Mr. Kapasi as a Narrator-Agent: Perspective in "Interpreter of Maladies" Sara Manlowe College

The narrator of Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies is someone Wayne Booth would categorize under the heading of ‘narrator-agent,’ because while Kapasi does function as an observer to the events of the story, he is rendered a narrator-agent specifically due to his ability to ‘produce some measurable effect on the outcome of events’ (Booth, 153-154). This categorization - this role of heightened observer, whose observing gives him a measure of distance from the other characters while also enabling him to interact with them on a story-wide level - is defined by the various roles Kapasi plays, and is asked to play, over the course of Interpreter of Maladies. He is a driver, an actual interpreter of maladies for patients at a doctor’s office, and, finally, an interpreter of Mrs. Das’s maladies upon her behest. These roles serve as lenses through which Lahiri’s choice of Kapasi’s perspective, in particular, allows her to comment upon this story’s central question: is it truly possible to interpret another person’s maladies? To what extent is understanding someone’s maladies akin to understanding them as a person, and is that truly possible? The ending of this story would suggest that the answer is an extremely fraught ‘maybe.’

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