Food in A Temporary Matter

The presence of food in "A Temporary Matter" was one of my class questions for that reading. After reading through it again, I think that a certain element that food serves is connection. It can be really REALLY good, or a disaster. I think that this is true for many things(work, sex, a marriage). The idea of eating is also very sensual. It involves taste, touch, sight, smell. You can even almost hear the food cooking in this story. It is such a strange juxtaposition of wonderful sounding food paired with a failing marriage and the death of their child. Food continues to even appear in their memories. When Shukumar is going through drawers. He finds candles and is reminded of his wife's birthday when she was five month's birthday. He remembers, "she made vanilla cream cake with custard and spun sugar. All night she kept Shukumar's long fingers linked with hers as the walked among the guests at the party" (Lahiri 9).  These candles are re-lit when the power goes out and are used to illuminate their meal. I think that this is very significant. Maybe food represents nourishment in all forms. I suppose it could also represent sickness as well. Does the relighting of candles stand for Shukumar's attempt to rekindle the marriage, his wife's or neither?

The truth is....

I thought the dynamic of the relationship between Shoba and Shukumar was very interesting in "A Temporary Matter." At first, I thought the way Shoba went about telling Shukumar that she was leaving him was really childish. I kept thinking "You are a grown woman. Act like one and tell him how you really feel!" Then I realized that sometimes it's easier said than done. I think she chose to tell him using this approach because it was the only alternative she could think of. There had been a communication barrier that had been growing between them since they lost their child. I guess it's not so easy to come out and say "Honey, I am leaving you and moving out" when basic conversations like "Hi honey, how was your day?" are few and far between. I think the ironic part is that in an effort to rid herself of the secret she has been keeping, she finds out about an even bigger secret that Shukumar has been keeping from her. He had seen and held their stillborn son. Other than using it as a means to tell Shukumar that she was leaving, it's hard to know if Shoba had other motives behind the method she used to tell Shukumar her secret. I think that maybe she was hoping Shukumar would say something that would give her a reason to stay or justify her leaving? Any thoughts?

Possible Meanings of “A Temporary Matter”

In the very first line of Lahiri’s story the reader is told a logical explanation for the title of the piece, “the notice informed them that it was a temporary matter: for five days their electricity would be cut off for one hour, beginning at 8 p.m.” (1). However, it becomes apparent that the electricity outage is just the surface meaning of the title. As the story progresses, another possibility arises; Shoba’s unexpectedly short pregnancy and the consequential death of her and Shukumar’s first child. Perhaps the deeper meaning to the title is the tragically brief life of the baby. By the end we see another sad possibility, that maybe Shukumar and Shoba’s marriage is the temporary matter. The death of the baby pushed them apart and their former love, which seemed very real and promising, appears to be irretrievable. However, there is a hint of a happier possibility. When Shoba tells Shukumar that she is moving out she also tells him that “she needed some time alone” (Lahiri 21). The vagueness of this statement gives the hope that their separation may the real temporary matter. At least I hope so.

advertising disabilities

When I started to read David Sedaris' "Go Carolina," I began to have flashbacks of my elementary school career. I started to remember the kids I went to school with that would have to go to another classroom to be helped with subjects like math and reading and coming back with bags full of candy as their reward. Those same teachers would come in from time to time as well to help those students in class and it was obvious why they were there. When Sedaris said, "I didn't see my sessions as the sort of thing that one would want to advertise" (8), I started to think about how the students in my class must have felt when they were individually helped in class with other students around and how they must of felt being called out of class. I can say, and I am partially ashamed of myself to admit this, that I faked needing help in elementary school and was called out to the other classroom and felt fine knowing the other students saw me leave because I think they also knew why I had faked needing help, the candy. The candy was Lego sweet tarts that were the absolute coolest things and they were so good so I decided that in order to get my own bag, I would need to have someone help me. Unfortunately, the charade didn't last because the teacher and aides quickly realized I did not need any assistance with my math or reading but I still got my candy. Back to my point, I know how I felt when I was individually called out in the middle of class and knowing that other students really did need that help, I wonder if they felt the same way as Sedaris. Is having a speech impediment or learning disability still something people feel ashamed of having? I don't think it should be but then again, my ADD didn't start effecting me until high school so maybe I just don't see it that way.

Shoba's Need for Control

I’m the kind of person who wants to know why people – and characters – do what they do. But what’s frustrating and brilliant about “A Temporary Matter” is that by telling the story from Shukumar’s perspective, Lahiri leaves some of Shoba’s motivations a mystery. Lahiri’s withholding of her motivations makes the story more realistic. After all, however much we try to figure people out, we don’t always understand or correctly apprehend people’s motivations in real life. But that doesn’t stop me from trying to figure out Shoba’s intentions behind at least a few of her otherwise unexplained actions.

I keep puzzling over one of my own discussion questions – was it too much of a coincidence that as soon as the lights came back on, Shoba told Shukumar that she was leaving? Yes, light and darkness may be symbols, as both Bennett and Matt have suggested. But perhaps the light and the darkness merely represent a deal of sorts that Shoba made with herself – a way of procrastinating and delaying the inevitable: “I’ll wait until the lights come back on, and then I’ll tell him.” It places her rather awful task at a set point in time – “five days” (1) – giving Shoba some form of control over something else – the power outage – that happens outside of her control.

That desire for control may explain a rather puzzling statement toward the end of the piece. Speaking of Shoba’s relief not to have known the baby’s gender, Lahiri writes, “In a way she almost took pride in her decision, for it enabled her to seek refuge in a mystery” (21). It’s a beautiful, poignant statement. But why would a woman who has a remarkable “capacity to think ahead” (6), and thus maintain control over whatever she can, and who is obsessed with details to the point that she writes down the days of “the first time they [she and Shukumar] had eaten [a] dish together” on the recipe cards (7) want to “seek refuge in a mystery” – in the unknown, in what can’t be controlled? Perhaps not knowing the baby’s gender allows Shoba to maintain even a little bit of control over a situation that completely didn’t go the way that she expected or wanted. Lahiri writes, “She had wanted it [the baby’s gender] to be a surprise” (21). In a weird sort of way, maybe the “refuge” that Shoba found in the “mystery” was that at least that part of the tragic situation went her way.

Isn't being Normal Overrated?

I have continued to think about David Sedaris' story, "Go Carolina," long after we ended our class discussion. It reminded me of a movie I watched last semester in Dr. Wenger's class about deaf culture called, The Sound and The Fury. In the movie, a deaf family is in the process of letting their daughter make the decision of whether or not to recieve a cochlear implant, a device that would allow her to hear and be able to communicate more effectively with the hearing world. The film showed their daughter's struggles away from the deaf community as she attempted to communicate with other "hearing" children her age--they knew verbal speech while she knew only sign language--a feat that proved to be nearly impossible because of the language barrier. However, the major basis of the movie was to recognize that there was nothing wrong with being deaf. Normal people see deafness as a debilitation, while the deaf see their culture as simply being another method of communication, like having their own language.

That same basis seems to be what Sedaris is trying to get across to the reader. While not deaf, Sedaris' ability of communication is not seen as "normal" because he has a lisp. The lisp is seen as his debilitation, something that is holding him back from being defined as "normal" amongst everyone else. After Sedaris tells Miss Samson that State and Carolina are colleges or universities, she replies, "Yes, you're right. Your answers are correct, but you're saying them incorrectly. You're telling me that they're collegeth and univerthitieth, when actually they're colleges and universities" (6). Sedaris also mentions that she considered "my speech impediment as a personal assult" (8). The adult attitude in the piece is that the lisp needs to be changed, it needs to be made normal, otherwise it will inevitably prevent Sedaris from living a happy, healthy life, right? He responds to this entire situation by trying to "avoid an s sound whenever possible," (11) suggesting to anyone with any sort of "disability" that he or she needs to be changed to fit an overall "normal" standard in a "normal" world. If they fail, then they will become outcasts destined to struggle with acceptance their entire life and become another societal statistic. Why is it so hard for people to accept difference, to create an unlimited definition of acceptance? Why is it so unethical for people to accept difference into normal culture? Is there ever a point when we can think that those we consider "disabled" can teach us something?

Funeral Rites in A Temporary Matter

I don't recall whether anyone made the argument in so many words that the death of Shoba and Shukumar's child is also the death of their relationship, but I think that certain details in the story which other people have discussed on the blog to date-- light and dark, the abundance of food, even the five day time period of the construction-- when viewed through the lens of ritualistic burial and mourning begin to make much more sense.
Because I don't think the gestures of mourning need to be culturally specific to be relevant in the story, what gave me the idea for this post is the custom of the Jewish Shiva-- a seven day period of mourning immediately following the burial (which almost immediately follows the death) of an Orthodox Jewish person. The immediate family gathers in the home of the deceased and receives visitors, usually bearing food and comfort for the bereaved, typically in silence. But other times sharing stories of the deceased. Visitors may only speak if spoken to.
What I find most compelling about this idea, is that it reframes the piece outside of Shukumar's limited point of view. His reveal of his experience with the body of their child provides the full circle closure of their time together and of the ritual exchange of bereavement. Like another poster said earlier-- more than one thing in this story turns out to be "a temporary matter."