Structure

The short story “The Third and Final Continent” by Jhumpa Lahiri has a chronological structure. The text follows the narrator from 1964, when he leaves India (p. 1, l. 1) to 1969 (p. 10, l. 20), when he moves to America with his wife. The story’s ending reveals that the narrator has lived in America “for nearly thirty years” (p. 19, l. 10), so the most recent events happen around the late 1990s. This also shows that the entire story is told in retrospect as the narrator is looking back on his past. 

The story can be structured into three parts, according to the continent the narrator lives in. The first part of the story (p. 1, ll. 1-23) presents the narrator’s life in Europe, while the rest of the story presents his life in America. At times, however, the narrator includes short passages about his life in India, like his marriage in...