Point of View

Jhumpa Lahiri tells her short story collection “Unaccustomed Earth” from both the first and third-person omniscient, reflective perspective depending upon the story. Each story is told as though a past event or situation were being related to a friend or an acquaintance, enabling the narrators to fill in pieces of information they would not have otherwise known. For example, in “Coming Ashore”, Hema can say that it was the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 that killed Kaushik, though at the time she didn’t yet know he’d been killed. The stories “Unaccustomed Earth,” “A Choice of Accommodations,” “Only Goodness,” “Nobody’s Business,” and “Coming Ashore” are told from the third-person perspective, while the stories “Hell-Heaven,” “Once in a Lifetime,” and “Year’s End” are told from the first-person point of view. “Hell-Heaven” is told from the perspective of Usha; “Once in a Lifetime” is told...