Maria Rodriguez

AP Language

Kristiansen

15 January 2020

Artist statement

Jhumpa Lahiri is a young woman who has won several awards for her collection of

stories depicting struggles between races and the people within them. In her famous book,

Interpreter of Maladies​, Lahiri has depicted stories of internal and external conflicts between

characters. One story, the first of many, has an excellent example of these conflicts. On the

piece painted with acrylic paint on a foam board, shows the main conflict between our two

main characters, Shukumar and Shoba. Shukumar, portrayed on the left of the piece, is

holding a grey child. He is painted white and is contrasted with a black background. His

heart, also painted grey, is crossed out with vibrant red paint. To the right of him is his wife,

Shoba. Shoba is depicted pregnant. Her child and heart painted grey. She is painted black,

against a white background. The child in the womb is crossed out with vibrant red paint.

The whole piece, including the background, contains themes in which Lahiri has

chosen to include in the short story. Starting off with the backgrounds and the colors in which

the characters are painted in. Shukumar is painted white against a black background to

represent the “hope in the dark” he was looking for. without power in their home, he hoped to

“rekindle” or “relight” the relationship they had lost. Shoba, on the other hand, has already

lost that hope, hence being painted black against a white background. The grey objects

represents things the characters had in common. The child they both wanted, and the love
they had for each other. The catch is, each lost one of those. Objects they desired were

crossed out in a vibrant red. The bright color would be a “shock” to the eye, to not only break

the monotony of black and white, but to symbolize the shock each character felt when what

they wanted were ripped from them. Shukumar lost his love, hence the crossed out heart, and

Shoba lost her child. Finally, the other grey items which were not crossed, were secrets they

had kept from one another. Shukumar held the secret of their child, while Shoba held the

secret of their love.