“If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, it’s yours forever. If it doesn’t, then it was never meant to be” –Source unknown. To let someone that you love go, must be one of the hardest things to do. If you love someone, you want to have him/her really close to your heart. You never want to let them go again. It is really hard to let something go and see if it comes back. The sad part is that the quotation might be right. There is no other way to know that someone loves you unless you try to see if he/she will come back after you let him/her go. Sadly, most times the thing or the person is not coming back to you. This is what Sammy realizes in John Updike’s book, A&P, and Mr. Kapasi in Jhampa Lahiri’s book, Interpreter of Maladies. The music artist Bosson sings about the same thing in his song, You Opened My Heart. All three of these have the same them, the main character gets interested in the woman that walked in to their life but the woman is not interested of the main character. Then the woman changes her mind and gets interested of the main character before the woman walks out of the main character’s life again.
The main characters become interested in the women that walk into their lives, but the women do not feel the same way. The women walks in and the main characters sees how nice they look, but the women are not interested in him. The women just continue on with whatever they are doing. This is what Sammy gets to experience and he describes it like this, “She must have felt in the corner of her eye me and over my shoulder Stokesie in the second slot watching, but she didn’t tip” (Updike, page 410). Sammy would probably have been shaking so hard and been nervous about doing something wrong if the woman looked at him but now it was the opposite way. The woman was not nervous because she did not take more notice of him beside the fact that he looked at her. Even Mr. Kapasi finds a woman but the woman makes it clear from the beginning that she is not interested at all. It is just like it is written in the book, “… without displaying any interest in him” (Lahiri, page 44). She was not interested to look at him. There was nothing that would have excited her about him. He knew it from the beginning that there was nothing there between them even if he wanted there to be. Also in Bosson’s song is the same reaction from the girl. In his lyrics, he writes, “Yes, I have learnt from the things that you said” (Bosson, line 12). She was not interested of him. There was never going to be anything between them. All the stories start the same way which is with a woman who walks into the main character’s life. The women are crossing into the main characters regular life and the main characters start to dream about what could happen. All that the main characters want is to have a chance to get noticed by these women. The women are behaving as they are out of the main characters league and the main characters know that. The main characters keep dreaming about what could have been.
Then comes the change, the woman realized that there is a guy that they might be interested in and the girls make the contact. It is what everyone wants; to have a chance to meet the person that you like. It is clear in all the stories that it is the girl who is making the first contact maybe the woman is just leading them on but the main character does not care at that point. It is the woman that is walking up to the main character in both the two books and the song lyrics. Sammy got that chance to meet the female when, “... so the girls come to me” (Updike, page 412). The girl chose to go to him over the other cashiers. It was the best part of his day. He had a chance to talk to the girl who he liked. Also Mr. Kapasi gets to know that the girl is interested in him when she said, “No. Stay a minute” (Lahiri, page 61). She could not have been clearer about the fact that she wanted to talk to him. All he had to do was to wait because she had taken the first initiative to contact him. It was clear to everyone that she wanted to talk to him. Even Bosson know that this girl was interested in him when he sings, “That there’s a chance for a guy like me” (Bosson, line 2). He gets the same chance that Sammy and Mr. Kapasi get. He gets to talk and realizes that there might be a chance even for a guy like him. They got what they wanted, a chance to talk with the girl that they liked. During the time that they talked to the girl everything was good in the world. This is when the main characters realize that they maybe have a chance. The women start to take notice in the main characters. In both the book and the song it is the girl that is making the statement to let the main character know that there might be something between them.
After the main characters have the chance to talk to the women, the women disappears out of the main character’s life. As the women exit their life, the main characters see everything that they had hoped for disappearing with the women. All the stories end in the same way. It is up going and everything is good until the woman disappears out of their life again. The woman was not interested to see if there was going to be anything between them. She just wanted to get out and to go fast. It is what happens to Sammy thinks, “…the girls, and who’d blame them, are in a hurry to get out…” (Updike, page 413). The girl ran out of the store because she knows that there was no connection. Sammy left the store a few seconds later but the girl was nowhere to be found when he came outside the store. . Even Mr. Kapasi realized that there are not going to anything more between him and the woman. Mr. Kapasi knew that there is not going to be anything more between them when he sees, “…the slip of paper with [his] address on it [fluttering] away in the wind” (Lahiri, page 69). He had been dreaming about the fact that they were going to write to each other and explain their days. They were going to become really good friends. When he sees the paper with his address disappear in the wind, he knows that there is not going to be any contact between them. The woman does not have his address so she cannot contact him. It must be really hard for people to see that something you were hoping for is not going to happen. Also Bosson sings the same thing in his song, “Now you’re gone and though it hurts to know you’re with someone new” (Bosson, line 37-38). He knows that he had the change but he missed it. The woman in the lyric has moved on without him. The woman did not stay to see what could have happened with his. The top of the story line was when the women appeared to be interested in the women and after that it went back down again. In both the books and the song after the meeting with the women they all left the main characters lives again. As the women left them it was the end of the story. There was nothing more in the connection between them.
The story line in all these stories is the same that the woman walks in and out of the main character’s life. All the three main characters get to experience this effect. We all know that it is hard to find the right person and this is what Sammy, Mr. Kapasi and Bosson got to experience. To find the right person takes a lot of time and effort and even if you feel like you found someone that you like, the feeling might not be shared with the other person. All the stories showed the same thing. They each found the girl that they liked but she did not have any interest in any one of them. Then comes the part when she realizes that they are interested in her, and she starts to pay them some attention. Some girl might just do this because it is fun for them to get the attention but some might actually see if they like the guy and if there is something there. Sadly, if the girl does not have any more interest in them, the girl is going to disappear out of their life again. You just have to continue to meet more and more girls everyday and hope that one day, when you let her go, that she will come back to you. If she does come back to you, you know that it is your real love that you have found.
WORK CITED PAGE
Booth, Alison and Mays, Kelly J.. The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2011. 409-414. Print.
Professor , Brady. "Interpreter of maladies ."http://literatureforthesoul.blogspot.com/. n. d. Web. 31 Oct. 2011. <http://mherzog.pbworks.com/f/Interpreter of Maladies.pdf>.
Inga kommentarer:
Skicka en kommentar