113 pages 3 hours read

Jhumpa Lahiri

Unaccustomed Earth

Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 2008

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

"Going Ashore"

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Story Summary: “Going Ashore”

This story remains with Hema and Kaushik, although it documents a later time in their life, and is narrated in the third person. Hema is 37 years old and in Rome, Italy. It is November. She is staying in her friend Giovanna’s apartment, “in the Ghetto” (294). We learn that Hema has absconded there for no real reason, although she has told her parents and fiancée, Navin, that she is working in Rome as a visiting lecturer at a classical studies institute. By now, she has earned a PhD and a tenure-track professorship. Giovanna, Hema’s colleague, has made it possible for Hema to access the American Academy’s library, and also supplied Hema with the telephone numbers of her nearby friends, whom she assures Hema will be happy to host her. Hema also plans to wed Navin in Calcutta, where her parents have relocated to, right before Christmas.

Hema thinks about the life she has temporarily escaped from: the way the Wellesley campus looks at this time of the year, her students struggling over their Latin lessons. She has taken up going to one restaurant, very close to Giovanna’s apartment—due to the foreigner’s problems she comes up against when trying other options.

Related Titles

By Jhumpa Lahiri

Study Guide

logo

A Real Durwan

Jhumpa Lahiri

A Real Durwan

Jhumpa Lahiri

Study Guide

logo

A Temporary Matter

Jhumpa Lahiri

A Temporary Matter

Jhumpa Lahiri

Study Guide

logo

Interpreter of Maladies

Jhumpa Lahiri

Interpreter of Maladies

Jhumpa Lahiri

Study Guide

logo

Mrs. Sen's

Jhumpa Lahiri

Mrs. Sen's

Jhumpa Lahiri

Study Guide

logo

The Lowland

Jhumpa Lahiri

The Lowland

Jhumpa Lahiri