music is putting her to sleep and if he wants to impress people at his party, he should play something else.
As Mahler’s Fifth Symphony shifts from intense emotional struggle to tenderness, Sanjeev remembers what he read in the CD’s liner notes earlier that day. This reflection provides an ironic contrast between Mahler’s tender marriage in the past and Sanjeev’s conflicted one in the story’s present. The flushing toilet and Twinkle’s criticism of the music again reinforce the conflict at the center of his marriage and the distance between Sanjeev’s hypothetical understanding of romantic love and his experience of it.
Themes
Sanjeev goes to the bathroom to throw away the ashes and spends some time looking at his reflection in the mirror and thinking. He wishes he had a distinguished profile and wonders if his long eyelashes and plump cheeks that Twinkle teased him about undermine his appearance. He wishes he were an inch taller than his average height and that Twinkle would not insist on wearing high heels. He recalls their date night in Manhattan days ago, when Twinkle wore high heels, had too much to drink, dragged him to a bookstore for an hour, and insisted he dance the tango in front of strangers.
Sanjeev’s reflection on the image in the mirror is a poignant moment when his insecurities about his masculinity and his image become clear. He judges himself according to external standards and expectations that he cannot control, like his eyelashes and height. Readers understand that Sanjeev sees Twinkle as a threat to his sense of manliness and control on multiple levels: in their home, in public, and worst of all, in his own mind.
Themes
Sanjeev considers what Twinkle does all day when she tells him that she wears heels because she is at her desk at home all day and wants to dress up. Sanjeev doubts her—he recently found her in bed because she was bored. He thinks about suggesting she work on unpacking or cleaning the house but decides against it.
Sanjeev’s memory brings to view not only his embarrassing experience of their night out but also the growth of his resentment of Twinkle. He also appears confident in his conclusion that Twinkle is hypocritical, lazy, and unproductive. His thoughts about her show his tendency toward confirmation bias, which describes when people look for proof of what they already assume to be true. Sanjeev’s confirmation bias shows how easy it becomes to oversimplify situations and other people. After all, his recollection of a single memory of finding Twinkle in bed during the day does not justify his general confidence that he is right about her laziness or about his sense of how she should be spending her time. His attitude suggests that he has already reached a conclusion about Twinkle, and his decision not to suggest that she clean the house suggests that he is not likely to revise that conclusion.
Themes
A few days later, Sanjeev returns home to hear Twinkle telling her friend in California—whom she has called long-distance during peak hours, he notes—about her discoveries in the house. She remarks that every day is like a treasure hunt. Sanjeev opens a pot of fish stew Twinkle has prepared using the vinegar she found when they moved in. He thinks about how little he understands her excitement for unpredictable events, which makes him feel “stupid, as if the world contained hidden wonders he could not anticipate, or see,” and how in their second month of marriage, he finds some of her habits annoying.
Sanjeev continues to frame how he sees Twinkle according to his values of frugality and productivity. Before readers learn what she is actually saying on the phone, they have already understood Sanjeev’s perspective: that she is on the phone at the time that will cost him the most. Sanjeev becomes increasingly critical of Twinkle in ways that seem unfair because he interprets her actions as a reflection on him. Her delight at surprises and sense of adventure don’t appeal to him and instead make him feel stupid, as though he fails to observe the world’s hidden wonders. This ironic moment shows Sanjeev’s refusal to entertain the possibility that Twinkle does actually see what he can’t. It also confirms his lack of interest in learning to enjoy life more by seeing things through her eyes.
Themes
Sanjeev remembers when he met Twinkle four months earlier and how they came to be married. Their parents (his in India, hers in California) are old friends and arranged for them to meet at a 16th birthday party for a mutual acquaintance. They bonded over their shared reaction to the bland food, their fondness for Wodehouse’s entertaining, witty novels, and their distaste for the sitar. Sanjeev charmed Twinkle by refilling her teacup as they talked. Their relationship began with phone calls and then progressed to cross-country visits. The timing was right for them: Twinkle was 27 and had recently broken up with a failed actor, and Sanjeev was lonely and made enough money to support a family. They married in India. Sanjeev barely remembered any of the hundreds of people there from his childhood. He remembers the red and orange tent where they married on Mandeville Road.
This memory offers crucial background on Sanjeev’s personality and his marriage. He submitted to the idea of marriage as a social expectation for an Indian man his age and with his income. The Indian custom of arranged marriage made it easy for him to assume that their random shared interests might be sufficient signals of their compatibility for marriage. By the time readers arrive at this point in the story, they have guessed that Sanjeev’s and Twinkle’s knowledge of each other was not , in fact, sufficient grounds for a compatible marriage. Without social expectations and the custom of arranged marriages, then, they likely would not have gotten married. Sanjeev’s disconnection from the people who attended their Indian wedding suggests that he married according to a set of expectations shaped by people in a homeland he hardly remembers. Indeed, Sanjeev’s actions appear to be directed at gaining the approval of his coworkers, neighbors, parents, and people he no longer remembers from his country of birth.
Themes
As they get ready to eat the fish stew Twinkle made, Sanjeev asks her if she swept the attic. She hasn’t, but she promises him she will get to it. Their meal consists of the stew and the prepared food she purchased from the supermarket. She finds cooking Indian food to be a burden, so Sanjeev prepares curry for them on the weekends. Sanjeev remarks that the stew is especially tasty and asks her how she made it. Twinkle improvised the stew and when Sanjeev tells her she should write down the recipe so she can make it again, she replies that she will remember it. Sanjeev notices that the towel covering the breadbasket has the Ten Commandments on it. She smiles at him, squeezes his knee, and tells him that the house is “blessed.”
When Sanjeev asks Twinkle if she swept the attic, he voices one of the criticisms of Twinkle that he’s refrained from speaking aloud so far, suggesting that the tension in their marriage is mounting. Their different approaches to cooking show their different levels of attachment to Indian culture. He cooks an Indian curry each weekend because he wants to follow Indian expectations that aren’t as important to Twinkle. His harsh understanding of her becomes clearer when he presumes that the delicious fish stew was an accident. His direction to write down the recipe and her refusal show their differing views on her capacity to improvise successfully. She knows she thrives at improvisation, whereas he assumes her success was an exception rather than a pattern. Twinkle’s actions when Sanjeev notices the towel suggest that she assumes that they share a bond and a sense of irony about her discoveries of Christian religious objects. Readers already know enough about Sanjeev’s view, however, to realize that she is the only one in on her joke that their home is “blessed.”
Themes
Sanjeev and Twinkle prepare for their housewarming party on the last Saturday in October. They expect 30 guests, a combination of Sanjeev’s acquaintances, his co-workers, and local Indian couples who invited him to dinner regularly when he was single. He wonders why they included him and notes that none of them have met Twinkle, who knows no one in Connecticut and is completing her MA thesis at Stanford on an Irish poet that Sanjeev hadn’t heard of before. He recalls finding the house, admiring its elegance and the local school system, and deciding before he married that he and Twinkle would live there forever. He realizes that he did not notice the switch plates covered with biblical stickers or the transparent decal of Mary on the master bedroom window. When he tried to scrape off the decal after they moved in, he scratched the glass.
Sanjeev’s guest list suggests that he doesn’t have real friends, which shows that the party is aimed at impressing mere acquaintances. This detail fits with his previous memories of his happily isolated college days and his alienation from the people at his Indian wedding. His lack of experience of human connection and warmth also provides context for his cold, detached approach to his marriage. The story’s focus on Sanjeev’s perspective makes readers aware for the first time that he is the only person Twinkle knows where they live and that she is earning a graduate degree at a top university. The story’s point of view is so closely tied to Sanjeev’s perspective that it is reasonable to assume that the absence of the poet’s name in his thoughts signals that he has forgotten it or he doesn’t value her work enough to think specifically about it. This information would have been useful for him to consider as he dismissed Twinkle as lazy and judged her for talking on the phone to a friend back home in California. These revelations create sympathy for Twinkle, who is completely alone in her new life. Readers also learn that Sanjeev purchased the home without consulting Twinkle, which shows how little he considered her as a partner who might have her own vision of the future. He saw the house as he wanted to see it—as a fitting reflection of his elegance in a neighborhood aligned with his social status and his assumption that he will have children who will attend the superior local schools. The damage Sanjeev inflicts on the window when he tries to scrape off the decal of Mary is a symbol of his marriage. First, he failed to notice Mary and all of the other objects in the house before he bought it. In this case, he fails to see Mary, the central woman in Christ’s story, just as he fails to pay attention to Twinkle before and after he married her. Second, his reaction when he eventually sees the Mary decal is to try to restore his sense of control by erasing it, which mirrors his attempts to command Twinkle to submit to his vision of their life. Finally, he fails to erase Mary and damages the window. The damage that remains visible is a fitting image of the state of his marriage and foretells its possible failure.
Themes
A week before the party, Sanjeev and Twinkle are raking the yard when she finds a plaster Virgin Mary that comes up to her waist. Sanjeev finds her shrieking with laughter and jokes that she will want to place it at the end of their bed. She responds seriously that they must keep the statue outside. She notes how many of their neighbors have similar statues and that they will fit right in. He tells her that they are not Christian. Sanjeev remembers all the women from India who would have been better traditional wives interested in domesticity. He forgot them all when he met Twinkle. She questions why he is so concerned about what others think of him when he says he cannot have his coworkers see this statue in their yard. He does not respond as she drags the statue to the spot she has chosen for it.
Twinkle’s discovery of the Virgin Mary statue pushes the tension between her and Sanjeev near its limit. At first, this conflict plays out in the same way that all of the others did: Sanjeev rejects her discovery, and she dismisses him and does as she pleases. This time, they appear to switch places. She plays the role of the voice of reason, shooting down Sanjeev’s reasons for rejecting the statue one by one. She finally calls him on his obsession with how others see him, a quality that makes him deeply unhappy. Sanjeev doesn’t respond, but he remembers the Indian women he might have married, women he assumes would have been more submissive and domestic. Although Sanjeev doesn’t recognize it, he is now the one living in fantasies while his wife logically diagnoses his actions as irrational. Readers see that Twinkle’s implied criticism of him is accurate. Even though the story focuses on Sanjeev’s thoughts, it ultimately leads readers to side with Twinkle.
Themes
Sanjeev thinks that he isn’t sure he loves Twinkle. He remembers when she asked him if he loved her before they saw a German film he found depressing—he said yes. This made her happy. Now, Sanjeev thinks that he does not know what love is, only that it is not the lonely bachelor life he lived before he met her. He once assumed she loved him too, but he is no longer certain of how she feels. He recalls his mother urging him to marry in the months before he met Twinkle. Now he has Twinkle, who is pretty, educated, and from a high caste. He wonders what’s not to love about her.
Their conflict over the Mary statue leads Sanjeev to confront a truth he has avoided: that he may not love his wife, she may not love him, and he doesn’t actually know what love is. He understands that his previous bachelor life was devoid of love, even if it gave him the freedom to spend his time as he wished and the illusion of full control over his life. Further, he realizes he doesn’t love Twinkle, who is the perfect woman for him on paper. This moment reveals how little Sanjeev considered his choice of a life partner. It also suggests his inability to move from marriage as an idea to marriage as a loving partnership.
Themes
Later that night, Sanjeev drinks two gin and tonics while Twinkle takes a bubble bath. Sanjeev enters the bathroom and finds her soaking with a blue mask on her face as she looks at a book of poetry. He tells her that he is going to remove the Virgin Mary from the yard and that he plans to take it to the dump the next day. She drops the book in the water as she quickly leaves the bath and puts on a bathrobe. She tells him she hates him. They argue about who gets to decide whether they keep the statue. She tells him that they both own the house and the statue, and he notices her crying. They embrace and compromise: the statue will go by the side of the house so that it won’t be as obvious.
Sanjeev and Twinkle become more direct, confrontational, and openly emotional when they fight over what to do with the Virgin Mary statue. When Twinkle tells Sanjeev she hates him, she offers him an unwanted answer to his question moments earlier about whether she loved him. Both characters try to assert their power in the marriage by refusing to submit. Their marriage has seemingly reached an impasse. The story’s reference to Twinkle’s blue face when they embrace recalls the face of the Virgin Mary statue, which was similarly caked with dirt or fungus. The symbolic connection between Twinkle and her latest Christian discovery suggests that Sanjeev’s cold rejection of his wife’s earlier discoveries was actually a rejection of her presence in his home and life. The compromise that ends the open conflict suggests nothing more than Sanjeev’s reluctant agreement to allow the statue and his wife to remain, for the time being.
Themes
The day of the party arrives as Sanjeev finishes the final preparations. He hopes the guests will be impressed by the features of the house he admires and not pay attention to the figures on the mantel. The first guests arrive, Sanjeev’s new coworker Douglas and his girlfriend Nora. Sanjeev introduces Twinkle by her given name, Tanima, and Twinkle corrects him. Douglas notes that he saw the statue outside and asks if Sanjeev is Christian. As all the guests arrive, Sanjeev is “bewildered” by the fact that they have all come for him even though they aren’t family and don’t owe him anything.
As expected, Sanjeev does most of the preparations for the party alone. He has accepted the presence of the Christian objects and hopes that his guests don’t pay attention to them. The objects disrupt the clear, consistent image of himself as a successful, elegant, Indian engineer that he tries to project so as to fulfill what others expect of him. When his first guests point out the statue outside and ask if he is Christian, Sanjeev’s hopes of maintaining his careful image of himself are dashed. Sanjeev’s alienation from others shapes his perspective on his guests. Rather than being grateful for their presence, Sanjeev merely wonders why they would bother showing up when they owe him nothing. This thought shows Sanjeev’s perspective on human relationships as primarily transactional, based on mutual obligations rather than bonds of affection.
Themes
Twinkle is the life of the party. Everyone admires her. She oversees the jazz music blaring from the stereo and takes center stage, entertaining the guests with her humor. Sanjeev serves everyone and keeps the samosas warm while she gives everyone tours. She tells him that his friends adore the Christ poster in her study. Sanjeev retreats to the kitchen where he eats chicken right from the tray and swigs gin from the bottle. Two acquaintances come in and tell him that Twinkle is “wow.” They laugh, and Sanjeev retreats to the basement for more champagne. When he returns to the party, he hears Twinkle telling the party about the Christian figures. Hearing her compare living in the house to a treasure hunt, they all eagerly join in, looking under chairs and behind curtains for the next discovery.
The party solidifies Twinkle’s upper hand in her marriage. Her capacity for whimsy, her sense of adventure, and her ability to freely mix cultural codes without feeling a sense of personal conflict help her to win over the crowd with ease. Her gift for storytelling invites others into her experience of the world, which is playful and fun. Her ability to connect and entertain enables her to avoid the identity crisis Sanjeev experiences as someone who identifies with two cultures, Indian and American, without feeling accepted by either of them. She captures the attention of everyone around her and effortlessly controls how others see her and, by extension, her whimsical collection of Christian memorabilia. Their immediate connection to her adventure and her humor contrasts with Sanjeev’s failure to connect with her at all. Sanjeev spends the party in the background playing a servile role, nearly invisible in his home. When his acquaintances tell him that Twinkle is “wow,” Sanjeev feels his lack of control even more strongly. Readers see his failure to connect to a woman who easily connects to people who give her a chance.
Themes
Twinkle, who never swept the attic, tells the guests that she has never explored up there. She finds the ladder and all the guests follow her into the attic. Sanjeev stands alone and briefly imagines the ceiling collapsing and all their bodies crashing down as he hears them scavenging above him. He sees the mess throughout the house and moves Twinkle’s shoes to their bedroom so no one trips. He enjoys the silence and fantasizes pushing the ladder back into the ceiling, trapping everyone in the attic so he could enjoy being alone. He imagines destroying the Christian items and throwing them all out before cleaning up the mess from the party and listening to his new Bach CD alone.
Twinkle’s treasure hunt in the attic temporarily gives Sanjeev what he has craved most: solitude in his home. In this silence, he entertains the fantasy that a few swift, violent acts could erase Twinkle from his life and give him the space to live as he did before he married her. While it’s difficult to tell how seriously Sanjeev takes this fantasy, it does reveal the extent of his loneliness and alienation.
Themes
Sanjeev feels dizzy when he hears Twinkle coming down for a cigarette. He heads to the bedroom and imagines her slipping her shoes on her feet. He is surprised that he feels an intense feeling of anticipation, the way he felt before they married. She hides something from view, telling him that he won’t believe what she has found. It’s a heavy silver bust of Christ wearing Nora’s feather hat. After Twinkle asks him if she can place it on the mantel, he reflects that he hates the bust more than the rest because it is clearly valuable, impressive, and most of all because Twinkle loves it. She tells him that she will move it to her study in the morning, which he knows is untrue.
As he hears his wife approaching, Sanjeev’s emotional state swings dramatically and he eagerly anticipates seeing her. His illusions of his complete control over his life and environment seemingly evaporate completely as he is at the mercy of feelings he hardly understands. Sanjeev views the obviously valuable silver Christ Twinkle discovered in the attic as a symbol of her victory over him for control in their marriage. His silent acceptance of this reality suggests that compromise between their incompatible personalities may no longer be possible because as he sees it, she was won and he has lost.
Themes
Sanjeev has a vision of their future: the bust will remain on the mantel as long as they are together, and Twinkle will always be the life of the party, charming guests with her stories. He sees the rose petals in her hair, the striking jewelry she wears, and her freshly painted red toes and realizes this is what made his guest admire her as “wow.” His arms ache from carrying the statue and he tells her that he put her shoes in the bedroom. She tells him her feet hurt and walks back to their guests. Sanjeev holds the bust and its feather cap close and follows her.
The story ends with Sanjeev’s final realization of Twinkle’s victory in their marriage and his recognition of her appealing features that others find charming. This recognition does not lead Sanjeev to a similar appreciation of his wife. He sees her charm as an advantage that will always trump the organizational qualities that make him successful at work, but nowhere else. The story’s final image of Sanjeev carrying the silver bust, taking care to not let the feather cap it wears fall, might suggest his new desire to protect Twinkle’s sense of whimsy. However, the fact that his head and arms ache as he follows his wife suggests that he now carries her whimsical vision for their life as a heavy burden. The end is a moment of surrender, not compromise, and signals Sanjeev’s defeat in a marriage that, as things stand, is likely doomed to unhappiness.
Themes
