When reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story “Sexy,” I felt like I was reading the collection Self-Help by Lorrie Moore. Moore is renowned for her main female characters, often known as “Lorrie Moore women.” Miranda, the main character of “Sexy,” fits the description of a Lorrie Moore woman almost perfectly.
In terms of setting, Miranda’s story takes place in Boston, an urban area on the east coast. Lorrie Moore’s characters also live in similar locations, such as New York City. Like Lorrie Moore’s characters, Miranda has a fine, but relatively dull job working at a radio station soliciting pledges. The job doesn’t seem to excite Miranda, and there doesn’t seem to be much opportunity for upward mobility or growth. Female narrators in Self Help also often struggle with self-confidence issues, such as the overweight mother in “To Fill.” Miranda, while relatively confident, still has her focalized narration describe her facial features as having “a narrow, egg-shaped head that rose to a prominent point. Her features, too, were narrow, with nostrils so slim that they appeared to have been pinched with a clothespin” (87). Her lack of confidence is also reflected when she goes to the Indian grocery to see if Dev’s wife is beatiful (99). Finally, Lorrie Moore women are characterized by their “cute meets” with men, such as meeting at a bus stop in big coats on a pea-soupy night in Moore’s “How to be an Other Woman.” Seemingly taken out of a romantic comedy, Miranda and Dev meet at a makeup counter where they both go out of their way to talk to each other (87).
Importantly, both Lorrie Moore women and Miranda do morally questionable things. For example, many of the Self-Help stories surround stealing or infidelity. Similarly, Miranda engages in a relationship with a married man. Although she does break it off in the end, for the majority of the story, Miranda tries to not think about the wife and how the cheating affects her. This could objectively make Miranda seem like a horrible person, but, like Lorrie Moore women, we get the story focalized through her perspective, so we are much more understanding and thoughtful about her situation. Learning about Miranda’s backstory and loneliness makes it very difficult to judge her for her actions, just like the Lorrie Moore women in Self-Help.
I too saw the connection between Miranda in Lahiri's story to a Loorie Moore woman. For the most part, I saw the women as relatively the same, but I had different opinions on the men. In Moore's stories, I definitely saw the man as a womanizing character, someone who I didn't really like. But, in Lahiri's story, I could the good in Dev. He seems less manipulative and more understanding of Miranda. He's there when she needs him, and backs off when she doesn't. Even though this is a terrible situation to be in, I could see the good in Dev.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Zina! This story also reminded me of "How to be an Other Woman." While Moore uses the second person point of view and Lahiri chooses to use the third, I could still sympathize with Miranda. I personally preferred the third person point of view, but in both stories I found it difficult to judge the main character too harshly.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I think that Lahiri doesn't incorporate as much humor in her stories as Moore does, though. Her stories, for the most part, seem more serious. But both of them succeed in making their "other women" sympathetic. They show that while it's easy to make assumptions and judgements, we never really know how affairs begin or go down.
ReplyDeleteWhen reading this story the first time, I actually failed to make the comparison between Miranda and the typical Lorrie Moore character. I was so wrapped up in Lahiri's stories revolving around India and themes such as nostalgia that I simply didn't connect Miranda and Moore's characters. After someone pointed it out during class, however, I quickly realized the obvious connection. Miranda is, in essence, the "Other Woman" that Moore writes about in her first story. So many of Moore's stories revolve around these women who lack confidence, as you establish about Miranda in your post, and their adulterous relationships with men. Miranda is the stereotypical Lorrie Moore character in that as the story progresses, she starts to question the meaning and actual truth in her relationship with Dev, ultimately causing the couple to stop meeting.
ReplyDeleteIn both stories, there's this dynamic where we see more than the character does--we're suspicious of these men's intentions and sincerity--but the focalization allows us to grasp how they could fall for this stuff, how the seduction looks from their point of view, the desperate denial required to not see oneself as a cliched "other woman."
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