28 September 2018 Moving to a new country can be a difficult transition for anyone. Many problems can arise for most people. One might struggle to learn a new language, laws, rules, or social norms. In “Mrs. Sen’s,” a short story, written by Jhumpa Lahiri, Mrs. Sen struggles to obtain a sense of empowerment. Mrs. Sen is an Indian woman from Calcutta who moved to the United States with her husband who was in search of a better job.
Her husband, Mr. Sen, is a mathematics professor at a University, while Mrs. Sen sits at home with no friends, no job, no license, and no purpose. From the beginning, you can tell that Mrs. Sen is struggling to find a sense of empowerment through her flyer attempting to find a job as a babysitter. When Eliot’s mother comes across this flyer, Mrs. Sen was finally given something to look forward to. Eliot’s mother hired her as Eliot’s new babysitter.
The story overall works as a wonderful insight into the life of someone you may judge too quickly. Before reading this story, I had never thought about the struggles of an immigrant trying to make it in a new country. There is much more to the transition than meets the eye. Mrs. Sen often struggles with loneliness and isolation. These feelings affect her by making her feel small and in this way she is powerless. In the story, as Mrs. Sen prepared the dinner, she asked Eliot, “If I began to scream right now at the top of my lungs, would someone come?” I found this quote to be very thought-provoking. In the United States, independence is everything to our citizens. While independence is advantageous in some ways, in other ways I believe it might encourage that feeling of loneliness and the struggle to feel that sense of belonging that Mrs. Sen is experiencing.
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Mrs. Sen often compares her current house to her hometown back in Calcutta, India. She frequently points to the fact that where she lives now is uncomfortable compared to Calcutta. People from Mrs. Sen’s hometown are very open, caring, expressive, and present people. They all are very friendly people who do not keep to themselves as most people here in the United States might. It is clear that Mrs. Sen is really missing this aspect of her home.
Mrs. Sen tends to experience a loss of power when she is confronted for something she might have done wrong. When this happens, her English tends to struggle a lot, and she begins to lose her sense of belonging, her power, and her confidence. For instance, on page 133, while on the bus ride home from picking up fish, Eliot and Mrs. Sen are called out to by the bus driver after an old woman makes a complaint to the driver.
When the bus driver turns to them and asks Mrs. Sen “What’s in the bag?’ She goes silent. She becomes startled and tenses up, and he questions her ability to speak the language even though, Mrs. Sen speaks English rather fluently. Eventually, she tells the driver that she has a fish in her bag. The bus driver proceeds to suggest to Eliot that he should open her window. By asking Eliot, an eleven-year-old boy, to do something for Mrs. Sen, a grown woman, is another way that she has her power taken from her. By doing this the bus driver is strongly condescending her. Again, making her feel small and powerless.
As well as when she becomes overwhelmed, Mrs. Sen also tends to experience a loss of power when she gets nervous and overwhelmed. For instance, on page 121, while she and Eliot are driving, she becomes very tense as they begin to approach the main road, the road Mrs. Sen is not allowed to practice drive on without the presence of Mr. Sen. Eliot attempts to help her, but to no avail. As she attempts to understand how she may get on the main road, no one slows down to let her over. She becomes frustrated, and she loses her control and therefore loses her power. She shouts out “Everyone, this people, too much in their world!”
I believe this indicates that she feels the people of the U.S. are running from place to place never stopping to smell the roses and taking their time to think of the other people that surround them. Everyone is rushing from place to place trying to beat traffic, not be late for work, or to stick to the rigid schedule that will build them up for success and power one day. Most people in the U.S. are in constant competition with the other to see who will get the pay raise, who will get married first, who will get the job, or who has the nicest car. Everyone is trying to gain power over one another, thus taking away from Mrs. Sen’s power. Mrs. Sen doesn’t have many options like everyone else to gain power, so she must resort to other means of gaining power.
Although Mrs. Sen has her power taken from her many times throughout the story, she does have two sources of power that no one can take away: her blade and her hand-eye coordination. During the times that Mrs. Sen babysits Eliot, she often sits on the floor of the living room with the television on, chopping up vegetables and meats with her curved blade that she brought with her from India.
To keep Eliot safe she always requests that Eliot sit patiently on the couch and wait for her to be done until he can get up and move again. While watching Mrs. Sen chop up her foods, Eliot becomes intrigued with how she is always able to keep an eye on the television and an eye on him, but never seems to keep an eye on the blade. Although she has trouble speaking English in moments of frustration or trouble learning the ways of the road, she never makes a mistake when handling such a superb blade. Her chops never miss a beat. This is her superpower. Through her blade, she gains her power back.
I feel the story of “Mrs. Sen” is very interesting and wonderfully written. I really enjoyed how descriptive she was. She set every scene so perfectly detailed that I felt as though I was right there in the room with Eliot and Mrs. Sen. I very much appreciate how this story tackles the power struggle that many immigrants face, not just those coming to The United States, but immigrants everywhere. It is never an easy transition when someone has to put aside everything they’ve known or everything they’ve been taught and have to learn a whole new set of rules, language, customs, and traditions. This book provided a deeper look into these struggles that many people are experiencing or have experienced.
