Analysis Of Behind The Beautiful Forevers

Throughout this course, we learned that women’s studies originated as a concern at the time that “women and men noticed the absence, misrepresentation, and trivialization of women [in addition to] the ways women were systematically excluded from many positions of power and authority” (Shaw, Lee 1). In the past, men had more privileges than women. Women have battled for centuries against certain patterns of inadequacy that all women experience. Every culture and customs has divergent female

The city of Mumbai has seen much growth in the past years. A string of elegant hotels have been set up for travelers and high-class business men. An ever growing, top of the line airport has been built for those coming in and out of the country. From the outside, Mumbai seems to have taken a liking to being internationally integrated with the rest of world, otherwise known as globalization. This is not the case, however; as seen in Katherine Boo’s novel Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity. This novel is set in a slum right next to the Mumbai International Airport called

Katherine Boo’s implicit purpose for writing Behind the Beautiful Forevers was to give the reader an inside look at a day in the life of an individual living within a slum of Mumbai. The residents of the Mumbai slum, Annawadi, live upon piles of waste where there is minimal opportunity to create a better life for themselves. For example, residents within the slums of Mumbai scavenge through “mounds of illegally dumped construction rubble” (73) in hopes of making a profit off recyclable materials so they can provide a source of income for  their families. The vast majority of individuals living within the slums of Mumbai have no choice but to scavenge because at a young age, they are pulled from their education and told they don’t “have a

For an immense period of time, society deemed women as inferior to men. However, through many protests and the growing acceptance of women, society continues to increasingly close the gap between the two genders. The differences in the societal expectations of women in the early 1900’s and 1970’s compared to the expectations of women in modern society demonstrates this improvement. Although women’s oppression dramatically improved over the past century, it persists as an apparent issue in today’s society.

I believe that the community of India is hopeless. I believe this because by comparing their community to ours, there isn’t really much hope for recovery in their present situation. The poverty in India is different from the poverty in the United States. Between India and the U.S., homes, revenue, and jobs are drastically different. In the U.S., homes are bigger and are built by organization who help those who live in poverty. Those who are homeless are presented with food stamps as a way of currency so they can survive. Also for those who live in poverty in the U.S. are presented with more jobs and more opportunities than the people of India. These differences show how even though both India and the United States have similar economic difficulties, one almost has no hope of return.

While reading Behind the Beautiful Forevers, I found the prologue to a bit confusing. The reader suddenly learns that the presumed main character, Abdul, is going into hiding while his father, Karam is going to offer himself to the police. I suppose the author was trying to set up direction of the story and then backtrack to the beginning where she would discuss the events that led up to the scene written in the prologue. It reads like one of those news magazine television shows, such as 48 Hours, wherein the show starts off with the attention grabbing main event in order to grab the audience and keep them interested. Such a format would be in line for Ms. Boo since she is a journalist by trade.

Katherine Boo gave a brief recount of her visit to Annawadi and her remarkable discoveries and experiences in the slums of Mumbai. Her speech featured a slide show presentation of pictures taken in a slum settlement called Annawadi. Her vivid commentary of each successive image described some of the characters on which her novel, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, was based. Boo explained how each of the people in the slide show influenced her decision to write the book and that the purpose of her novel was to paint a better picture of life in an industrialized Mumbai. She explained that her mission was to actually travel and stay in one of the slums to better understand and then authentically report how many of the underprivileged citizens

The book Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo, addresses the corruption of a slum in India called Annawadi. Annawadi is a small, poor area in the shadows of luxurious hotels and an airport near Mumbai. The poor community struggles to make a living and hold on to a hope of one day reaching success since India is improving economically. As India is improving economically, Annawadi seems to stay the same because of the people who abuse their power and take money from the poor. People there are being held back by the unfairness that they will not be able to have a better life. Laws are not enforced in poor communities because it causes corruption in both the establishment and in the people.

While poverty continues to globally define people’s lives and morality, it is corruption that designates whether or not someone is able maintain their idealistic moral compass. In Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Boo explores the idea that corruption in society is what forces people to abandon their beliefs in attempts to survive their venal community. In Boo’s story, she describes the Indian slum called Annawadi where the primary source of business for the slum dwellers is to sort through and collect recyclable garbage that can be sold to recycling companies. Boo describes the character Sunil, a young boy who scavenges through garbage to provide for his sister, Sunita, and himself, however, Sunil does not want to be a scavenger

Katherine Boo, a staff writer at The New Yorker and former reporter and editor at The Washington Post, has worked for over two decades “reporting within poor communities, considering how societies distribute opportunity and how individuals get out of poverty” (Boo 257). In November 2007, she and her husband, an Indian citizen, moved from the United States to India to study a group of slum dwellers in Annawadi, Mumbai (Boo 249). While studying this group of individuals in India from 2007 to 2011, Boo’s goal was to learn why the individuals within this slum have not banded together against a common enemy in order to gain upward mobility. She illustrates several common issues of developing nations including: corruption, education, the mismanagement of foreign aid, and the possibility for social mobility in her book, Behind the Beautiful Forevers. In this literary work, Boo accurately portrays the acts of corruption and as well as how corruption has entered the sphere of education, which is typically an individual’s only avenue to social mobility and success in that area. She argues that instead of rising up against a higher power, the individuals within the slum fight against one another to get a leg up on their competition, even if it keeps them in the same social class.

There are two famous and amazing writers. Their names are Doris Pilkington and Katherine Boo. The two authors have written very sad and great stories, but, there is only one story that may grab a reader's attention. That story would be “Behind The Beautiful Forevers’’, Katherine Boo. The reason why Katherine Boo’s story gets her point across is because she shows the difficult things Abdul had to face in his life. Abdul had to go threw garbage and find things he could sell to get money for his family. In the story “Rabbit proof- Fence”, Doris Pilkington tells the challenges his character faces. The challenges that Kundila had to face was the White Raiders coming in and taking their children. In the “Behind The Beautiful Forevers,” Katherine

In present day it is easy for a person to take for granted what comes so simple to them. Women have not always been in the position in which they are seen as equals to men. In the course of the last decade, women have evolved as human beings through revolutions in the 1920’s, 1960’s and modern day era.

In today’s advanced societies, many laws require men and women to be treated equally. However, in many aspects of life they are still in a subordinated position. Women often do not have equal wages as the men in the same areas; they are still referred to as the “more vulnerable” sex and are highly influenced by men. Choosing my Extended Essay topic I wanted to investigate novels that depict stories in which we can see how exposed women are to the will of men surrounding them. I believe that as being woman I can learn from the way these characters overcome their limitations and become independent, fully liberated from their barriers. When I first saw the movie “Precious” (based on Sapphire’s “Push”) I was shocked at how unprotected the

Throughout history, women have been seen in many different lights. From a woman’s perspective she is strong, smart, helpful and equal to men. In the eyes of men, she is seen as the weaker being, the housewife, and the caretaker. By looking at the following pieces of writing, one can see that through the centuries, women have struggled to break out of the mold that man had put her in and make themselves known in society as important.

Of all the people in the neighborhood who are yearning for an escape from tradition and the poverty that seems to be its permanent handmaiden, none stands out more than the young and beautiful Hamida who is the novel's central character. Living with her adoptive mother, the matchmaker Umm Hamida, she sneers at the prospective husbands who would be the ostensible pathway toward a more prosperous future. They are all "nonentities." The young Hamida envies women who have broken free of traditional bonds, especially the Jewish factory girls. She tells her mother, "If you had seen the factory girls! You should just see those Jewish girls who go to work. They all go about in nice clothes. Well, what is the point of life then if we can't wear what we want? (Mahfouz 27)" In the 1930's Cairo faced a different kind of Westernization. Italy and Germany invaded Egypt. "They offered an alternative lifestyle with more modern assets such as electricity and running water. (Lewis 348)" Also Cairo had become more diverse in terms of culture and in religion. " In The 1927 census a fifth of the population belonged to minorities. Jews, Greeks, Italians, British, and French where all in Cairo (Rodenbeck 146)." So people of Cairo had seen different types of cultures. It