A young woman being forced into poverty and exiled from society, despite her age or class, is the brutal reality for widows in India. The film Water portrays this harsh fate for an eight- year old widow named Chuyia. Chuyia, hardly old enough to know the difference between males and females, is victimized by a corrupt system of marriage in India. Through the eyes of a widow, Deepa Mehta, screenwriter and director of Water, masterfully shows the cruel reality of this system in India. Deepa Mehta uses her gifts of writing and directing to bring to light issues in society, much like the writers before her time.
Writer, Amy Tan, in her narrative essay, “Mother Tongue,” recounts the struggles of growing up in a “broken” english household. Tan’s purpose is to bring to attention the injustices that are put upon individuals that don’t speak English as their first language. She adopts a reflective tone in order to capture the emotions of her readers. Tan sets the stage of her essay by recalling stories that exemplify how her mother has been put down based on how she spoke. She states: “...her intent, her passion, her imagery, the rhythms of her speech and the nature of her thoughts” (4).
Sue Monk Kidd’s novel, “Secret Life of Bees,” based in South Carolina in the 1960s, explores a number of confronting and major issues, such as forgiveness and feminine power. It also explores the history of racism in America at this time, and the impacts and implications this had on the way many “coloured” people lived their lives. The story follows the life of Lily, a pre-adolescent girl, who has been through a lot after the death of her mother. This is mostly due to her father, whom she called T.Ray, ‘as daddy’ didn’t suit him. Rosaleen, Lily’s nanny is also a key character in this book, as she too escapes with Lily, as they attempt to escape from the hatred they have experienced.
A Lady of Letters ‘You’re funny you, Irene. You don’t mind being in prison.’ You don’t hear or see very often someone enjoying himself or herself in prison but for Miss Ruddock in “A Lady of Letters” that’s exactly what we do see. It’s a monologue by Alan Bennett and it’s well known due to how well Bennett exploits the comic genre. In this essay I will analyse Bennett’s use of structure, characterisation, theme and humour. I will also comment on the relevance to modern society for example, loneliness and isolation.
Therefore I will explain some important current events in Afghanistan specially about the women. Afghanistan can be a hard and cruel land for women and girls. First we have an article published on March 3, 2009, the title said about "Afghan Women Slowly Gaining Protection". That information is about Marian and other girls in Afghanistan. Marian was 11 years old and her parents forced her to marry a blind, 41 years old.
Writing was my safe haven and it always cheered me up because of the fact that I could transfer my thoughts from my mind and unto a sheet of paper that would hold memories of a lifetime! On the other hand, there were a few bad experiences also. For example, I remember I wrote a note to my mother that was of total disrespect. Not only did I get my mom upset, but i also had my mother in tears. She couldn't believe that I would write something out of content in regards to her.
Schwartz mentioned a good example when “ Jane was infant, who was orphaned by the death of her parents, and how Jane became the ward of a woman who always abused ,then she moved on to explain when Jane was as a little girl , who experienced her circumstances as arbitrary , which were beyond her power to change , also she explains the gap that happened in Jane’s childhood and her adultness and how she represents herself and how that ambiguity run” (549) . Schwartz on her essay went on to apply Derrida’s concepts of deconstruction on one hand like “split” and “the binary oppositions”. As she also investigates Jane’s family name and explains what her name means in Latin, also on this part of her essay on the other hand she go back to Freud big impact on the novel and used his psychological concept which is “the family romance “ that she thoroughly apply it on her essay and how Jane’s narrative embody the double wish in her novel like “original and derived, free and bound, an orphan and an heir” (553). Schwartz said that we have to over look the ambivalent representation of home and family that run throughout the novel (553). She gives a good example “how the ambivalence about home is manifested in the slippage of the family name Eyre” (554) .Also how Rochester and St. John are victimized by the trap that is family and how Jane herself escapes it.
In the book Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Kathleen Boo, the destitute life of poverty in Annawadi serves as a double-edged sword in Asha’s life; while it inspired her determination to lead a superior life, it also gradually corroded the humanity within her mind. Motivated by her impoverished childhood life and the poor living conditions in the slum, Asha had developed her strong determination to rise above her current situation and to live a better life with power and money. Unfortunately, she had gone through a difficult childhood in her hometown in northeastern Maharashtra. As one of the women in her hometown recalled, “She’d been distinguished by her ability to work like a donkey even when she had not eaten for days” (136). Despite the lack of food and terrible living conditions, Asha had been working hard since she was a child.
Kayla McKenzie College Prep English December 15, 2011 Mrs. Layne Wilson Dear Ms. Alice Walker, Your book, “The Color Purple,” is a really good book that I enjoyed reading. I like how you told a story of events that happened to a lot of black women in this era. People need to know the history of how they were treated and what people did to stop it. I like the way you made the theme of the book be a motivation to others that may be going through exactly what Celie and other women who were abused by evil men. This story is very liberating to young woman to have the courage to stand up for their selves.
Marilynne Robinson’s novel Housekeeping Introduction In this paper, it will be discussed Marilynne Robinson’s novel Housekeeping, and a literary criticism relying on secondary sources to explore the work of this novelist. Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and Lucille, two sisters who, after their mother's suicide, cared for by a succession of female relatives, finally and most unconventionally by their mother's youngest sister, Sylvie, a wanderer who returns home to attend to her nieces with a peculiar notion of housekeeping. Sylvie's unorthodox mothering--fanciful, impractical clothes; late-night suppers in the dark; a house overrun with newspapers, small animals, and leaves--inspires the conventional Lucille to abandon aunt and sister for a more traditional life with the Home Economics teacher and eventually induces the townspeople to attempt to remove Ruthie from her aunt's iconoclastic care. It is the threat of separation that forces the pair across the bridge. "It is a terrible thing to break up a family," Ruthie offers as an explanation for their flight from civilization; her statement is as well Robinson's articulation of her deviation from the myth of the unencumbered American hero.