blog post ; loss
A motif that I have noticed across all of the novels we have read so far (A Thousand Splendid Suns, Annie John, Interpreter of Maladies) is loss. Though shown in different ways, they all affect the characters in a personal way and change who they are as a person as well as how they view the world. Mariam becomes even more submissive and quiet after her mother kills herself, losing the only person who truly cared about her. Laila loses her whole family, but instead grows stronger from her experience. Annie John "loses" her mother similar to Mariam. After he mother becomes more strict on her as Annie grown up, Annie grows angry and short-tempered. She feels that she has no one to rely on in her world anymore. This seems to be self centered to me, as her mother still obviously loved her and cared about her, even if she is growing up. In Interpreter of maladies, every short story shows examples of loss. One example is in "A Temporary Matter" when their relationship falls through, and the wife moves out. Though the feel like they don't need each other, you can tell that the characters need each other to move on with their lives.
I totally agree that most, if not all, of the protagonists in all three books we have read so far experience a type of loss. I read A Thousand Splendid Suns as well, and I can remember how both Mariam and Laila lost their parents to suicide and the war. I like your point in that even though Annie does not physically "lose" her mother, she does in the way that their relationship was torn apart by her growing up. The example from "A Temporary Matter" was a good one, and another very apparent story from Interpreter of Maladies that shows loss is "When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine" when Lilia literally loses Mr. Pirzada when he leaves for Pakistan.
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