When Mrs. Das comments on Mr. Kapasi’s responsibilities as an interpreter of maladies (paragraph 74), her remarks underline the importance of subjective perceptions. People don’t usually change in the space of an afternoon, but our perceptions of them may shift profoundly, especially if we don’t know them very well. How would you characterize and describe the separate stages of Mr
Kapasi’s evolving feelings about Mrs. Das?
What will be an ideal response?
- Through the first part of the story, Mr.
Kapasi’s impressions of Mrs. Das are, if not exactly contemptuous, then certainly condescending. He seems to see her as somewhat inappropriately dressed, and he notices that she is indifferent and a bit sullen, more interested in applying her nail polish than in observing the sights or even controlling her daughter’s behavior. The first real shift in his view of her comes when she describes his job as an interpreter of maladies as “so romantic” (par. 61); not insignificantly, two paragraphs later he bites into the piece of gum she has offered him and “a thick sweet liquid burst onto his tongue”: she has already provided him, as it were, with a taste of life’s possibilities. By paragraph 79, he is flattered by her interest in his job and stirred by her use of the word “romantic” in connection with him; from that point, he builds an increasingly detailed fantasy of two soul mates, each trapped in a sterile marriage, who will ultimately reconnect and bond with one another, a bond that in his mind grows from friendship and shared amusements to incorporate, by paragraph 99, at least the hint of a physical dimension. In his loneliness he has fastened on her as his salvation from a life that he now regards as empty and sterile. After she tells him the story of Bobby’s conception, his feelings toward her begin, at paragraph 145, to take a very different and decisive turn.
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Match the terms in Column 1 and Column 2.
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In Tübingen, a tourist would most likely not see . . .
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