Summary

The short story “The Third and Final Continent” by Jhumpa Lahiri begins with the narrator presenting his journey through three continents: Asia, Europe, and North America. 

The narrator leaves his native country of India and moves to London, where he is a student at London School of Economics. While in London, the narrator shares a house with other Bengali men and works at the university library to get by. Six years later, he returns to India, to enter into an arranged marriage with a young woman named Mala. It is 1969, and he is offered a job in America, in a M.I.T. library, which he accepts.

The narrator travels to America and tries to get accustomed to American life before the arrival of his wife. He first stays at a noisy Y.M.C.A. hostel and only eats cereal and ban...