The First Weekly Essay
This week the author I read about that caught my attention was Arundhati Roy and the story of “Chi Li Slays the Serpent” also caught my eye. The two stories are alike because of their heroism about the situations they faced in the stories that I read. They knew there would be a fight of a lifetime and they were prepared to face any consequences that came with the territory. “The monster conquered you because you were too timid to put up a fight! How pitiful!” That was one of the quotes from the story that really grabbed my attention to how I feel about some of the women that let certain things go on in their lives such as abuse, or being misled for a long period of time. Well that was a short story and not enough to write about so in further reading I hope you enjoy the reading.
Arundhati Roy was born in 1961, her mother a Christian woman a native of Kerala and her father was Hindu from Bengal. Because of the divorce of her parents, Arundhati spent her early years in Aymanam with her mom. The influence of her childhood years are revealed her writings structurally and thematically. Arundhati’s mother was a prominent social activist who founded an independent school and taught Roy normally. Her mother’s teaching gave her the ability to follow her inner voice in her writings. She comment that “When I write, I never re-write a sentence because for me my thoughts and my writing are one thing. It’s like breathing I don’t re-breathe a
After going through this novel, “The hero’s walk” Nandana, the young girl has no other option than to live with her grandparents. In passing days, she may be adapted to Indian culture. Her grandfather Sripathi as usual writer letter to the editor of the News paper starting, “early this morning, at Toturpuram beach, I saw the most amazing sight....”
Many times in literature women and the roles of women are portrayed in a certain light. Today, women are supposed to be viewed as powerful and independent women who do not need to rely on a man. Characters such as Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games and Tris Prior from Divergent emerged to portray powerful women. Unfortunately, this was not always the case and characters in pieces such as The Odyssey by Homer and The Aeneid by Virgil were viewed as women who needed help from men.
In “Holding Your Breath in India”, Gardiner Harris presents his views on a particular situation to his readers with techniques to enhance his viewpoint. His article’s message is that wanting to be successful and provide for his family ultimately acted as a hindrance in their lives, until a crucial decision was made. The happiness of his family and how they feel should come first over a job that can be replaced. Harris intricately weaves this message into the mind of the reader as he writes about his experience in India, after three years.
In colonial America, amounts the wilderness, lived a puritan women by the name of Anne Bradstreet. She is a wife, mother, and a poet. Throughout her life she has written many poems about her experiences. She struggles with many fears and worries. Anne faced many hardships and criticisms in her time because of her pursuit in writing, sometimes these things get her down while other times they inspire her. Anne toils back and forth between her more confident side and her more humble side, we can see this in her writings.
Over the course of the semester, we have read many short stories that have shared very similar themes. The two stories that stood out the most to me were You Want Me White and The Youngest Doll. Not only were the stories both very compelling they share parallel themes such a social issues concerning women and form of gender disparity. Both authors Alfosina Storni and Rosario Ferre wrote during a time male dominance was an issue, women were looked at as objects that needed to devote themselves to their men.
One very important theme that emerged from Sonia’s relationship to her mother is Sonia’s appreciate and unassuming gratitude for her education. Sonia’s mother taught her not to take education for granted, as shown by her mother’s dedication to get her nursing degree. Sonia used education to rise above the odds and accomplish great things in her life, like becoming a Supreme Court judge.
How would you feel if you were repeatedly beaten, had to fend for yourself in 1945, and you never gave up on life even though you have thought about it. In my opinion, the story of Chinese Cinderella, by Adeline Yen Mah, is very inspirational, because a young girl is beaten and gets back up, she has to fend for herself, and she never gave up on life. She had three brothers, a step brother, one sister, and a stepsister. Adeline was born just before WWII. She had hardly any love in the family.
One of my favorite books we read in class was Fun Home written by Alison Bechdel. This was one of my favorites because of her writing style and the way she showed her women’s and gender issues. She uses a lot of detail as she writes which is one thing I like about her writing style. Another thing I like about her writing style is the way she describes the issues that she has encountered. For example, she uses the pictures to help the reader better understand how she has struggled. I find that this helps me better understand the plot of the story. This story has greatly changed how I feel about women’s and gender issues. Before reading this story, I did not realize how many issues women suffer from regarding who they are. Bechdel shows her struggle with her father and being a lesbian.
In an attempt to defy her parents’ as well as society’s expectations, Jayanthi decided to find her ideal sense of reality by searching for her personal identity. Bell writes, “Jayanthi worked hard to give herself a history that differed from her family’s expectations …prior to her crazy time, she felt herself to be meeting all her parents’ expectations of a good Indian girl” (34).
His mother’s silence meant different for Mohan and he regarded it as virtuous and symbol of strength but for Jaya her silence means suffering and despair. The silent suffering of Mohan’s sister, Vimala because of ovarian tumour gives a different meaning to silence. More than her husband her mother-in-law exploited her for this. She has to bear all and at last died.
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is not only a baggy curious beast, but is bewilderingly overpopulated with characters, and frequently achronological, it is written in an usually often careless and haphazard style and yet it is capable of breathtakingly composed and powerful interludes. Though Roy wrote nonfiction and journalism, and emerged as an amazingly outspoken critic of the Indian government, there hasn’t been an another work of fiction till now. After two decades, she really wrote a book to write, one that really seems to have poured out of her like a rushing river. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness the novel is a proper dazzling work of imagination —and a tumult of amazingly vibrant characters, stories and prose that engages deeply with the recent Indian history and it also struggles of India who have oppressed peoples. Roy in her most of the novels describes each and
An analogy has been drawn about how she was in the past and how is she now. She was a carefree person, demanding love in her life, wanting to take care of her children and become a house wife and now she works as a schoolteacher, has become a responsible person concerned about her husband and child, struggling for her son’s life, bearing tantrums of her sister-in-law and living in a small house in a small city. On the other hand, Komal, sister-in-law of Anjali is a character shown who seems to be frustrated from her life from the time she has lost her husband. The book has depicted another face of an Indian woman, who lives her entire life following the customs that the society has decided for a widow. Anjali tried to make her first marriage successful by taking care of small things like making her husband, his favorite cardamom chai and best of meals while Prakash’s second wife Indu was never concerned about any of his likings and gave priority to her own personal
A person’s heritage and cultural identity may be lost when moving to a new country where the culture is different and other cultures are not easily accepted. In the short story “Hindus”, Bharati Mukherjee uses setting, characters and the plot to discuss what it is like to lose your cultural identity while being a visible minority in America. Mukherjee uses the plot to describe the events that take place in the main characters life that lead her to realize how different the culture and life is in the America’s. She also uses the characters as a way of demonstrating how moving away from one’s culture and heritage can change a person’s perspective and ways of thinking. Mukerjee also uses setting in her story to identity the physical differences in culture between living in India and America. Alike the setting and characters, the plot helps describe the loss of culture with a sequence of events.
This essay focuses on the theme of forbidden love, The God of Small Things written by Arundhati Roy. This novel explores love and how love can’t be ignored when confronted with social boundaries. The novel examines how conventional society seeks to destroy true love as this novel is constantly connected to loss, death and sadness. This essay will explore the theme of forbidden love, by discussing and analysing Ammu and Velutha's love that is forbidden because of the ‘Love Laws’ in relation to the caste system which results in Velutha’s death. It is evident that forbidden love negatively impacts and influences other characters, such as Estha and Rahel, which results in Estha and Rahel’s incestuous encounter.
Unlike other writers such as Mulk Raj Anand, Arundhati Roy presents politics as a very complex force. It is operative at different levels. This politics begins with home. This is manipulated by different people for different ends. The novel portrays the forces of power working in alliance in the novel.