For this blog post, I will be analyzing the short story Sexy by Jhumpa Lahiri. My theme for this will be love. "Hi" she whispered, unsure of what else to say. "You're sexy." he whispered back." (Lahiri, 1655)
Even though I'm only 20 years old, I feel like I've had a long enough experience with love to know when it's real or not. My perception of romance started when I was 4 years old and my parents religiously watched The Bachelor every week. I don't remember this, but my parents have told me that once I asked them if I needed to go on TV to get married. Needless to say, they stopped watching the show after that. Since then I've had my fair share of puppy love. In 7th grade I actually broke up with my "boyfriend" at the time because he gave me a necklace for my birthday and I thought that was too clingy, so I dumped him. Apparently I didn't have much remorse as a 13-year-old. Now at 20, I've been in a relationship with my boyfriend for 2 1/2 years. I can proudly say that he is my best friend also. And even though we're young, where we are at in our lives right now, we both plan on spending the rest of it together. Maybe the future holds a different reality, but no matter what happens between us, I know that I'll always love him.
Love is a complicated thing though, especially in this day and age. With dating online, divorce rates up, it's hard to find that special someone to spend the rest of your life with. In Miranda's case, I personally don't think that Dev loves her. "Miranda and Dev didn't argue." (Lahiri, 1654) How can you love someone if you haven't argued with them before? In my opinion, arguing and someone's anger is a big role in relationships, it's going to happen no matter what. So knowing how your partner acts when heated in the moment is important to be aware of. You could have a happy-go-lucky person (like Dev) but when they get angry they could turn into the Hulk. In my opinion, you should know all sides of your partner before you decide that you love them. "Do you remember what you said?' There was a pause. 'Let's go back to your place?' He laughed quietly." (Lahiri, 1664). Here, when Miranda asks Dev if he remembers what he said in the Mapparium, once again, all he can think about is having sex with her. And on the third Sunday of not seeing each other, Dev doesn't even call her. I think all these things put together prove that Dev never really loved Miranda, he only really saw her as a sex object. He may have liked her, got a long with her well, but he never saw a future with her like Laxmi's cousin's husband did. And I don't think that Miranda loved Dev either, otherwise I think she probably would have tried harder to be with him. She knew what they were doing wasn't right though, and felt guilty for it.
You raise an important point here about love. What do you think about Miranda's efforts to understand Dev's culture, and to get his favorite foods? Is her attraction to him about more than sex? What do you think about Rohin's definition of "sexy" as it connects to love?
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