Women Caught between Two Cultures “Meeting Mrinal” shows the predicament of Asha, a woman who grew up in India, had an arranged marriage according to Indian tradition, and then had to adapt to a new lifestyle and culture as a divorced woman. The first change, taking place before the story opens, comes when she immigrates…
Meeting Mrinal – Characters
Asha When Dinesh asks his mother how the meeting with Mrinal went, Asha admits that she “made a mess of things.” She offers to tell him about it over some hot milk with pistachios. Smiling, he agrees. As she prepares the milk, she plans the letter she will write to Mrinal to tell her the…
Meeting Mrinal – Summary
When “Meeting Mrinal” opens, Asha, the Indian-born protagonist, who now lives in California, is somewhat guiltily preparing a ready-made pizza for her teenage son, Dinesh. Asha’s husband, Mahesh, with whom she had an arranged marriage in India, has left her for a younger white woman. Though Asha used to spend hours preparing complex Indian meals…
Last Courtesies – Analysis
“Last Courtesies” won the O. Henry Award in 1977, shortly after the short story’s first appearance in print, in a 1976 Harper’s Magazine . When the collection Last Courtesies was published in 1980, John Romano, for the New York Times , described the collection as a series of “sad tales” which contain characters who are…
Last Courtesies – Setting
1970s in the United States During the 1970s, a new generation of young adults examined, criticized, and in some cases totally discarded the former generation’s ways. Established concepts about friendship, sexuality, marriage, race relations and ethnicity, war, and women’s rights were challenged and transformed. The ongoing Vietnam War (1959–1975), which was ultimately lost by the…
Last Courtesies – Literary Devices
Suspense Suspense in this short story is created out of fear of others. Vladimir is so eccentric he is hard to understand. His emotions are unstable and some of his actions are unsociable. He is as likely to explode as he is to read poetry or play a piano composition by Bach. So when the…
Last Courtesies – Themes
Alienation In one way or another, all of the characters in Leffland’s short story “Last Courtesies” live isolated lives. The least alienated may be Jody, even though she is described as having many male suitors come to her apartment each night (and Vladimir calls her as a prostitute). On one level, Jody appears to be…
Last Courtesies – Characters
Aunt Bedelia Bedelia, aunt of the protagonist Lillian, has already died when the story begins, but there are flashback scenes in which the narrator describes the elderly woman with whom she lived. Intelligent, gracious, and refined in an old-fashioned way, Bedelia is well educated in the arts and well traveled. She brings out the best…
Last Courtesies – Summary
Ella Leffland’s Last Courtesies begins with a comment about the protagonist Lillian. Vladimir, the Russian piano tuner, tells her she is “too polite.” Lillian disagrees. Lillian does not push people in the bus line, but she does “fire off censorious glares.” Thus, according to Lillian, she is far from being too polite. She is merely…
Immortality by Yiyun Li – Analysis
Li’s collection of stories, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers , in which “Immortality” appeared, was greeted with universal acclaim. Reviewers admired Li’s treatment of the different ways in which Chinese people came to terms with the dramatic changes in their society during the 1990s and also her many portraits of Chinese immigrants adapting to…