My 2nd Paper for ENG102

Connor Hickey
Professor Brady
ENG 102 4:30pm TR
March 21, 2011

The Interpreter of Unrealistic Happiness

                An unrealistic hope for happiness is found many times in the “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway as well as the “Interpreter of Maladies” By Jhumpa Lahiri. These short stories reveal the fantasies and lies people will conjure in the false thought their life will happy. The film “Revolutionary Road” directed by Sam Mendes also shares this theme of unrealistic happiness through the character of April Wheeler. April Wheeler believes that leaving the suburbs will help solve all of the family and marital issues which she and her husband Frank have been dealing with. The man in “Hills Like White Elephants” tries to strongly persuade the girl into a situation where he feels is best in order to live a happy life. When Mr. Kapasi fantasizes about Mrs. Das, he believes it is she that is going to help him escape his unhappy life far a new and happier lifestyle. April, the man, and Mr. Kapasi all share the similar unrealistic fantasies that in some way they will achieve happiness.
               The “Revolutionary Road” takes place in a suburbs in Connecticut around the 1950’s. The main characters Frank(Leonardo Dicaprio) and April Wheeler(Kate Winslet) are married with children and are living in a house on Revolutionary Road. The couple seems to have the typical American dream of a nice and big house in a safe and friendly community. As time progresses this picture perfect lifestyle seems to decay into a nightmare. The Wheelers start to become stressed with work along with raising the children. The boring and repetitive life of the Wheelers is not the one in which they imagined in their younger years. Frank and April decide on leaving the empty life of the suburbs will solve all of the problems they have been facing. Frank says during a conversation with another member of the community, “Maybe We are running. We are running from the hopeless emptiness of the whole life here”(Mendes). The plan of moving to Paris is destroyed once April discovers she is pregnant with their third child. Frank does not think that raising a child in Europe is a good idea but April continues to push for their getaway to Paris. The fights between April and Frank escalate and April starts believing their only way to achieve happiness once again is to move to Paris. April thinks the only thing keeping them from moving is the unborn child she is carrying. So after Frank leaves to go to work she attempts to perform an abortion on herself. While attempting the abortion to achieve her unrealistic happiness she botches the procedure which later leads to her death. The problems in which they were trying to escape from would have eventually caught up with them. Aprils idea of happiness is completely unrealistic.
                In addition to the “revolutionary road”, “The Hills like White Elephants” is a short story that is deals with the same theme. The characters also in this short story also have the idea that a pregnancy is blocking the pursuit of happiness in which they can achieve. The short story takes place at a train station in Spain. The two individuals are traveling to Madrid in order for the girl to get an abortion. As they are waiting for the train the man is still trying to fully convince the girl that the procedure for the abortion is perfectly safe. The girl does not seem to be fully ready to partake in the procedure. The man reassures the girl that if she were to follow through with it, “We’ll be fine afterward. Just like we were before”(Hemmingway 115). The man is insisting that if the girl were to go through with this procedure that they will be happy once more as if nothing had ever happened. The man continues to try and sell this unrealistic idea of happiness when he says, “We can have everything… We can have the world… we can go everywhere”(Hemmingway 116). At this point the man is desperate and is trying anything he can to try and persuade the girl to go through with it. This short story doesn’t provide the reader with much detail of the characters backgrounds but gives the reader the feeling that the girls pregnancy was unplanned and unwanted especially by the man. It seems the man just wants to avoid responsibility as a father and the girl is too young to stand up for what she believes in. However even if this girl were to go through with the procedure, the man and the girl would still not be able to live their unrealistic fantasy of being happy.
                    The “Interpreter of Maladies” is a story that takes place during the middle of July in India. The story is about a family who is on a tour with a guide named Mr. Kapasi. Mr. Kapasi critiques the family through entire trip trying to get an understanding of who they are and how they act. When Mrs. Das says, “But so romantic” referring to Mr. Kapasi’s job, a spark of attraction toward Mrs. Das begins to grow.(Lahiri 50) After only meeting Mrs. Das for a couple of hours Mr. Kapasi starts to fantasize about a life with her. Mr. Kapasi starts to compare Mrs. Das to his own wife on page 58 when he says “he has never admired the backs of his wife’s legs the way he now admired those of Mrs. Das, walking as if for his benefit alone.”(Lahiri) Mr. Kapasi believes that if he were be with Mrs. Das rather than his wife he would be much happier because his wife never complimented him in such a way Mrs. Das did and he has only knew her for one day. Mrs. Das although unhappy with her life, is a married mother of three children. Mr. Kapasi is a forty six year old tour guide instructor whom is married as well. His unrealistic fantasy of one day being with Mrs. Das is crushed when one of her children is nearly beaten to death by a group of monkeys. Even if this occurrence with her child weren’t to happen there was a slim chance both Mr. Kapasi and Mrs. Das would have ever seen each other again.
               This theme of unrealistic happiness is found in the “Interpreter of Maladies”, the “Hills Like White Elephants”, and the Revolutionary Road. The Revolutionary Road and the “Hills Like White Elephants” are more realistic crises well as the “Interpreter of Maladies” relates more to an unrealistic crisis. In all these three characters share an unrealistic fantasy that in some way they will achieve happiness. These hopes for happiness are never achieved.