Throughout the story , a recurring symbol is the blackout. Shoba and Shukumar use the blackout to their advantage differently. Shukumar views it as a safe place to bond, and establish normalcy and intimacy …show more content…
It is subtle and sometimes overlooked because Jhumpa Lahiri includes a great amount of detail within the story and then quickly introduces another idea. “ If she found a skirt or a purse she liked she bought two. She kept the bonuses from her job in a separate bank account in her name. It hadn’t bothered him. His own mother had fallen to pieces when his father died, abandoning the house he grew up in and moving back to Calcutta, leaving Shukumar to settle it all. He liked that Shoba was different. It astonished him, her capacity to think ahead.” Shukumar’s knowledge on Shoba’s bank accounts and his nonchalant attitude toward it, is the most pivotal aspect in the story because later we find out that Shoba is leaving him, hence the reason for the separate bank accounts. It’s easy to overlook this, because the next sentence discusses his parents and then back to Shoba again. Foreshadowing in “ A Temporary Matter creates dramatic tension and allows the reader to anticipate future events, just like the end of Shoba and Shukumar