In her short story collection Interpreter of Illnesses, Jhumpa Lahiri illustrates the difficulties immigrants face when they are displaced and estranged from their culture. Each story offers a different perspective on cultural experience, allowing Lahiri to piece together a detailed picture of cultural displacement and the challenges it poses in forging one's identity. The importance of cultural connections is emphasized in the stories, as is the natural desire to make such connections. However, Lahiri shows the difficulties in achieving this, especially with a young generation who only has family ties to their culture because they are already assimilated into American society. She also illustrates that distance is not always a disadvantage by beginning to show the reader the first steps to establishing identity and home. The stories in the Interpreter of Diseases collection illustrate people's need and natural inclination to connect with their heritage and culture while explaining how to safely make these connections and forge their identity. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayIn Lahiri's stories, there is a desire among younger generations to connect with their culture, a desire that seems impossible for those who are assimilated. in American culture. In "Mr. Pirzada Comes to Dinner", Lilia's mother proudly declares that her daughter was born in America, as Lilia remarks: "She seemed really proud of that fact, like it was a reflection of my character" (Lahiri 26). However, Lilia desires to understand Mr. Pirzada and cherishes the sweets he gives her, as if eating one establishes a connection with her culture. As she observes him and his parents in the living room watching the overseas news, she observes, "...I remember the three of them operating during that time as if they were a single person, sharing a single meal, a single body, a single body. one silence and one fear” (Lahiri 41). Lilia is an outsider among them because she is the first generation to be separated from her heritage by distance and she realizes in the end that a connection to her heritage is impossible by throwing away Mr. Pirzada's candy. In the short story “Interpreter of Diseases,” Mrs. Das attempts to establish a connection with Mr. Kapasi, which in turn would serve as a connection to her heritage from which she is very estranged. Mr. Kapasi imagines corresponding with Mrs. Das after his return to America saying that it would fulfill his dream of “serving as an interpreter between nations” (Lahiri 59). However, as her speech becomes more distant, Lahiri shows, as she did with Lilia, that a cultural connection cannot be forged when one is already enveloped in American culture, creating distance both physical and cultural too great to overcome. representation of distance, Lahiri illustrates how distance can be used as an advantage. In "This Blessed House", Sanjeev becomes angry with Twinkle as she collects and displays Christian paraphernalia throughout the house to the point that he questions whether he likes her or not. However, when she takes the party-goers to the attic, Sanjeev feels completely alone and distant from her in the same way he felt at the beginning of their relationship, when they were in a long-distance relationship. The distance allowed Sanjeev to imagine their lives together and maintain a romantic view of her shaped through their telephone conversations. He sees his shoes on the floor and "instead of feeling irritated, as he had been since they moved into the house together, he felt a pang of anticipation in his.