Internal and External Conflict In Jhumpa Lahiri’s Story “Interpreter of Maladies”

The Interpreter of Maladies is a story that demonstrates conflicts in a family of Mr. and Mrs. Das. The first instance of external conflict is demonstrated in the beginning of the story where Mr. and Mrs. Das could not agree on who could take Tina, their daughter to the toilet during their tour. Mr. Das however won the argument after claiming to have bathed the child the previous day (Mays 446). Another instance of external conflict is notices when Mrs. Das demonstrated her dissatisfaction with the kind of car her husband hired for tour. To her the car was considerably old and she did not like it that the car lacked important facilities such as air conditioner just to save some coins (p.450). However, Mr. Das brushed this off wisely to eliminate any chance of aggravating the conflict. Another argument is identified after the second historic point stop where Mrs. Das refused to come of the vehicle to watch the site (p.456).

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The story also demonstrates instance of conflicting mind. One instance is when Mrs. Das confesses that his second son was not Raj’s son, secrete she had kept for the last eight years (p.457). Mrs. Dashas hold this conflicting thought for years wondering whether to tell anyone or to continue keeping secrete forever. Mr. Kapsa also had instances of conflicting thoughts while traveling to Konarak He was getting attracted to Mrs. Das but could not decide on how he could approach it.  He even imagined of how they would communicate after the family had finished its tour in India (p.453-456). It is not clear on how Mr. and Mrs. Das, coped after the tripe, however, the possibility of Mr. Kapsa being the source of their disagreements and conflicts in the future were killed when the paper with his address flew out of Mrs. Das bag, as they were saving Ronny from monkey attack. Mrs. Das confession also killed the desire Mr. Kapsa had developed over her.

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