Maureen Guy ’22
Analysis: “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine”
“This assignment is what I call a ‘passage selection.’ Students pick any length excerpt from the assigned reading and react in a page or two. They transcribe their chosen excerpt at the top of the page, and then they get into their reaction. Some students pick a sentence or two, and some choose a longer excerpt; it’s up to them. They are encouraged to engage deeply with the excerpt, and to try to tie it to any themes that they notice in the text. These assignments take place before we’ve had any discussion of the reading in class, so the students are reacting honestly and personally, and without the benefit of any explication from me or impressions from their classmates.”
Excerpt: “After Dora and I had sorted through our plunder, and counted and sampled and traded until we were satisfied, her mother drove me back to my house. I thanked her for the ride, and she waited in the driveway until I made it to the door. In the glare of her headlights I saw that our pumpkin had been shattered, its thick shell strewn in chunks across the grass. I felt the sting of tears in my eyes, and a sudden pain in my throat, as if it had been stuffed with the sharp tiny pebbles that crunched with each step under my aching feet. I opened the door, expecting the three of them to be standing in the foyer, waiting to receive me, and to grieve for our ruined pumpkin, but there was no one. In the living room Mr. Pirzada, my father, and mother were sitting side by side on the sofa. The television was turned off, and Mr. Pirzada had his head in his hands” (Lahiri 40).
Removing the Masks
The decision to include a holiday as prominent in its disguises as Halloween proves to be a captivating and metaphorical choice by Lahiri. From Mr. Pirzada’s optimistic demeanor (despite an ongoing civil war in his home country and his own family being thousands of miles away) to her mother’s desperation to keep Lilia protected from the hardships of cultural change and assimilation she has navigated, there are an overwhelming number of facades in Lilia’s life. Throughout the story, the reader sees different characters make choices to shelter Lilia from reality—through a metaphor of costumes and candy, Lahiri highlights all of the spectacles put on to celebrate Halloween, creating the perfect symbol for the conflicting ideas and chaos that ultimately surround Lilia.
The choice to create such a focus on Halloween stems directly from the aforementioned pretenses kept by the adults in Lilia’s life. The reality of bomb scares and fallen friends is hidden from Lilia like a prepubescent child running around the street screaming “boo,” with a sheet covering their eyes; what they both lack in perception about the future is a problem for another day. In addition to costumes and disguises, Halloween is known for candy. Buckets full of Reese’s and Hershey’s seem like a good idea in the glowing eyes of a child, until the sugar-fueled stomachache inevitably hits. This is not Lahiri’s first mention of candy. She uses repetition to emphasize Mr. Pirzada giving Lilia cinnamon heart candy. As with the post-Halloween stomachache, a bittersweet notion is associated with the cinnamon candy. The sting of the cinnamon masked by the sugary delicacy aligns perfectly with the symbolism behind the usage of Halloween.
Not only does the symbolism behind the cinnamon heart candy correlate with the author’s inclusion of Halloween, it also alludes to Mr. Pirzada’s situation; the family and friends left behind as his home country crumbles amid brutal war are constantly plaguing his thoughts. The physical distance between him and his loved ones propels the anxieties intuitive to humanity during wartime. Despite his efforts to remain optimistic in the presence of Lilia, his world is crumbling around him. In the last moments of the passage, his guard is down. His head is in his hand, television off, embracing the somber moment while Mr. Pirzada and Lilia’s parents are unaware of her presence (Lahiri 40). How fitting that while the roles are reversed and Lilia is dressed up to celebrate Halloween, her family and Mr. Pirzada embrace the gravity of the situation surrounding themselves.
Mr. Pirzada is not the only one that falls privy to hiding reality from Lilia. Lilia’s mother tries to shield Lilia from the horrors of the world by dousing her in American culture. Lilia’s mother allows herself to slip into the role of an American; from her hair to her mannerisms, she hides her origins from those around her. Like a person visiting the salon to cover the gray in his, her, or their hair, Lilia’s mom hides her roots to shield Lilia from the horrors of the rest of the world. In an attempt to create a better life for Lilia, she has managed to submerge her in privilege and create a façade towards even her own daughter.
The costume of Americanization is not solely applied to Lilia; Lilia’s mother shields herself from her past by attempting to assimilate into the culture surrounding her. She interprets the change from her native country as safe, and seeks out the white picket fence that is so often idealized in the American dream. By allowing herself to be enchanted by the idea of the culture, she protects herself and Lilia from the truth of her experiences and allows herself to fall privy to the false sense of security based on the cultural shift.
In a similar vein, Lahiri’s decision to explore Halloween metaphorically is deliberate from a cultural perspective. What started off as a Mexican holiday to honor the deceased through festivities, food, and drink has turned into an Americanized shell of what it was. Meaning is replaced with costumes and candy while the history and culture of the holiday is altogether forgotten. This is almost a metaphor for the dynamic between Lilia’s mother and father. Throughout the story, they struggle to find the balance between heritage and home, with Lilia ending up right in the middle. Lilia’s father wants her to be able to learn about the struggles behind her family’s history and Mr. Pirzada’s visits while Lilia’s mother wants to allow her to immerse herself in the American culture, and embrace all of the opportunities that present themselves. While neither perspective is necessarily right or wrong, perhaps just like with Halloween, there is a time and place for the mask of America that her mother puts on, and a time to take the mask off for the lessons and wisdom that her father can provide. Ultimately, at the end of the day Halloween ends and reality sets in, just like the television being off at the end of the passage.
Lahiri powerfully expresses an end to the upheld pretenses that weave through the story with the destruction of the pumpkin. The pumpkin morphs into a symbol of the struggle to keep the masquerade of assimilation up around Lilia. Nothing is more Americanized than putting out a jack-o-lantern to celebrate a holiday ripped from the hands of another culture to proclaim as its own. In the culmination of the passage, we can tie the end of Halloween and the destruction of the pumpkin to the solemness in the room when Lilia sees her parents and Mr. Pirzada sit in silence and fear of the unknown. Mr. Pirzada’s world is being torn down and there is no amount of pretending that can shield any of the characters from that harsh reality.
Lahiri artfully and seamlessly weaves symbolism throughout the story of Mr. Pirzada, allowing subtlety to speak for her; she ingrains every sentence with deliberate consciousness and tells a heart-wrenching story of trying to maintain innocence in the face of uncertainty and cultural distress. From her mother trying to shield her from the world, to her father trying to get her to understand her privilege, Lilia slowly watches the pretenses around her unravel, on a fitting night, Halloween.
Works Cited
Lahiri, Jhumpa. “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine.” Interpreter of Maladies, Houghton Mifflin, 1999, pp. 23-42.