Post 1: Mrs. Sen and No Name Woman

In Mrs. Sen and No Name Woman, i think that the best connection that could be made is the burden of the label "outcast". In No Name Woman, Kingston's aunt is not just humiliated for the adultery and the pregnancy that comes about her unknown relations but she is thoroughly punished. Her honor had been stripped from her by the villagers, her family considered her to be a ghost and in the end there is a family wide effort to make sure that her name, memory and existence are forgotten, but not the story of her shame. The representation that Kingston shows her aunt isn't even something that she feels completely comfortable with, she is sharing her story yet she shares her story as a precautionary tale, as something to show the fate of an outcast in the society which she lived. In Mrs. Sen, we see a similar story told by Lahiri. Although the label of "outcast" is not thrust upon her, she simply becomes one by being different than the people who she lived around. Being an outcast, not being able to take care of herself and ultimately her failure to integrate into the society that she was forced into by her circumstances caused her to break. Her inability to understand american culture, her frustration at her failed attempts to integrate into the new society and her love of her old life back in Calcutta where she fit in culminated in an emotional meltdown and a lack of proper judgement that led us to the end of the story where she crashes the car and locks herself in her room crying. Water is a very powerful symbol in these stories as well. The waves that receded at the end of Mrs. Sen's story and the well which Kingston's aunt drowned herself and her baby in, serve as reminders of the gift that mainstream society can give, and the pieces of ones life that it can take away, showing the risks that come with being an outcast.

Derrick Alma