Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story “A Temporary Matter” explores grief, regret and resentment in a young married couple, navigating the loss of their child. The story explores themes like communication in relationships, grief, alienation and trauma.
A Temporary Matter | Summary
A Temporary Matter begins with the news of a temporary power outage caused by a storm that Shoba reads out to Shukumar. Shukumar, who was cooking, notifies her that the food won’t be ready until the power outage, and they decide to have their dinner at candlelight. Readers are told that the couple had lost their child( who was stillborn) just six months ago. Shukumar had left for a conference at his wife’s insistence when there were a few weeks till her due date, but she went into early labour and delivered a stillborn. The couple have not been the same since.
Now, Shoba drowns herself in work and stays away from home, while Shukumar despises the idea of leaving his home, even to the mailbox. Shoba, who used to plan ahead all the time, filling the house with groceries and keeping extra essentials in case of a surprise guest, has now given up on all of those. She has given up on cleaning, cooking, and, more importantly, planning for the days to come. Their interactions have now dwindled down to necessary talk, and her coming to tell him not to work too hard, which he always thought was forced. He would spend time in the room they had decorated for the baby’s arrival, knowing that she did not like coming there to avoid her. Unable to find candles in their home, Shukumar brings out birthday candles.
While eating in silence, Shoba remarks how when she was at her grandparents’ house, they used to talk about things while eating, jokes, trivia and the like. She suggests they do something similar and tell each other things they haven’t told each other before. She shares how she peeked into his address book to find out if he had noted her address when they were just a few weeks into knowing each other. Shukumar tells her how, on their first date, he had forgotten to tip the waiter and returned to the hotel the next day to tip him.
The next day, Shoba seemed more enthusiastic about dinner as she took out the plates. Shukumar too realised how he too was looking forward to the darkness they dined in. That day, they sat outside, and they were invited by a couple nearby to go browse for books, but they declined the offer using the same words. She started off by telling him how she went out drinking with a male friend when his mother had come over, after lying to them about work. He tells her about how he cheated on his Oriental Civilisation exam during college, which happened a few months after his father’s death. They see the Bradfords walking back with ice cream, the two couples wave at each other, and Shukumar and Shoba walk in holding each other’s hands.
In the next two days, they shared deeper secrets with each other, with him telling her about how he sold the vest that he got as an anniversary gift and how when she was pregnant how once tore the picture of a woman from a magazine and with her telling him how once she let him speak to the chairman of his department with a dab of food on his chin and how she did not like the only poem that he could get published. Apart from that, the two grew closer with each passing day sharing their secrets and telling each other “— the little ways they’d hurt or disappointed each other, and themselves.” On the third day, they sat on the sofa and kissed each other awkwardly on the forehead and face, and on the fourth they spent more intimate time with each other sleeping in each other’s arms even before the light came downstairs.
On the fifth day, they were notified that the issue was fixed, much to the disappointment of Shukumar. Shoba tells him that they can still eat in the candlelight. That day, they ate in silence. Shoba tells him that she is planning on moving out after the light is turned on. Shukumar told her in vivid detail what their dead baby looked like and his gender, knowing full well how she wouldn’t have wanted to know that. The lights are turned off as they cry in silence over the things that they know now.
A Temporary Matter | ANALYSIS
The story is framed between the few days of the power outage that the couple goes through and the interactions that happen then. We are told of the circumstances around the birth of their stillborn baby. Shukumar, since he wasn’t there when the delivery happened, feels as if he has lost all right to grieve the loss. This feeling is only amplified by his mother-in-law’s words, which were made to hurt, when she reminded him how he wasn’t there. It’s all these feelings that lead him to stay inside his house and lose his will to work; he is depressed. Shoba tries to forget her pain by completely overworking herself and staying away from home. Shukumar remembers how one of the prominent traits of his wife was her propensity to plan and be prepared for surprises. She used to fill their house with different types of pasta and food items, always kept an extra toothbrush just in case someone came over, always planned and prepared, she also loved to cook and used to cook food for her friends.
After the traumatic incident, she changed completely, losing all her desire to plan. After all, what is the point of planning when life is all so fleeting? When Shukumar takes up cooking duties, he is expressing his love for her and his willingness to work things out. Cooking for him was a means to express intimacy, which can be deduced by how upset he was at getting a sweater-vest for his anniversary when the first-anniversary gift was a feast that his wife cooked for him. His keen attention when it comes to her also speaks to his love for her.
While opening up to each other’s feelings, being intimate and making love to each other, Sukumar was under the impression that they were working things out to better their relationship, while Shoba had the intention of getting closure and moving on from what they had. In the end, after Shoba reveals her intentions, Shukumar retaliates by telling her the gender of the baby, revealing how he had held the corpse of their child before it was cremated, it was after this back and forth that they, for the first time after the incident, cry together in the darkness, ending the story with an open ending, revealing the rekindled connection and the desire to move on at the same time.
We also get to know how her mother and Shukumar do not have an amicable relationship; their interactions are cordial and too formal. When she tells him that he wasn’t there for the delivery, it shows a certain amount of disregard for his feelings.
A Temporary Matter | LITERARY TECHNIQUES
The story is told from the perspective of a third-person limited omniscient narrator who follows Shukumar, retelling his thoughts and experiences as we move through the story. This style helps us to explore their relationship through his perspective allowing us to witness the depth of his feelings for her, telling us his hopes and desires building the warmth throughout the story till the last paragraphs where Shoba’s true intentions are revealed to us, here the readers are shocked with Shukumar letting us feel confused and disoriented with him.
The story also engages in symbolism primarily in the forms of food and darkness.
Food in the story becomes a symbol of love and enthusiasm for the couple. We are told of how excited Shoba was about cooking for her husband and friends; her first-anniversary gift for him was a ten-course meal, and when she abandons all that, it shows their waning connection, grief and loss of hope. Their connection is rekindled through food and mealtime.
Darkness becomes a symbol of comfort and communication among the couple; unlike how darkness is usually used to conceal and deceive, here, it becomes a stage for truth and honest expression, setting the stage for intimacy and conversation. It is also important to note how the story begins on the day that the lights go off and ends on the day when the lights finally return. Even after the lights have returned, the couple elect to emote in the dark as they weep together about the things they now know.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jhumpa Lahiri is an American writer well known for her short stories that explore the immigrant experience, having herself been of Indian descent, born in Britain and immigrating to America at a young age with her parents. She has won several awards for her writing, one of them being the Pulitzer Prize for her work” Interpreter of Maladies”; other notable works include “The Namesake”, “The Lowland”, “Unaccustomed Earth”, among others.
