Tropes in The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

Here are many of the common tropes in The Loneliness iof Sonia and Sunny, a book by Kiran Desai. It is published and released in Sep. 2025 and is among 6 titles shortlisted for the Booker Prize award 2025. The main book review is at https://artmater.com/explaining-the-loneliness-of-sonia-and-sunny/

Tropes in The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

1. The female protagonist resembles the authoress Ms Desai, who is uprooted from India, to live overseas.
2. The male protagonist resembles his female counterpart, the female protagonist. He also has only one parent, his mother. His father died young.
3. Sunny Bhatia’s mother is not so secretly in love with her father-in-law, for his wealth. In fact, she married Ratan “Ratty” Bhatia, because of the old man’s riches.
4. Point (3) is one of the reasons why her mother-in-law hates her.
5. Its commonly known Indians are notorious for their thrifty ways of enjoying free food from relatives, neighbors and friends. This is played out by Sonia’s paternal grandparents and Sunny’s maternal grandparents.
6. Sunny’s maternal grandma sometimes feels guilty that Sonia Shah’s grandfather lost money investing in her husband, The Colonel’s former business. It is common for Indians to find investors among friends.
7. The Shah grandparents remembered bad incidents from their tourist trip traveling the world, more than the good ones. People tend to recall terrible events more than the good ones.
8. Indian foreign students are often lonely in America.
9. Indian foreign students date and live with Americans or immigrants in the US.
10. White American women hate Indian women in the US.
11. Indian women try to outdo American women, on their native soil.
12. Indian women hate Indian men in India and choose to emigrate.
13. Indian men hate Indian women in India so they choose to emigrate.
14. Indian grandparents often matchmake young adult children of acquaintances to each other.
15. Young adult Indians often find white romantic partners while living overseas.
16. The author Ms Desai put a different spin to the trope of the offspring having a fantasy on his parent of his opposite gender. Now, it becomes Sunny’s mother, having a fantasy of sleeping with her son. Freud has written a lot on Oedipus Complex, which was about the son having a fantasy on his mother.
17. India’s ancient law allows a tenant to pay the same rent for decades upon decades. Sonia’s paternal grandparents enjoyed this privilege for 50 years.
18. In spite of being warned by her aunt Mina Foi, and her friend Marie, Sonia still fell for Ilan, the older man. Mismatched relationships will happen.
19. Some older men allegedly have explosive tempers.
20. Artists are narcissistic and eat praises from their devout followers.
21. Old people seduce young people. Young people seduce old people too.

To be continued.