Behind the Beautiful Forevers Essay

Sex and love are furtively denied in George Orwell’s 1984 and Toni Morrison’s Beloved by an oppressive totalitarian regime and white slave owners respectively. Love is entirely eradicated to subdue and control the oppressed, but the manipulation of sexuality diverges in the two texts. In Beloved, sex is contorted into violence by the slave owners, whereas it is completely depersonalized in 1984 until repulsive and criminalized. It is therefore through the reclamation of the sexual act that personal liberation occurs. As such, Winston and Sethe do not truly, romantically love Julia and Paul D respectively, but rather use them as vehicles for emancipation from their oppressive realities. It does not matter that it was Julia and Paul D who

“Beauty” by Tony Hoagland was written in 1998. In this poem, Hoagland expresses his feelings on how women care too much about physical appearances. Throughout his poem he tells the story through the eyes of a brother of a girl who learns to love herself for who she is. Hoagland’s poem stresses the importance that beauty goes deeper than the surface. Throughout his poem, Tony Hoagland uses many literary devices to perfect his poem. These devices include the message, tone, imagery, figures of speech, and personification.

During the 19th century, Mumbai’s population reached half a million, 10 times the population of London, at that time. Hence most parts of Mumbai suffered from acute housing, water and sanitation problems. Residential areas were divided into 2 parts: European and native residential quarters. Slums were meant for native Indian population .Increase of urban growth under the East India Company and British Raj, gave rise to slums, unsanitary conditions and epidemics. Concerned about epidemics the British Government expelled polluting industries and Indian residents to the village of Koliwadas. And, thus was born Dharavi

The effects of stress on a person’s life can be calamitous. It affects every part of a person’s body and makes them feel useless and alone. In essence, some stress every now and then in our lives is good, but an overwhelming amount of stress can be devastating. An example of overwhelming stress is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, also known as PTSD. This disorder occurs when someone is exposed to horrific events in their life causing them severe and ongoing emotional damage due to the extreme psychological trauma. In her novel Beloved, Toni Morrison describes the brutal effects of slavery. The novel follows the story of Sethe and her daughter Denver, as they try to rebuild their lives after they escaped from slavery. After reading the

“What you don't want is always going to be with you. What you want is never going to be with you. Where you don't want to go, you have to go. And the moment you think you're going to live more, you're going to die” (Page 32). This quote shows how harsh it is to live in the slum of Annawadi. It is saying if you are born in the slums that it will be almost impossible to find a life of fortune of any kind. More often than not, it seems that if you are born Annawadi, you will remain in poverty for the rest of your life. Many reasons can be attested for here. The first being that disease spreads vigorously throughout the streets and allies of Annawadi. This is

In the novel, Beauty by Robin Mc Kinley, the family of a wealthy merchant looses their wealth when the shipment boats get lost at sea. There are three daughters named Hope, Grace, and Honour, whom is nicknamed Beauty, and a father. The family is forced to move to the country and start a life more modest than accustomed. After the family adapts to country life, one of the older sisters gets married to an iron worker who used to work at the shipyard owned by the father. They have babies. Life goes on in the country.

Katherine Boo’s book, Behind The Beautiful Forevers, portrays the “new life” the people in India live as capitalism and globalism ventures into their lives. These two systems look to promise new and improved social opportunities for all classes, not just the wealthy. However, although this makes it seem like the government of India in the 21st century is progressing towards a more fairer society for all its citizens, the reality is, they are really not progressing at all. Of course, while capitalism and globalization initially gave all citizens, especially the lower classes, hope that more opportunities would be available to them, it seems it has prevaricated it all as these opportunities have been more transformative to the elite and privileged classes than it has for the poor.

While it may be easier to persuade yourself that Boo’s published stories are works of fiction, her writings of the slums that surround the luxury hotels of Mumbai’s airport are very, very real. Katherine Boo’s book “Behind the Beautiful Forevers – Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity” does not attempt to solve problems or be an expert on social policy; instead, Boo provides the reader with an objective window into the battles between extremities of wealth and poverty. “Behind the Beautiful Forevers,” then, exposes the paucity and corruption prevalent within India.

Behind the Beautiful Forever by Katherine Boo is about citizens trying to survive in Annawadi one of India’s largest slums of 2008. Their slum is built on land that belongs to Mumbai airport. All of the citizens living in this slum face many struggles in their day to day lives that they must overcome to survive. In this book the Muslim Husian family’s struggles are described, they are the minority in the slum surrounded by Hindus.

Beloved, like many of the other books we have read, has to deal with the theme of isolation. There was the separation of Sethe and Denver from the rest of the world. There was also, the loneliness of each main character throughout the book. There were also other areas of the book where the idea of detachment from something was obvious. People’s opinions about the house made them stay away and there was also the inner detachment of Sethe from herself. The theme that Toni Morrison had in mind when the book was written was isolation.

In the nonfiction book written by Suketu Mehta, Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, the title holds significant meaning. The reason behind this is explored within the first chapter, “Personal Geography,” as it concisely represents why Mehta chose this as the name of his work (3). Through the telling of his history in Bombay as a child and his rediscovery of it coming back as an adult, Mehta sets the stage for an in-depth description of this city and its nature throughout the rest of the book. This transformation from an insider to the culture of the city, to an outsider, to a potential insider is the essence of this first chapter, and overall the inspiration that Mehta uses to write this book. He makes the reader understand that this act of recording all of this information about Bombay is not to only to educate the reader, but also to educate and reacquaint himself with his city. Through immersing himself in the culture and the lifestyle, he finally receives the citizenship that he lost when he was a child and has been desiring since then.

Dharavi produces one million dollars in goods per day. Considering what a small area this tiny piece of Mumbai, this is an impressive fact. This is a fact that resonated with me yet astounded me because of my own preconceived stereotypes of a slum. Thinking of a slum I immediately assuming this also meant this was a community with a lack of jobs, unemployable people, and lazy unwilling individuals. I couldn’t have been proven more wrong. As shown in the film, Dharavi is a tiny one square mile packed with factories and businesses. Employment opportunities are plentiful and the residents are very hardworking and dedicated to their trades. Eighty five percent of residents are employed. A wide range of jobs are found along the failing brick roads. Bread bakers, seamstresses, ragpickers, Rickshaw drivers, factory workers all exist in such a small poverty stricken community.

Oral tradition is used as a part of a culture to carry on previous events in order to pass on and preserve a part of that culture's history. It is used to preserve the culture as well as individual identities, more specifically a survival tactic. Incorporating oral tradition or “story telling” in postcolonial literature involves a heavy use of past tense language, whether in a dialogic or monologic form. This creates a contrast of the specific culture with the development of the modern western world, which does not rely heavily on storytelling as a preservation of their history. In Toni Morrison’s Beloved, storytelling showcases the importance of the African-American culture. Perspective from African American character guides the structure of the book. Piece by piece the story unfolds of how Sethe escaped from Sweet Home and found herself at I24. Stories of slavery is a significant part in the history of black culture. Though it is not viewed a positive event, Morrison uses this piece of knowledge and creates a particular oral story in her novel to show her awareness on how slavery has shaped African-American culture. Storytelling is not a one time occurrence, stories are told over and over again, refining the details and passing along the parts that are crucial to tradition. The story of Denver’s birth is a story lived and retold through the experience of her mother Sethe. On page 36,

I want to be beautiful in spirit in my future life by being adventurous and whimsical. To be beautiful in spirit I will have to come to term with my flaws and embrace them. One of my favorite quotes is, “Embrace the beautiful mess that you are.” I believe that i will have to embrace every possible emotion and realize no matter how bad things may be that there will always be a light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how small. As I am always told by my mother, “be the bigger person,” I also believe this will be a huge factor in my success to becoming a beautiful soul.

Mumbai, previously known as Bombay until 1995 is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is also the financial, commercial and entertainment capital of India. Mumbai has a metro area population of 22 million people making it the most populous city in India. Mumbai also houses the highest number of millionaires and billionaires in India making it the wealthiest city in the country as well. The inequality of wealth is polarizing in Mumbai. It may be the wealthiest city in India but it is also home to Dharavi, Asia’s second largest slum if Karachi’s Orangi Town is counted as a single slum. Dharavi is located in central Mumbai and houses between 800,000 and 1 million people in about one square mile, making it one of the most densely populated areas on Earth (Chauhan, Mohanty, Subramanian, Parida, & Padhi, 2016). Mumbai, like many other rapidly growing cities in developing countries, suffers from widespread poverty due to unemployment, poor public health, and poor civic and educational standards for a large section of the city (Romero-Lankao, Gnatz, & Sperling, 2016).