Theme Of So Long A Letter

The poems ‘Still I Rise’ and ‘Unknown Girl’ both explore the way women are expected to behave in specific societies. ‘Still I Rise’ focuses on Maya Angelou’s refusal to accept racism and to allow “them”, white oppressors, to push her down. ‘Unknown Girl’ focuses on Moniza Alvi’s want to be accepted in a society where she belongs, but can’t call her own.

Writer and activist, Rebecca Solnit, addresses the issues of gender inequalities and violence against women in her essay “The Longest War.” Solnit’s purpose is to shed a light onto the inequitable and often detrimental treatment of women, and to emphasize the need for change. She utilizes a compelling, matter-of-fact tone to optimize the effect her words will have on her readers, both male and female. “The Longest War” by Rebecca Solnit employs the rhetorical strategies of substance and context to highlight gender issues worldwide, and to inspire people to act in favor of equality.

The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie highlights the often challenging lives of Nigerian women living in Africa, but also abroad in the United States. It is however, not the difficulties which Adichie is ultimately focusing on, but the courage and intelligence of women who are able to make ‘small victories’, overcoming various attempts of cultural oppression.

“Women like us. We endure.” (Hosseini, 19). For the female protagonists Laila and Mariam in the novel A 1000 Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini and the two unnamed female protagonists of the movie Osama, oppression is something they face and endure everyday. Both stories take place in Afghanistan around the 1990’s and 2000’s. In A 1000 Splendid Suns, the two female protagonists, Laila and Mariam, are wives to Rasheed, an abusive Islamic shoe maker (220). In the movie Osama, there are three generations living in one small home: a grandmother, mother, and a daughter. They have lost all of their male relatives who have died from fighting various Afghan wars (Osama). Osama and A 1000 Splendid Suns both display how women are oppressed and how it

In Gloria Anzaldua’s letter “Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to 3rd World Women Writers” she delivers her message of being a third world woman writer and how there is a constant struggle between conforming to gain a voice in the world of writing and staying true to your culture. She pulls pieces from her own life experiences and works from other looked over women writers of color to make her point and connect to her audience letting them know she is part of their plight to be heard. In my rewrite of the essay “A Letter in “tongues”” I changed the delivery from a letter to a free verse poem condense Anzaldua 's message from Writing Women of color to just discriminated women writers just in general. They both focused use of pathos and ethos but mine leans more towards ethos pointing out that the dominant ideology of english writing being the only way to be heard as a writer that it is denying the voice of writing women of color and that is ethically wrong not what has happened to herself to invoke feeling.

The first chapter of the book is named as “the easy task of obeying”. This chapter talks about the respect and place that was given to the women in colonial society. The chapter

There are many flaws in society that people have just accepted and decided not to fight for, but oppressed female writers and nationalist groups have taken a stand against them. Author Gloria Anzaldua expresses in her letter “Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to Third World Women Writers,” the battles she has encountered as a Chicana, gay woman, the opinions she has of our world and how to overcome the difficulties she and other third world women writers have experienced. Aside from her, nationalist movements such as the Chicano and the Young Lords Movements were created to fight against the social oppressions, Mexican-Americans and Puerto Ricans, minority groups have had to live under. Despite the fact that Anzaldua limits her discussion to that

swept off by her father and her life will continue on effortlessly. She has had to tolerate the

Women are said to have fewer opportunities and not as good opportunities as men may have. Women, also have to work twice as hard as men do to get a job that's “meant for men”. The fact that women have to work twice as hard as men gives women the advantage of learning new things and also how to really work for what you what. In this day and age, many wrongful men still believe they have power over females. Women are treated as lower class to men. We were told as we grew up to do what the men tell you if you want to keep them. That our job was to wash the dishes, clean the house, and make dinner. In some countries this is still how women are seen and how women should act and if they didn’t they would be punished.. This was how it was in the book “Kite Runner”. Women had almost no say in what they were allowed and not allowed to do. Through seemingly minor references and characterization, the author reveals a powerful theme portraying the realistic position of women in the Afghan culture. These examples provide the minor evidence that accrued through the novel.

Gender roles govern the way that most of the world’s population interact with one another. Many African cultures uphold deeply patriarchal gender roles which dictate how women and men interact with one another. Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie, a staunch feminist, gives readers a look into Nigerian gender roles in her short story Birdsong. Her writing in Birdsong and her TEDtalks explore and expose how these gender roles are harmful and how important it is for many stories of young women of color to be heard.

Traditional and cultural practices reinforce the power of men in African societies and are often embraced without any questioning. Tambu, is denied access to education because she is a girl. Tambu’s father’s refusal to further her education is influenced by cultural assumptions, which consider education to be a male preserve. Tambu’s

These strong, and independent African women authors use insightful and educational language, which invites the western world to be a part of their world through the power of literature. One of the

Though being a political narrative, the presence of women to strengthen the quality and reality of the novel is undeniable. Critic Abdulzarak Gurnah says: "Ngugi's writing is never far from the subject" and this is perfectly applicable for his description of the African women. However, being rather objective he also points a picture of the white women who though being secondary characters play a certain role in the novel.

Elisabeth says then there will never be any solution to the problem of novel in Africa if the Africans wanted a ‘living voice’. The main problem faced by them was because the African writers unlike the French and the English were not acting as writers but were actually behaving like interpreters of their exotic cultures and that the root of their problem was ‘ Having to perform your Africanness at the same time as you write.’

During the 1960’s disproportionate gender roles characterized post-colonial Rhodesia. The African patriarchy described in Tsitsi Dangarembga’s acclaimed novel, Nervous Conditions, promotes feminist theory through the portrayal of marginalized women in Zimbabwe. Regardless of class or social prowess, women were not permitted the same liberties and regarded with the same respect as their male counterparts. Women found themselves relegated to the positions of household servants, and excluded from the labor markets by the societies males. (Mbatha 23) Female characters of the novel consistently struggle with “nervous conditions” around males, stemming from years of oppression under the Shona power system. Throughout her novel, Nervous Conditions, Dangarembga exemplifies the various forms of oppression faced by Shona women as well as methods they utilized to resist the oppressive male patriarchy.