Summary

Domenico Starnone, one of Jhumpa’s writer friends sent her a message explaining that learning a new language is almost like developing a new life. His message helps Jhumpa to better understand her desire to experience a metamorphosis through language. She refers to the instance in the book “Metamorphoses” by Ovid when Daphne is turned into a tree. Jhumpa relates to this feeling of metamorphosis because she it is during this process that one creature exists as two. Daphne was still a nymph but was also a tree. Jhumpa believes that she is fleeing from something through her study of Italian. On on hand she feels confined when she writes or speaks in Italian because she doesn’t have the freedom of vocabulary she enjoys in English. On the other hand, she believes she is trying to flee from the struggle that the...