66 pages • 2 hours read
Kiran DesaiThe Inheritance of Loss
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2005A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Trunks
Two steamer trunks appear in the pivotal gun robbery of Chapter 1 and reappear throughout the novel; “[o]ne was painted with white letters on the black tin that read: ‘Mr. J. P. Patel, SS Strathnaver.’ The other read: ‘Miss S. Mistry, St. Augustine’s Convent’” (8). The GNLF boys carry the judge’s hunting rifles and other contraband off in these trunks, both of which represent the great travels—and losses—of the judge and his family members. The judge’s trunk is imprinted with the name of the ship, the SS Strathnaver, that carried him away from his hometown as a young man bound for Cambridge. The second trunk is Sai’s mother’s, inherited by her daughter Sai. Both attend the same convent, and Sai comes to Cho Oyu with the trunk after her parents’ deaths.
Cho Oyu
Cho Oyu was “built long ago by a Scotsman, passionate reader of the accounts of that period: The Indian Alps and How We Crossed Them” (13). The Scotsman sells the home to the judge, and it is a fitting retreat for the reclusive, Anglophilic man, with its high altitude and lofty dimensions. The judge considers the place “a sensibility rather than a house” on first viewing, a perfect place where he can be “a foreigner in his own country” (32). In later years the dilapidated house represents “the downfall of wealth” (13).
Insects and Pests
Kalimpong’s rich, teeming environment is filled with various insects, reflecting the novel’s crowded primary settings and, often, a general sense of entropy. Wasps live in the mouth of the mounted bear at the Gymkhana Club, “moths lived in its fur” (222), and termites have eaten through the library’s books. Lola and Noni, always killing bugs at Mon Ami, “commit annual massacres at this time of year with Baygon, mosquito coils, and swatters” (354). Mice also visit Cho Oyu, and rats scuttle over the employees at the Gandhi Cafe, one making a nest in Biju’s hair as he sleeps. Sai listens to termites chewing the wood of Cho Oyu and picks stubborn ticks off Mutt. There is also beauty in these insects, as Sai observes “amorous butterflies, cucumber green, tumbled past [...]; the delicacy of love and courtliness apparent even between the lesser beasts” (212).
Green Card
Biju feels constant anxiety over his immigration status in the United States, incessantly worrying about the “green card, green card, the machoot sala oloo ka patha chaar sau bees green card that was not even green” (208). He turns the phrase “the green card, the green card, the—” (91) over and over in his mind, triggered by everything from an INS telephone call to the sound of sirens. His coworkers, often other undocumented workers, share this anxiety.
Mutt
Mutt, the English setter who lives at Cho Oyu, is the only living creature the judge loves. He dotes on her with affectionate nicknames and lets her sleep in his bed at night. Distraught over her loss, the judge reveals how his attachment to this animal derives from misanthropy: “Human life was stinking, corrupt, and meanwhile there were beautiful creatures who lived with delicacy on the earth without doing anyone any harm” (320). For the family that eventually owns her, Mutt, an expensive dog, proves a failed symbol of modernity: “They wouldn’t care for Mutt. She was just a concept. They were striving toward an idea of something, toward what it meant to have a fancy dog” (354).
