Have you ever heard the expression, “I’ll believe it when I see it?” Often times people use this expression because they find what someone told them to be untrue or unbelieveable. This can happen in writing. Kathleen Jamie proved to be an unreliable narrator in the essay, “Shia Girls”. Thus, her audience was unable to get a clear picture of Pakistan because she continuously compared Pakistan to her homeland. Moreover, the essay “Shia Girls” is reported by Kathleen Jamie rather than produced, which gives her readers unreliable and false representations of Pakistan. “Shia Girls” is reported.One definition of the term report is, “To give a spoken or written account of someting that someting that one has observed, heard, done, or …show more content…
Since Jamie only included the things she felt was important, it can mold and influence her readers into thinking that everything that Jamie says is completely true. everything that Jamie said can cause her audience to doubt her representation of Pakistan.She doesn’t provide solid evidence to her audience to help support her claim. For example, when Jamie learns that Rashida’s diary in English, she gave myself and no doubt other readers reason to believe that Rashida didn’t just compose it in English just for practice(82). But she also did it so that her husband wouldn’t be able to read it because Pakistani husbands doesn’t allow their wives to have much privacy.Another example is where Jamie says,“Rashida, she should have gone on the stage.(This is not possible I can hear her say, we are Shia Girls).This excerpt especially is an example of when Jamie makes it seem that Shia girls doesn’t have any control their lives. In addition, she speaks of how she feels that some of their clothing takes away what makes them feminine,and there 's nothing that they can do about it. She says, “Dupattas are always required , or it is shame”(80). She even went on to say on pages 80 and 81 how Rashida must rely on her brothers and cousins to mail her letters for her since she is a woman. Thus, by including this in her text, Jamie gives the reader the impression that women must be taken care of and aren’t …show more content…
Pratt’s text speaks of an autoethnography, which is, “a text that whereby people describe themselves in ways that engage with what others have made of them”(1). Jamie wrote what is called a travel-writing piece because it chronicles her experiences of going to Pakistan. However,Pratt speaks of the dominant discourse. The dominant discourse is the majority, the ones whose opinion matters. The “other” are those whose opinion doesn’t matter and are often look down on. In Jamie’s essay, she makes herself the dominant discourse. “I was thinking of the lightness of my friends, their feminine graces their quietness, their quaint old-fashioned charm, was delightful until it became profoundly, irritating. And I wanted to say:”Stop it now. We’re friends now.” Be real. Beside them I felt rough and ungainly, I felt as if I had stubble (70) . Jamie looked down on them because they express their femeninity differently than her.Even though she is in place where majority of the people are Palestinian, she makes them the “other” just because they have a different culture than her. However, this isn 't really what Pratt was talking about in her text. Pratt made mention that since it would be so many of them,it would be Jamie who would get spoken down on by the dominant discourse because it would be more convenient. Contrarily Jamie has this air about herself that it 's almost as if she looks ,down on them.
Both el Saadawi and Al-Shaykh both show how perception and expression are both affected within the confines of politics, social opportunities, and male privilege depicted in their stories. Whether the reader is a follower of the feminist movement or not, it is very clear and easy to see that these women are not being treated with the respect that any human being deserves. The misogynistic stranglehold on society, especially in this part of the world, is excessive and avoidable in today’s world but it is very likely that the traditional, conservative ways of the past will continue to control and inhibit women from being able to be fully treated as equals for many years to come, perhaps even after this generation has
Major newspapers around the world wrote about Masih’s story, even though it was often demoted towards the end of the newspaper. It was not long before both the media and the public disregarded it. A little less than seven thousand miles away from Pakistan, however, another 12-year-old boy in Thornhill, Canada devoted Masih’s story to memory, an undertaking that signified the beginning ...
The nineteenth century was a time of major change. Abraham Lincoln was trying to abolish slavery, there was a civil war going on, and also women fighting for their rights. The country had already brought about change with their freedom from Great Britain, but there were still many problems with the way America stood. The struggle that was going on in America at this time can be seen in many of the writings throughout the time period. There were some individuals during this time period that are pro-slavery for reasons unknown. Some slaves and former slaves wrote about their experience to spread the word about how bad slavery was. Other advocates also wrote persuasive writings to encourage slavery abolishment. The one writing that stood out to me the most was the essay “From Appeal to the Christian Women of the South” by Angelina Grimke. I
Perspective allows people to see another person’s point of view. In the essay “The Cabdriver’s Daughter” by Waheeda Samady, she addresses her perception versus society’s opinion of her father. In her eyes, her father is a person capable of displaying kindness and expressing his profound knowledge while for some Americans, he is their preconceived notion of what a terrorist might look like. She challenges people to look past his scars and the color of skin, and “look at what the bombs did not destroy” (19). To her, he is the man that has lived through the Soviet-Afghan War, persevered through poverty, and denied these experiences the power of changing him into a cantankerous person. Samady feels prideful of her father’s grit through his past experiences yet feels sorrowful thinking about the life he could have lived if the war had never happened.
back. She was rich, at least by our standards, as rich as the richest of white girls, swaddled in comfort and care. The quality of her clothes threatened to derange Frieda and me” (98). Frieda and Claudia were recognized as poor black children, not middle class like Geraldine and her family, but not completely lower class like the Breedloves. Frieda and Claudia had only a few school clothes in comparison to the new girl Maureen Peal. Morrison’s parallel structure between the school girls magnifies society’s social comparison. It is the stigmatism of people to associate appearance with wealth, education, and economic status. The better clothes you had, the larger the possibility you were wealthy. During the time of the novel, African Americans were rarely among the upper class of society; actually they were predominately known and categorized in the lower class. It was not until recently in the twenty-first century that African Americans rose to be a larger portion of the lower-middle class. Claudia’s detailed critique of Maureen Peal’s appearance signified how divided Americans were from each other. White Americans had the wealth and power of the nation, their appearance reflected that. African Americans, underprivileged, lacked social power, reflected in their presence and how society viewed them.
“I could tell Rashida was smiling, because her eyes crinkled up. She pressed her cheek to mine. We are Shia girls.” (p.97) This is a defining line, which closes out the section “Shia Girls” from Kathleen Jamie’s 2002 book Among Muslims: Every Day Life on the Frontiers of Pakistan. To dive into why this line is so defining right away, would be overwhelming. First, some background information. Jamie (b.1962) is a writer from Edinburgh, Scotland. She attended Edinburgh University where she studied philosophy and began writing. Jamie traveled to the northern areas of Pakistan for the purpose of experience and to be able to write a piece of travel writing -------- which she titled The Golden Peak (1993). Ten years after her first visit, the writer returned to Pakistan as she had always hoped to do, but upon her return found a drastically different Pakistan. She summarizes her newfound experiences that she has, in her book Among Muslims: Every Day Life on the Frontiers of Pakistan. Here she reproduces the people and situations she’s encountered while evaluating all of the things around her.
The article begins with an introductory statement: “Qandeel Baloch was failed by Pakistan society at every step. The same nation that topped Google searches for pornography strangles women like her to death” (1). Aqueel engages the audience in the text by incorporating a direct attack at hypocrites, foreshadowed by the title of the article. Aqueel speaks
Karen Armstrong’s essay out of her novel The Case for God is a logical piece of literature that uses formal expository writing to educate its readers on radical terrorism. Following 9/11, a significant amount of the public’s beliefs shifted to blaming all Muslims for the one attack, defining their religion as a danger to our countries. Armstrong never disagrees that the attack on 9/11 could be due to religious reasons, but demonstrates that this is radical terrorism and does not represent Islam at all. The organization of her essay builds upon using facts and her thesis, that is positively presenting Islamic values is more constructive on allowing our countries to have better relations, is supported through her academic style of writing. Armstrong
Fenton says this by telling Maria Toorpakai’s Journey of being a disguised young boy, and all the views that were among them in Pakistan. This is reliable, because Fenton has obviously recently went to canada to see Maria or has called her because she said “ now 25 “ which shows present tense, Fenton also is reliable by date she has wrote this early this morning, maybe for memory reference.One of Fenton’s best arguments was when she announced Maria’s age when she first decided to change her gender. This is a good argument because it shows how desperate women were to be equal or just be free.This author is a good writer the entire article made complete sense to me it. I think it might be because this reflects the things I’ve been learning in school. This article appeals to my logical appeal. I think that the entire article uses connotative language because it tells Maria’s story without actually saying why it is important.Fenton’s attitude toward the subject is probably, more focused on a woman's point of view toward unequal living.The author is bias seeing how she is also a female who has heard and maybe even experience mistreatment.She adequately supports her claim with appropriate evidence using statements said by maria and making a short film on her. Fenton’s resources are not really that
The novel A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007) and the documentary Beneath the Veil (2001) both explore the unequal, prejudice actions of the Taliban within Afgafistan. The women were left voiceless as well as fearful for their lives which is evident through the novel and the documentary. Khaled Houssini, the writer of A Thousand Splendid Suns constructs his novel from the protagonist, Mariams, point of view. Readers are then able to understand the unjust, misogynistic actions towards the females living in Afgafistan. Similarly to A Thousand Splendid Suns is a documentary, Beneath the Veil. Narrated and produced by Sarah Shahi whom is a female westerner, she explores the outcast of women and the prejudice actions of the Taliban. Both the novel and the documentary go into depth with the confronting truths of the Taliban and Afgafistan as a whole.
Critics have already begun a heated debate over the success of the book that has addressed both its strengths and weaknesses. The debate may rage for a few years but it will eventually fizzle out as the success of the novel sustains. The characters, plot, emotional appeal, and easily relatable situations are too strong for this book to crumble. The internal characteristics have provided a strong base to withstand the petty attacks on underdeveloped metaphors and transparent descriptions. The novel does not need confrontations with the Middle East to remain a staple in modern reading, it can hold its own based on its life lessons that anyone can use.
Often in literature authors, particularly men, are criticized for falsely or inaccurately portraying or "writing" women. This debate has been historically confined to male authors, but is on occasion reversed and female authors are criticized for inaccurately writing men. Although it may sound like a fair trade—or at least the beginnings of one in the world of critics—these situations are limited to primarily European and predominately North American literature. Examining the portrayal of men and the male sex as a whole, by women, is an important if not essential undertaking in this modern world, but where is comes to a point of being absolutely crucial is when it is the women authors of a world where they are second class citizens only because of their gender. If the writing of men in Arab women’s novels can be understood at even the most basic level it may allow some insight into what these women think and assume consciously and subconsciously, about themselves and their position in society and about the inherent oppression that they deal with and resign themselves to—no matter how weak or extreme the degree of the oppression, ranging from Egypt to Saudi Arabia.
In the essay, the writer acknowledges the misunderstandings that come from media images by explaining the contrasts between these images and the teachings of the faith to support her claim that fear is the reason for this misconception. The conception that many people have of Muslims is that they are terrorists, anti-Semites, and fanatics. This conception exsists because television news and newspapers support that stereotype. The broadcast of such stereotypes encourages fear and accusations of the Islamic relegion's teachings. The writer explains that Islam teaches peace, tolerance, and equality. She further states that Muslims shown in the media have violated these teachings ...
... Aside from power, the recurrent leitmotif is the constant comparisons that Changez makes between America and Pakistan. (‘Lahore, the second largest city in Pakistan, home to as many people as New York...’) Also, he resents the grouping of Islamic identity as one by symbols such as the beard, burqa, etc. Yet, he too homogenizes the American identity to an extent. He frequently describes other Americans as ‘not unlike yourself’ and their actions as ‘just as you are doing now.’
Our views of world conflicts such as war are influenced by the part of the world in which we live. When exploring media coverage of discord, it is important to think about where the author is from and how it has influenced the way he/she has portrayed disharmony. Reports on a world conflict can express extremely different views depending on the social values and understandings of the writers. One must read articles that address the issue of war with cultural relativism by taking into account the local values and historical experiences of the writer. By neglecting this approach, a reader may be persuaded to believe biased and often untrue facts. When researching the war in the Middle East, for example, I found that different countries presented the fighting in different ways. A U.S. newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, presents the conflict in a biased manner and blames the Palestinians for the fighting because we are allies with the Israelis. On the other hand the Dawn, a Pakistani paper, presents the same issues but gives a more accurate and sympathetic view of the Palestinians’ situation. Reflecting on these differences, I realized that culture and national interests shape newspapers’ presentations of war. As an informed reader, it is important to know that I am often given a biased presentation of the facts surrounding a conflict and with this in mind I have changed the way I view reports on war presented by the media.