Judith Cofer and Jhumpa Lahiri: comparative literary analysis

Oppression

Themes of Oppression in the Modern Short Story: The Works of Judith Cofer and Jhumpa Lahiri

The theme of oppression, both in highly literal and external sense and in the concept of personal and internal entrapment, has long been a theme in the literature of the world. The feeling of not being able or permitted to experience true freedom is something that resonates universally, with every individual in every time period and culture; for a variety of psychological, emotional, historical, and political reasons, everyone has experienced some form of oppression at some point in their lives. Two modern short story authors in whose work the theme of oppression shows up quite frequently in situations and circumstances both similar and different are Judith Cofer and Jhumpa Lahiri. In Cofer's "Catch the Moon," a troubled teenage boy from the barrio feels oppressed by his father, by society in the form of juvenile hall and a judge, and by his grief over the loss of his mother. Lahiri's "Hell-Heaven" depicts an even more subtle and pervasive cultural and familial oppression, where characters find both liberation and limitation in their culture and relationships. Though these views of oppression are different, however, they show many similarities in the way oppression is created and perceived.

The action of "Catch the Moon" unfolds in a single day, in which Luis Cintron goes from resenting his recent release from juvenile hall that placed him in "slave labor" to his father at his junkyard, to grieving for his mother and even finding love. While washing a large hill of hubcaps, a young woman drives up and asks for a specific and difficult matching hubcap for her car. Luis is struck by her beauty, but does not relish the task of finding the hubcap until later in the story. The girl identifies herself as Naomi, Ramirez, the daughter of the couple that runs the funeral home where Luis' mother's funeral was held, and driving aimlessly that night Luis finds himself headed towards the funeral home, where he begins to weep over the loss of his mother. Naomi sees him and shows a sketch he has been making, which inspires Luis to immediately go and find the hubcap that Naomi wanted, heralding a change in his sentiments and a new direction in his life.

"Hell-Heaven" is longer both in its time span and the length of the text, but the essential elements of the plot revolve around the narrator's mother and the non-affair with a man that has far more in common with her than does her husband. Over the years, a relationship with this adopted "uncle" grows, and is suddenly terminated when he turns his back on the Bengali world and marries an American woman. The mother in the story is both happy for the him and jealous of his American bride, and all the while she remains faithfully married to a partner and a life that brings her no real joy or freedom. At the end of the story, the narrator learns that her mother had nearly killed herself over the loss of the man she loved but chose her family instead, signaling that she had also been oppressed by her own desire.

The oppression that is seen in "Catch the Moon" comes in two main forms. The first is a societal oppression, which is exemplified in Luis' previous incarceration for a breaking and entering charge, as well as his early release for six months of free labor in his father's junkyard at the order of a judge. Mostly, however, both Luis and his father are trapped in their grief for Luis' mother, which has caused Luis to start acting out for attention, and which has caused his father to lapse into a sedentary and unchanging mode of existence. A description of the way Luis' father polishes their utensils ends with the observation that now they "were just kept in the cabinets that his father had turned into a museum for her" (Cofer). There is a sense that nothing changes and that there is no excitement or real purpose in Luis' life, which is what causes him to borrow the car and go for a drive on the night of the story -- a much tamer activity than those he gets up to with his gang. This shows that Luis is already beginning to find his path to liberation from his oppression; he no longer depends on the attitudes and admiration of his gang to have a sense of himself. His connection with Naomi and his self-directed purpose that come at the end of the story, especially following his outpouring of grief, signal his growing freedom.

The arc of oppression and liberation is not so clear in Lahiri's "Heaven-Hell." The oppression most definitely exists, but is lurks underneath the surface of what appears to be a moderately happy life for both the narrator and the narrator's mother. They are Bengali and living in England, and for the mother especially there is a sense of cultural oppression as she was married to a much older man -- the narrator's father -- in an arranged union and remains faithful to him despite the fact that they have nothing in common. At the same time, however, the mother seems to belong in her culture, and disapproves of her daughter's tendencies to act like her English friends -- and her attraction to English boys. Even the method of committing suicide that the narrator's mother contemplates, setting herself on fire in a carefully and tightly pinned sari, reflects the culture that is the mother's heritage and bondage. This act, though abandoned, is one of both freedom in that it liberates the mother from the life she is trapped in with her husband, and of oppression in that it will painfully end her life in a manner that is both physically and symbolically oppressive.