Reading and Analysing - Short Story

The Boundary
- By Jhumpa Lahiri

- Submitted by:
- 19BBS0204
- MEEDINTI GOWRI NAMRATHA

“ The Boundary ” is a simple, beautiful short story written by Jhumpa Lahiri.

It is about a teenage girl. Her parents are caretakers of a holiday house in the country side.
As the story opens, the girl shows the family around.
Usually it was her mother who did the welcoming, but in her absence, she had to take up the
responsibility. Her mother was helping an elderly man in the nearby town.

The new family had four members - father, mother and two daughters. The girl observes the family
carefully as she gives the mother the details of the house. As she carries on with her housework, she
notices the family and how excited they are to be spending their holidays in the country side.

She then describes the place her family lives. It was just one room until she was thirteen, later her
mother saved up money, and they added a little room for her.
Her father was a caretaker and he looked after a big house whose owner was a foreigner bachelor.
The girl feels left out in her school. She doesn’t mix with the others at her school.
Perhaps she felt a disconnect to the place itself and because of that she couldn’t mingle with the
others there.

She then goes back to the family. She notices all the things the family bought with them. The girls
had put on bathing suits to go the beach later that day.
The father heads out with his daughters to the sea while the mother stays back, claiming it was the
only time she didn’t have any obligations. The mother stretches on the lounge chair and begins to
write something in a little notebook. Later that day, the girls tell about their trip to their mother and
they go on a short walk. The father kept taking pictures and showing the girls around. The parents
have wine in the patio and they enjoy the rest of the evening having dinner outside.

The girl compares this to how dinners are usually at her place. They had dinner in silence, and it
was her mother who talked during meals. The girl’s mother wasn’t fond of the place they lived in.
She often complained about the countryside so much so that her father sometimes slept in the car
when she complained too much.
Maybe the girl was trying to give an idea about their relationship - her parents didn’t seem to share
a good bond.

The girl then notices how much the family is enjoying their stay in the countryside, a complete
contrast to how her family feels living there. The next day, the girl gets eggs from the chicken coop
and brings them to the house. The girls were busy killing the flies and the parents were asleep
despite all the noise.
This vacation, perhaps was an escape from all the work and chaos they had going in their life in the
city.

A routine sets in for the family after a few days of living there. The father went to get milk and
paper and sometimes stopped by the supermarket while the mother did the house work and other
chores. Clasping the laundry basket in her arms bought her immense joy, as this was something she
couldn’t do in the crowded city apartments. The father then took the girls to the beach while the
mother stayed back.
The girls then caught crickets, fed them and turned them into pets. Unfortunately, they die the next
day from suffocating in the jar. They then bury them. This showed the little girls were not in touch
with nature.

Once the guest’s flip flop goes missing, the fox had probably taken it but the girl’s father finds it,
along with some other stuff, which probably belonged to the previous family.

The girl’s father seemed to know the place and the animals very well. Maybe the work bought him
to knowing all this or his loneliness compelled him to find solace in nature.

The girl notices how the family loved the rural place, how much they were appreciative of its
landscapes and all the other details.
But she thinks, they were unaware of how lonely it gets there. How monotonous life is, and how
scary it gets during windy nights or how harsh the winters were.

I think, humans, in general are unappreciative of what we have. The girl and her family doesn’t like
staying in the countryside, while the guest family dwells on all the countryside things they miss out
because they live in the city.

The guest family’s friends arrive the next day. It was the father’s birthday, they celebrate and the
mother shares the incidents that happened with them at the countryside in the past few days.

The little girls come to give the girl and her father two slices of cake. They were hesitant, probably
because they themselves wanted to eat entire cake.The girl and her father eat the cake in silence.
She then remembers the time they lived in the city. She then illustrates an unfortunate incident that
forced them to leave the city. Her father used to sell flowers at the piazza and her mother used to
help. One night three rude and drunk men, injured her father in an heated argument, with no fault of
his. He was badly injured. He couldn’t eat solid foods for a year and ever since he had struggled to
speak. Everyone misunderstood him, some thought he behaved like that because he was a foreigner
and some even thought he’s mute. He then moved to the country side and midst the untamed
animals and nature, he felt protected.
He often tells his daughter of how he couldn’t make anything out of his life. He has his regrets and
he wishes his daughter doesn’t dwell on life like he did. He wants her to complete her education and
go somewhere far away.

The next day, the guest family heads out and they seemed more closely knit than they had arrived.
They say they’d visit again someday, the girl wishes them a safe journey.
After they leave, the girls starts getting the house ready for the next family that’s to arrive. She finds
something that the guests probably left on purpose.
The story explores the contrasting lives of two families, and both the families don’t seem to be
content with their way of living.
Both the families dislike their lifestyle. They dwell on the hardships that they go through but they’re
unaware of the circumstances in other’s life. This highlights one of the most common human traits -
being unhappy with what one has. It’s almost like we’ve forgotten how to be grateful for what we
already have.
The girl’s father, is so consumed by what people might think of him that he gave up on his dreams
and goals fearing that others might judge him. The mother seems to be rather unhappy with her life,
she’s so frustrated that complaining has become her natural way of talking about life.

In the guest family, on the other hand, the mother finds this vacation to be her escape, which might
symbolize, how unsatisfied she is with her life in the city. She’s rather relived being in the hills.
The story also highlights the simple joys of life that the little girls indulge in - petting the crickets,
going to the beach, telling their mother about their adventures, the excitement. As we grow older,
we get so carried away with our responsibilities that we tend to overlook these simple joys.

In nutshell, the author is trying to convey a few simple messages - cherish life, be content with what
you have, and have the courage to live life in way you want to.