Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden, and foreign film Water, by Deepa Mehta, include themes on social influences which can determine a person’s final destiny. The female protagonists Sayuri, aged nine, and Chuyia, aged eight, are both sold into slavery for financial reasons and their lives are greatly influenced by acts of betrayal through family, friends and individuals of high status. Both the book and the film depict the terrible damages that can be done to the human soul when religious rules and texts are treated as sacrosanct. The inhumane treatments of widows in India by Hindu fundamentalists are similar to the subjugation of women by Japanese fundamentalists. Arthur Golden and Deepa Mehta have done all women an immense service by shedding light on the liberation …show more content…
Both works of art place an emphasis on finding beauty in the soul of its’ characters and their misfortunes do not make them unattractive. If anything, it makes them even more endearing. In their time periods, it is not startling for the characters to be poor but to see it come from its’ 2,000 year old customs is another matter. Since Memoirs of a Geisha is set before, during and after World War II, the civilians are no strangers to poverty; everyone in Japan, both the poor and rich alike, struggled to get by. It was common for many geishas to ask their male friends for help but Sayuri did not in order to keep her independence –instead she worked as a farmer during the war and only returned to help her sister, Mameha. If anything, it is the life Sayuri would have preferred to have but as the book quotes, “We don’t become Geishas because we want our lives to be happy; we become Geishas because we have no choice” (Golden 310) The poverty line strikes at bay for widows as well; Chuyia refuses to beg on the streets for the ashram because she believes she can amount to being more than just a
“For Colored Girls” involves seven women who represents a different shade of the rainbow. The colors are brown, red, yellow, white, green, orange and blue. Their costumes and make-up transformed each of them and were significant of the color their character embodied. As a group their acting made all of their roles of equal importance, without one dominating the other. These women together formed a bond through their various adversities, gradually taking them from strangers to companion. From an objective view, the audience is allowed to simply observe the events as they take place chronologically. Throughout the movie during some of the conflicting and traumatic scenes, one of the women recites a poem to signify and release the emotion being felt at that time.
In Anzia Yezierska's short story "The lost beautifulness," the protagonist Hanneh Hayyeh scrimps and saves to be able to paint her apartment white to make it look respectable for her son Ady when he comes home from fighting World War I. Hayyeh wants some kind of hope to cling to in her desperate immigrant's life. Although the dialect of the characters is Russian-Jewish and the setting is in an early 20th century urban environment, the idea of immigrant aspirations and the conflict between rich and poor is a common theme in American literature.
In “Only Daughter,” published in Glamour magazine in 1990, Sandra Cisneros talks about how it’s like for her to be the only daughter in a Mexican-American family of six sons. She talks about some of the struggles she faces. Sandra is a writer. A writer who wants her dad to be curious about her writing. He never bothers to ask what she’s writing. When they’d ask her father how many children's he has, he’d respond with “I have seven sons.” The mention of only sons, not a daugher. This proved to her he was only proud of his sons but not her. According to him she’d also have to go to college but only to find a husband. A man who will take her out of poorness. Since, according to Sandra that's why her dad thought college was important for her. He didn't care about her major. Sandra Cisneros is a writer who didn’t have the attention she was meant to receive. Towards the end she finally gets the attention she desired. She translated one of her pieces into Spanish, the only language her dad could read. That's how it gained the attention of her father. When her dad finally reads her story, it fills her with joy. At first she didn't get any attention from her dad at all, because she’s a girl. Sandra Cisneros makes a great argument on her life being full of loneliness. Although, she only talks about her perspective on things. In this article she only talks about her side of the story, and her side only. Sandra talks about how her life was as being the only girl out of seven children.
Mahasweta Devi’s short story, “Giribala,” is about the life of Giribala, a girl of Talsana village located in India. Born into a caste in a time when it was still customary to pay a bride-price, Giri is sold to Aulchand by her father. From this point on, we see a series of unfortunate, tragic events that take place in Giri’s life as a result of the circumstances surrounding Giri’s life. There are many issues in Giri’s life in India that Devi highlights to readers. First, the economic instability of the village leads to an extremely poor quality of life for the lower, working classes. Next, the cruel role of women determined by men in society is to either satisfy the sexual desires of men or to reproduce offspring who can work or be sold off to marriages. There are also other social norms and beliefs which discriminate against women that will be discussed.
Without the slightest hesitation, he went to the door on the right, and opened it. Before the gate had even reached a foot off the ground the young lover, heartbroken, watched four frantic feet pacing back and forth and heard a deep, rhythmic panting. His mind frenziedly raced with dozens of thoughts: How could you do this to me? My dear lover, do you care but only for yourself? Someone must have forced her to tell me to choose the right door! What sort of fool am I to fall in love with the fairest lady in the kingdom?! What am I to do now? Run The tiger steadily stepped out of his dark cage, allowing the afternoon sun to warm his striped fur. He gazed first at the masses seated breathlessly around the stadium
left my mouth she looked up and studied me with her beautiful grey blue eyes. I felt as if I
In his novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Patrick Süskind chooses third person narration to tell the story of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. And though Grenouille is the character at which the story is based upon, we are also taken through the minds and actions of other characters through the unlimited knowledge of an omniscient narrative voice. By seeing and smelling the world through Grenouille’s eyes and nose while at the same time having it told through several characters instead of him alone, we are somewhat left detached from Grenouille from the very beginning, which only enhances the lack of sympathy and
Naylor means that word nigger was changed from derogatory term used by racist whites to subject African Americans based on their previous mistreatment to a term used by the African Americans to each other to compliment one’s actions. For example “In the singular, the word was always applied to a man who had distinguished himself in some situation that brought their approval
Imagine a wife and husband being married for 44 years and having one of them not remember who the other is, or their past life together. The film Away From Her (Egoyan, et al., 2006) shows viewers how the disease can greatly impact your life, and how quickly it can form. The film was based off of a short story “The Bear Came over the Mountain” by Alice Munro (Munro, 2013). In both works, the author and the director portray a significant struggle between a husband and wife dealing with Alzheimer’s.
Set in a futuristic society, a central influence on ones status and wealth in “The Semplica-Girl Diaries” by George Saunders, comes from ownership of semplica-girls; women from poor countries who agree to become human ornaments, strung by a microline installed in their temple, in order to provide money for their families. Through characterizing Eva as sensitive, and abnormal, Saunders shows that the average person doesn 't see how owning semplica-girls is morally wrong. The majority of people who can afford SG’s have them; in Eastridge, a presumably rich neighborhood, approximately 39/50 had. This number shows the normalization of owning SG’s. Eva consistently expresses her dislike saying, “I don’t like it. It’s not nice. . .If we want to help them, why can’t we just give them the money?”. The rest of her family are fascinated by the semplica-girls, and aspire to have one of their own. However, Eva sees the cruelty in displaying humans as ornaments for their own benefits, because as she suggests, if they wanted to help them they would give them money. In an attempt to defend themselves, her parents justify owning semplica-girls because the women have seen worse, are “happier”, and able to send money to their families. The fact that Eva goes against society’s beliefs, shows that she sees through the distorted justification society proposes. Her father writes that Eva “has developed tendency to set herself apart from others” and sees her sensitivity as “an
Maria Kizito and Hotel Rwanda are true accounts of two isolated events that took place in Rwanda during a genocide in 1994 where nearly one million innocent people lost their lives. Maria Kizito is a play that focuses mainly on the trial of a catholic nun, Maria Kizito, who was charged and found guilty of promoting and facilitating the murder of seven thousand refugees who sought shelter from Hutu extremist at a local convent (Kizito 178). Whereas Hotel Rwanda focuses on the life of Paul Rusesabagina, a Rwandan manager, and Hutu, at a Belgian-owned luxury hotel in Rwanda 's capital, who saved not only himself and his family but also 1,268 refugees from the same extremist. Despite their differences in location and characters, the play and the film, both develop narratives that tell the same story about how the genocide in Rwanda is a direct result of colonization, how the international community failed to intervene, and that a plane crash ignited in what was the worst genocide after the holocaust. Before analyzing how Maria Kizito and Hotel Rwanda depict Colonialism, it is important to first understand the history of Colonialism in Rwanda.
In “The Story of an Hour” (1894), Kate Chopin presents a woman in the last hour of her life and the emotional and psychological changes that occur upon hearing of her husbands’ death. Chopin sends the protagonist, Mrs. Mallard, on a roller coaster of emotional up’s and down’s, and self-actualizing psychological hairpin turns, which is all set in motion by the news of her husband’s death. This extreme “joy ride” comes to an abrupt and ultimately final halt for Mrs. Mallard when she sees her husband walk through the door unscathed. Chopin ends her short story ambiguously with the death of Mrs. Mallard, imploring her reader to determine the true cause of her death.
This film is from Sayuri's perspective, so it makes sense that she is the only one that we know thoroughly. We know her back story, her desires, her loss, her pain and we are able to greatly sympathize with her. Her life is signed away at a young age and thus her fate is also bought, this becomes a great struggle for her. She is constantly caught between being obedient to her life as a geisha; the desires of others, and listening to and following her own desires; however, "when trapped water makes a new path," which is what happens to her.
Oronooko is an excellent play by Aphra Behn that discusses a large array of wonderful themes. The story’s main character depicts a person of power. He was in a sense eventually forced to empathize with those he unintentionally caused a great deal of harm to. Oronooko a man of royalty participated in the selling of African slaves. An African himself saw nothing wrong in doing this; this was an accepted part of his culture. He befriended the British and lived a life envied by those he persecuted.
We can go through Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita and find a plethora of passages with beautiful, descriptive, and meaningful writing. Nabokov’s 309 pages of art gives the world of literature something worth discussing, analyzing, loving, and adapting. The art of Lolita has been adapted into film by director Adrian Lyne with his filmed titled “Lolita”, released in 1997. In Lyne’s adaptation of Lolita we specifically see an important passage come to life; the passage shows us Humbert’s realization of Lolita’s “absence of her voice” (Nabokov 308). The importance reveals itself through the words Nabokov writes in his novel. In the film adaptation of the novel, we also find importance through cinematic elements like narration, cinematography, sound, editing, and Mise-en-scene. With both the passage and adaptation, we can study the meaning of the character Humbert and his love for Lolita.