Alex Lemme - "Once in a lifetime"

What mostly got me interested in Jhumpa Lahiri's story "Once in a Lifetime" was the effective use of second person and the unexpected change in major theme at the very end of the story.
The use of second person differs from it's most common use of referring to and including the reader in the narration. In this case, the second person refers to Kaushik, a character the narrator interacts with in the story. Even though Kaushik himself is quite elusive throughout the narration, his presence is felt throughout because of the constant reference to him in "you". The reader acknowledges the character through the narrator's eyes because of this skillful use of second person.
The majority of the story's narration makes constant reference to the socio-economic differences between the two families involved in the story, but the reader's interpretation of this changes drastically once the theme of dealing with death comes up only in the last couple pages. Everything the reader has read up to that point, including the title itself, is explained and the feelings of disdain towards the host family is lifted because of the introduction of new information and a new theme. Not only is this very effective in connecting these two themes in the reader's mind, but the reader is interpreting this information from the same point of view of the narrator, so if the narrator were omniscient this effect would have been lost completely.