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External Characters In Good Boys And Good Women In Minutes Of Glory

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The main characters of the short stories such as Sam from “Master Harold”... and the boys, Bineeta from Good Girls are Bad News, and Beatrice from Minutes of Glory all have in common the problem of an internal struggle of not being able or wanting to fit into the roles expected of them by external figures.The authors use external characters and/or well known stereotypes as a model to show what external figures are expecting, to paint a picture of how the characters are differing from that expectation and to show how unreasonable the expectations are. They also use certain stylistic aspects to present to the reader whether the characters point of view is agreeable or flawed. The expectation of roles they are placed in puts each …show more content…

This provides the reader with the insight to the fact that Sam’s viewpoint is agreeable and admirable whereas Hally’s is not. Beatrice, from Minutes of Glory by Ngugi wa Thiong’o is like Sam. She is expected to fit a role in which she cannot fit. In Beatrice’s case she is expected to be beautiful and easily gain all attention from men with her body and her looks. Unfortunately Beatrice cannot and is considers herself as unattractive and is unable to fit the role of a alluring woman as much as she wants to. In this case the author uses a character named Nyaguthii, to show what Beatrice is supposed to be like. Beatrice despises Nyaguthii because she is everything she wants to be but cannot . As she states “Nyaguthii could look bored, impatient, and downright contemptuous and still men would cling to her as if they enjoyed being whipped with biting words, curled lips and the indifferent eyes of a free woman.” (Page 72) The quote is used by the author to paint a picture of what Beatrice is supposed to be like but isn’t making her internal conflict of wanting to live up to the expectation but not being able to a detrimental problem in her everyday life. The author ends the story on a very dark note , by having Beatrice get arrested at the end and Nyaguthii crying the author conveys how Beatrice’s point of view was not agreeable and that she didn’t need to subject herself to the expectations of others. As

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