Despair and Denial

      Short stories, although brief, are able to tell tales just as powerful and moving as any other literary piece of work crafted. A Temporary Matter, written by Jhumpa Lahiri, and Paul's Case, by Willa Cather, are two short stories that appear, on the surface, to be wildly different, however, they share a similar message of desire and attempting to shield pain in hopes of recovering happiness. Through the minds of the characters as they live their lives, two separate stories of sadness and pain, present for very different reasons, are unveiled and dealt with but never disappear. With the sorrow and unhappiness that the characters in these two short stories are plagued with, the unlikely pair of tales become strikingly similar to one another while contrasting each other by the issues being handled.  

       In A Temporary Matter, a young couple by the names of Shoba and Shukumar are going through very challenging times ever since their baby had been born dead. Shoba, the wife is always gone to work by time her husband, Shukumar, wakes up. Shukumar rarely leaves the house at all since his advisor gave him his spring semester off from graduate school after the news of the baby stillbirth. The pair rarely spoke to one another and were simply going through the motions of life day after day avoiding the obvious void in their lives until they receive news that their power will be going out for one hour each day for a period of five days during the evening. In response to the electricity notice, Lahiri writes, "Something happened when the house was dark. They were able to talk to each other again," (Lahiri 19) and to the couples' surprise, the dim lighting leads them to eat dinner together while sharing secrets that they have never shared before. Slowly, they begin to rekindle their marriage during the hour of darkness they have each night together; the couple enjoys the dark so much that they keep the lights off past the hour of no electricity on some nights. However, at the end of the five days, the story flips once again. With the lights on, Shoba tells her husband that she has been looking for an apartment to move into and has found one and signed the lease to it before coming home that evening; the sudden happiness between them was simply not enough for her. In a sort of reflection after Shoba's words, Lahiri writes, "She wouldn't look at him, but he stared at her. It was obvious that she'd rehearsed the lines. All this time she'd been looking for an apartment, testing the water pressure, asking a realtor if heat and hot water were included in the rent. It sickened Shukumar, knowing that she had spend these past evenings preparing for a life without him," (Lahiri 21) revealing the real purpose behind the sudden enjoyment of each others company and the secrets that they each had kept for years finally being exposed. In Shukumar's mind, everything between him and his wife was getting better and he finally saw a silver lining develop in their marriage after the dinners they shared in the candlelight. Unfortunately, his wife did not see this development and was determined to start fresh without her past saddening her and darkening her future.  

      On a similar note, Paul's Case tells quite a different tale but involves the same underlying message of despair and unhappiness with the life the character is living. Paul is a young boy living a life he despises and denies is his own. He dreams of living in New York City, dressing in extravagant clothing, attending all the operas and Broadway shows he can find, and being filthy rich and happy. The closest thing he has to any of these dreams is working in Carnegie Hall without any of his family knowing his does so and he desires with all of his being to have more. He ends up stealing money from his own father and running off to New York City, staying in an expensive hotel, and living like a king for a few days until he is nearly caught. He claims that the wealthy people he sees are "his own people," (Cather 154) and not a single person questioned him for being where he was, he was dressed for and acted the part he desired. However, although Paul was able to achieve his lifelong dream of living in New York City like royalty for a handful of days and nights, he was unable to find true happiness and forget about the sadness he had always felt. He ends up killing himself by jumping in front of a train. Cather states, "As he fell, the folly of his haste occurred to him with merciless clearness, the vastness of what he had left undone. There flashed through his brain, clearer than ever before, the blue of Adriatic water, the yellow of Algerian sands," to signify all Paul realizes that he has left unfinished in his life and all he will miss out on as a result. Cather is making the point that Paul doesn't see himself as ever being truly happy and that not even the fulfillment of his New York dreams could change this. 

      In both A Temporary Matter and Paul's Case, no character finds a happy ending to the problems and despair they endure. The three characters all attempt to find a solution to their issues, however, both story endings are filled with more sadness and despair than the fictional tales began with. Both stories take their characters on roller coasters of emotions and lead them to only feel worse about their situations; happiness in these stories simply does not exist with suicide and marital separation being the end results. Although these stories are about very different situations in life and revolve around dissimilar characters, they are more common than one may think; the central message is the same and both tales express little hope for finding a shred of real happiness in life.