Many people
experience situations in which they feel that life gets in the way of living.
People often have to make momentous decisions that can impact their life
drastically and result in a negative or positive manner. Life gets in the way of living is a theme
exemplified in Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story Interpreter
of Maladies in which the character Mr. Kapasi allows the reader to
understand how various events in his life have allowed him to believe that you
must sacrifice your ambitions to provide for your family. The girl in Ernest
Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants
comes to a crossroad in her life where she’s forced to make a life decision
that can alter her and the American man’s life forever. In the movie Pursuit of Happyness, Chris Gardner is
faced with many life-changing decisions in which he must fight for an unpaid
stockbroker internship position with no money or a wife as he strives to give
himself and most importantly his son, a better life and a better way of living.
The two works of literature, Interpreter
of Maladies and Hills Like White
Elephants as well as the movie Pursuit
of Happyness all depict how sometimes life can get in the way of living and
how other’s don’t let life get in the way of living.
Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story, Interpreter of Maladies, eloquently
demonstrates how responsibility and duty to your family triumphs over
responsibility to self; therefore sometimes allowing us to believe that life
can get in the way of living. Throughout the short story we are exposed to
different cultures at play. Mr. Kapasi represents the Indian Culture as we see
how he does everything he can to put bread on the table for his family. In Mr.
Kapasi’s case, life gets in the way of living when he is practically forced to
give up his dream of becoming an interpreter for diplomats and dignitaries in
order to please his family as well as later on provide for his own family. Mr.
Kapasi “had dreamed of… resolving conflicts between people and nations,
settling disputes of which he alone could understand both sides” (Lahiri 18).
He was a “self-educated” man in many languages, before his parents had arranged
his marriage he would list common origins of words and at one point felt
confident enough that he could converse in English, French, Russian,
Portuguese, and Italian, as well as Hindi, Bengali, Orissi, and Gujarati.
Unfortunately, Mr. Kapasi was forced to give up his dream job and work as a
tour guide and an interpreter for a doctor in order to pay the medical bills of
his son who has “contracted typhoid” (Lahiri 18). Unlike a feminist culture,
India has a masculine culture where the man goes out to work and the wife stays
home to tend and care for the children, leaving Mr. Kapasi with no other choice
but to inadvertently neglect and abandon his dream job. In the words of Lahiri,
Mr. Kapasi’s job as an interpreter of a doctor “was a sign of his failings”. We
have all had to sacrifice things in order to continue living, but many people
would argue that the life one lives isn’t really living unless you’re doing
something you truly love to do. Unlike an American culture, Mr. Kapasi does not
have an alternative for he must work and must endeavor to provide for his
family. He feels his failures in life have stemmed from unsatisfying his own
wants and needs in order to satisfy those of his families’. Unfortunately,
sometimes life can be a burden that deters us from fulfilling our heart’s
desire.
In comparison to Lahiri’s short
story, Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like
White Elephants also delineates how the complexity of abortion, life, can
get in the way of living. During the 1920’s abortion was illegal and “back-alley
abortions” were well known procedures to women who needed abortions and had no
choice but to get them from illegal practitioners. Throughout the story we see
how the American man and the girl whom he calls Jig, interact. It is evident
that their relationship will not be the same whether she decides to get the
abortion or not. When the American man is trying to convince the girl to have
the abortion he explicitly shows how the unborn child is getting in the way of
their life and relationship when he says, “That’s the only thing that bothers
us. It is the only thing that’s made us unhappy” (Hemingway 116). The American man
tries to tell the girl that he only wants to proceed with the procedure if she
wants to, but the girl feels pressured for she believes that if she commits to
the abortion everything in their relationship will go back to the way it was,
happy and stable. The girl’s indecisive personality gets the best of her when
she goes back and forth on whether her and the American man can “have
everything” once the procedure is performed (Hemingway 117). When the girl
refers to having “everything” she is establishing that once she aborts the baby
her responsibility to self and to fulfill her desire to give birth to the baby
is lost. The girl is shattered by the complexity of the situation. On one side
she see’s white elephants, which represents life and the child if it is not
aborted, but on the other side she see’s dry “fields of grains and trees” which
represents her womb once the baby is aborted (Hemingway 117). On the other
hand, the American man sees the abortion as a solution to their unsteady
relationship problems. The American man feels that if the girl, Jig, does not
abort the baby he is going to lose his freedom, entitlement to self
responsibility and his “everything” will vanish. The girl continues to show her
indefinite decision over the abortion when she says to the American man that
they can’t go anywhere, for it isn’t there’s anymore, “once they take it away,
you never get it back.” This remark also symbolizes the relationship the
American man and the girl share, it is evident that the circumstances that they
are in will alter their lives forever and therefore get in the way of their
relationship and more importantly, living.
On the contrary, the film Pursuit Of Happyness, directed by
Italian director Gabriele Muccino, eloquently highlights how the protagonist
Chris Gardner does not let life obstacles get in the way of living. In the
beginning of the movie we see that the protagonist Chris Gardner invests the
family savings in Osteo National bone-density scanners. Unfortunately, Chris
has poor luck selling his product and his aspiration ends up breaking the
family apart and brings troubles to his relationship with his wife. But Chris
does not cease at these impediments; he continues to strive as he tries to find
a job in order to feed himself and his son as well as to keep his son safe. This
film profoundly depicts how the protagonist does not let life get in the way of
living when we see that him and his son are evicted from their home and are
forced to sleep in the bathroom of a train station. It is clearly not the way
Chris wants him or his son to live so he does everything in his power to
surpass the life they currently live to a more comfortable and suitable life
style. At times when Chris feels his body and soul is giving up he still finds
motivation and strength within himself to continue his journey to live an
enjoyable life. The most inspiring scene throughout the film is when Chris
Gardner says to his son:
Don’t
ever let someone tell you that you can’t do something. Not even me. You got a
dream, you got to protect it. When people can’t do something themselves,
they’re going to tell you that you can’t do it. You want something, go get it.
Period. (Pursuit of Happyness)
Not only does
he encourage himself to strive, but he also emboldens his son to pursue his
dreams. Chris Gardner is seen several times throughout the movie rushing to his
internship and rushing to pick up his son from daycare. He does not let
responsibility to self and to his family get in the way of living, he learns to
balance them in order to fulfill his own dreams and to help his son attain his
aspirations. Chris Gardner does everything he can to provide for his family and
successfully overcomes barriers thrown at him in life, never allowing life to
get in the way of living.
Both works of literature and the
film depict how responsibilities in life can sometimes get in the way of living
and most of the time it is out of our control. In Interpreter of Maladies Mr. Kapasi feels that his responsibilities
to his family plays a much vital role in life than his own ambitions. Hills Like White Elephants reveals that
the birth and life of another human being and becoming a parent is a
responsibility that could alter one’s life forever and sometimes get in the way
of living. The film Pursuit of Happyness
is the exception to the theme in that it inspires people to overcome strenuous
obstacles in life in order to keep living. Life may be our
birthright but living is what we do after we are born. Live the best you can
because you'll always have opportunities to learn and grow.
Works Cited
Lahiri,
Jhumpa. "Interpreter Of Maladies." The Norton Introduction to
Literature. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. 12-29. Print.
Hemingway,
Ernest. “Hills Like White Elephants.” The Norton Introduction to Literature.
New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. 114-118. Print.
Pursuit
of Happyness. Dir. Gabriele Muccino. Perf. Will Smith. Columbia
Pictures, 2006. Film.
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