SUMMARY OF NOVEL FUNNY BOY

“Dadi’s Family” observes what a “traditional” family in Haryana, India is like and the issues / concerns the family faces in “modern” times. In the documentary "Dadi 's family", the film explores the concept of family and the roles that a woman play in life. The roles are daughter, sister, mother, mother-in-law, daughter-in-law, and sister-in-law. These roles are portrayed to us via various members of Dadi 's family. In this family, we have Dada and Dadi (grandmother and grandfather) as the head of the family. We have the two older sons, Meherlal and Mohinder who are married to Darshini and Sita respectively. The youngest son, Rajinder gets married to Kanta in the film. Dadi and Dada also have two daughters Anguri and Saroj who aren’t shown too much in the film but are married in other villages.

Dadi refers to the grandmother, "manager" of an extended family living in the Haryana region of Northern India. When dadi days family, she meant the male lineage with all their wives and children living as one economic unit. With everyone’s income managed by the oldest couple. This film explores the extended family and its problems, particularly through the women of Dadi 's family. The film also addresses the different roles women play in her lifetime, daughters, daughter-in-law, mothers, mother-in-law, sisters, sister-in-law, wives. It also reveals the difficult to fulfil each role. Some important aspect that the film touches on is also patriarchy and the influences of education in changing the status of women.

Amy Tan’s A Pair Of Tickets is a story concerning family and roots. June May, like the author herself, was a Chinese born in USA and grew up with an American background culture, whereas her mother grew up in China and then immigrated to America. Looking at the repeated words, we discussed that one there are many words such as mother, sister, father and Aiyi. Most of the characters in this story belong to one family, June May’s family. It suggests to us that the tale is about relations and where we stand in our family. Even Aiyi brings practically her whole family to see her brother and niece. This is also one of the stronger traits of the Chinese cultures where there are many family occasions.

So when Sourdi started dating the boy their family had hired to wash dishes at their restaurant, Duke, Nea never considered him to be a “fork in the road, dividing [Nea’s] life with Sourdi from Sourdi’s life with men” (Chai 84). Nea underestimated Sourdi and Duke’s relationship and overestimated her and Sourdi’s bond. Soon enough, their mother caught on and ended up firing Duke, but Duke and Sourdi continued to fall in love with each other. Nea wasn’t surprised that Duke, the “funny-looking white kid”, fell in love with her sister (Chai 84). Sourdi is so beautiful that she had some beauty to spare and Nea would sometimes pretend that she was beautiful too. Where Sourdi was smooth, Nea had angles; where Sourdi was soft, Nea had bone (Chai 84). Sourdi is reserved and calm in contrast to Nea who is quite outspoken and rigid. Regardless of their differences, Sourdi and Nea remained close; that was until Sourdi was arranged to be married to a much older gentleman, Mr. Chhay, at the tender age of eighteen.

Ashima is Gogol’s mother, who moved to America for her husband Ashoke after they were arranged for marriage. Ashima misses her family and life back in Calcutta, she has trouble setting in to the American lifestyles. “On more than one occasion [Ashoke] has come home from the university to find her morose, in bed, rereading her parents’ letters.” Ashima feels lonely and homesick. Ashima tries to keep Bengali tradition by always wearing a sari and a bindi in her forehead, and always cooking an Indian dinner. “For being a foreigner, Ashima is beginning to realize, is a sort of lifelong pregnancy — a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts. It is an ongoing responsibility, a parenthesis in what had once been ordinary life, only to discover that that previous life has vanished, replaced by something more complicated and demanding.” (49) In America, Ashima is surrounded by people she does not know, and she does not quite feel that she fits in. There are new customs and a new way of doing

“Sweet Wild Boy,” reveals a man (Mark Willis) who loves and cares deeply about his family and friends. He could be described as a caretaker, or a loyal friend. Either way Mark represents a man of integrity and character; who tries to help his best friend (David) overcome family problems at home and then though out his adult life, addiction to drugs. Mark’s parents even became involved in the attempt to help save David however; David could not resist the demons of his past and always found his way back to drugs.

Lakshmi decides to become a maid to help her family with financial issues. Baba sells lakshimi to this in town clerk for 10,000 rupees. 10,000 rupees is equivalent to $153.70. Lakshmi sets out on foot with this so called “aunt” to the city to work. Lakshmi then gets transferred to this guy who tells her to call him her husband. Lakshmi travels across the border from Nepal into India. Eventually Lakshmi reaches the happiness house where she is told that she will work there. Lakshmi is confused when she sees the other girls there. She is confused because she is wondering why do they have on all this fancy clothes to work. Eventually Lakshmi realizes what is going on. Lakshmi meets this woman named Mumtaz. Mumtaz is the owner of this happiness house. Mumtaz purchases Lakshmi for 10,000 rupees. She then cuts Lakshmi's hair short incase she ever decides to run away. Lakshmi then gets locked into a room. She is locked into a room in case she tries to run away and because she is special. She is special because she is still a virgin. People pay extra for a virgin. Mumtaz brings a old man into Lakshmi's room. Lakshmi is very frightened because she doesn't know what is

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

The memoir, This Boy’s Life, by Tobias Wolff is about a boy fighting an internal battle between bad behavior and good morale; at the end of the book Toby becomes a good boy, but has many bumps in his journey. For example, when Toby and his mother move into Dwight’s house, he doesn’t tell his mother that Dwight is an abusive person. So when his mother was nearby Toby would lie and confirm “all his lying implications that we (Toby and Dwight) were pals and our life together was a good one” (99, Wolff). Toby kept quiet about the violence because he thinks that his mother is happy with Dwight and he doesn’t want to mess up their relationship. Secondly, when Toby is sent off to live at the farm, he siphones gas from the Welch’s car. Just afterwards,

Finally, Jayanti’s first exposure to the world outside her Aunt’s house and the events that lead after, changes who she really is,

At the ripe young age of sixteen, Janie is forced, by her grandma, into a marriage she did not want. She is raised “From the traditional views of the grandmother” (Maupin) so Janie must comply to Nanny’s wishes. Janie is considered a woman at her age. When Nanny sees Janie kissing a boy, old memories re-emerge that remind Nanny of how herself and her daughter were raped. She wants a better life for Janie than her own, so she immediately arranges for Janie to marry off. This is not an uncommon practice in this society to marry off at this age.

Brush explains the surprise when she uses the imagery “a small but glossy birthday cake, with one pink candle burning in the center.” When the reader reads this, he believes that this would be a good fun surprise that would be fun. However the husband did not view it as a fun surprise as the reader can tell when he reads “the husband was not pleased, instead he was hotly embarrassed, and indignant at his wife for embarrassing him.” This appeal to emotion reveals a shift in the story, as the reader realizes why the couple may have been “unmistakably married.” This appeal to emotion also has the reader questioning what is to come to the wife for embarrassing her husband in front of the whole

The film is based on the autobiographical account of Mira Nair's own family.( Manish Gajjar 2002) It is about a stressed father, a bride-to-be with a secret, a smitten events coordinator, and relatives from around the world who create much ado about the preparations for an arranged marriage in India (IMDB). The excellent exploitaation of symbolism, colour and costumes together with the contrast between modern and traditional India has been successfully depicted the Indian values and beliefs. Nonetheless, with the use of representations, and by dealing with the concept of

( p. 46, Shyam Selvadurai) This quote demonstrates a change in Arjie’s perception. Moreover, the fact that Selvadurai implicates this quote at the beginning of the chapter is symbolic. He does this to symbolize a change in Arjie through the physical appearance of a supporting character. Furthermore, Arjie is caught off guard which depicts how fictional his thoughts on reality are. During the conclusion of the chapter Arjie’s perception of love and beauty is revolutionized through the “love life” of his Aunt. Arjie goes on to say “…I felt no pleasure, for I knew that, although everything would happen in the way I had dreamed there would be something missing. … I thought of the love-comics and how fervently believed in them, believed that if two people loved each other everything was possible. Now, I knew this was not so.”(pp.99-100, Shyam Selvadurai) This clearly indicates a change in perception in the young boys mind and this would be one of the first steps in the transcendence of Arjie’s character. Selvadurai effectively uses Radha Auntie and many other supporting characters throughout the novel in order to aid the main character evolve. Similar to Arjie, Marjie from Persepolis depicts evolution through the aid of supporting characters. In this novel, Satrappi uses many characters to evolve Marjie’s understanding of the world. For example, at the beginning of the novel, Marjie is introduced to her uncle Anoosh. He is branded as a communist under the Shaw’s

Jack (Tobias) is the main character in the memoir, This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff. The