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Jhumpa Lahiri, Hell-Heaven

Jhumpa Lahiri, Hell-Heaven

Read Hell-Heaven and check your comprehension by answering the following questions. Then “submit” your work.

1. The main characters in the story are

Native American Indians.

Muslims.

Bostonians.

Bengali.

2. The narrator, Usha, was born in

Berlin.

Boston.

London.

Calcutta.

3. Usha’s parents

were married because their parents arranged the union.

no longer love each other.

have an open marriage.

love each other until Pranab Kaku comes between them.

4. Pranab Kaku breaks with his parents’ wishes and with tradition when he

chooses to attend college in America.

approaches a married Bengali woman without a proper introduction.

marries an American woman.

falls in love with a married woman.

5. Usha realizes that her mother has lost the one totally unanticipated pleasure in her life when

in open defiance of her mother, Usha changes from her traditional dress into American clothing and goes to the beach with an American boy.

she sees the teacup Pranab Kaku had used as an ashtray in the kitchen garbage can, in pieces, and three Band-Aids taped to her mother’s hand.

Pranab Kaku runs off with another Indian woman.

her father tells her mother, “If you are so unhappy, go back to Calcutta.”