ETS4U1 Performance Task - Component 1: Expository Writing
In Everything Was Goodbye by Gurjinder Basran, Meena is a 17 year old Punjabi-Canadian girl who struggles to find her place in the world with her bicultural identity. Throughout the book, Meena faces unique circumstances and pressures growing up, primarily due to cultural traditions. Her family is originally from Punjab, India, and while they reside in Vancouver, B.C., they still hold on to traditional customs and have cultural values that seem stifling to Meena, who grows up as a teenager in the West. Meena’s situation is unique because she struggles to juggle the two lives that she lives simultaneously: one in which she must fulfill the role of the obedient Punjabi daughter, and the
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One of Meena’s six older sisters, Harj, had run away after being attacked by a group of boys and this is once again another loss that she and her family must cope with. Such misfortunes having happened to the family cause Meena’s mother to be all the more cautious about their image in the judgemental Punjabi community that they are immersed in. Being a widow and birthing all girls, one of which has run away, is viewed as shameful, demeaning the family’s reputation, and threatening the potential for good Punjabi marriages for Meena and her sisters. Unlike in the West, traditionally arranged marriages are the norm in Indian culture and hence, Meena’s mother does everything in her power to ensure that Meena presents herself in a dignified …show more content…
All these pressures from her family and the hypercritical Punjabi community cause Meena to act out and rebel during her teenage years. She begins to skip class to spend time with Liam, the white boy with whom she initiates a sexual relationship with, without her family’s knowledge. Meena yearns to have the freedom and carefree life that Liam has, but when he asks her to run away with him, she knows that she cannot. Instead of pursuing her dreams and finding happiness by being with the man she loves, she knows that she must stay with her family and follow her mother’s rules and expectations. Unlike Liam, it isn’t easy for Meena to just get up and go since there are many factors that hold her back from leaving, which she must consider. Meena knows that her mother would never approve of her being with a white boy. In addition, her family, especially her mother, has been through a lot, grieving the loss of her father all these years and having to raise six daughters on her own as a widow. Meena witnessed how the way that her sister, Harj, running away had devastated the family and the negative impact that her absence left on the home. For these reasons, Meena does not want to put her mother and sisters through such sorrow and grief all over again. Despite Meena’s longing for a more fulfilling life which she can direct herself, she understands that she must stay and
When they arrive home Jamal and Bibi are informed about the journey they are forced to embark on because of the mother’s “illegal activities”. The cross country trek involves the horrors of war, isolation from family and the constant fear of persecution which can force a family to leave their home country.
Eventually Macaria marries a well-to-do American, Sam Polk, and leaves behind the poverty and prostitution that once ruled their lives, but is never fully accepted by her peers into her new moneyed existence. Meanwhile Marcela grows into a beautiful, white-skinned, pale beauty. She is a ready conquest for any male, particularly those of darker descents like Tony, and a thorn in her mother’s side. Unfortunately Marcela’s whiteness draws sexual advances from the local male population and her mother blames her daughter for these interactions.
...er family at the dinner table. When Mehri is sixteen she falls in love with a boy in the neighborhood. Because she was a peasant Mehri did not get the opportunity to go to school so Marji must help her with writing and reading of the letters sent to the neighbor boy. Doing this was hurtful to both Mehri and Marji who became aware of the effects of being in a lower class and Mehri who realizes that love does have restrictions.
This story is about racial discrimination between the Mexicans and the Americans. Clemencia, who is a Mexican-American, is straddling two different cultures. Bitterness and resentment in Clemencia causes her to behave in a rebellious and destructive way. Due to her mother's influences and the day her mother abandons the family for white men which fuel her resentment against the white and she also share her negative feelings towards the Mexican race by refusing to get romantically involved with Mexican men and commits adultery with married white men.
...d and left with little cultural influence of their ancestors (Hirschman 613). When the children inadvertently but naturally adapting to the world around them, such as Lahiri in Rhode Island, the two-part identity begins to raise an issue when she increasingly fits in more both the Indian and American culture. She explains she “felt an intense pressure to be two things, loyal to the old world and fluent in the new”, in which she evidently doing well at both tasks (Lahiri 612). The expectations for her to maintain her Indian customs while also succeeding in learning in the American culture put her in a position in which she is “sandwiched between the country of [her] parents and the country of [her] birth”, stuck in limbo, unable to pick one identity over the other.
The average person wants one thing more than anything else, and that thing is to belong. Usha, a young girl from Calcutta, is no different. Already trying the find her place in the world, Usha must now assimilate into cultural society within the United States. Usha’s uncle, Pranab Kaku, came from Calcutta as well having first come to America, his experiences start off worse than Usha’s, which causes him to join the family in an act of social grouping. With the Old World trying to pull them back and the New World just out of reach, both must overcome tradition and develop their own personal values.
The themes in the story “The Wedding Gift” are freedom, the right to choose, women power and much more. All of these themes fall into one category, which is one of the major theme in this text, “self realization”. When Kezia is told to marry an old, rich man, by the Barley’s for their own business benefit. Kezia expresses her feelings by telling Mr. Mears “My body doesn’t belong to anyone, expect for me”. This story showcases, how women were portrayed back then and even right now in some countries such as China, Afghanistan, India etc. I recently read an article, where a young girl named Priya Khan, committed a suicide in India due to a forced marriage to an old man enough to be her grandfather. Since, her family was not able to provide for her. Towards, the
Narayan’s article raises many questions about third world issues are perceived by western bodies. In her article, Dislocating Cultures: Identities, Traditions, and Third World Feminism, she looks at the “‘effects’ that national contexts have on the construction of feminist issues and the ways in which understandings of issues are then affected by border crossings across national boundaries” and how culture is invoked in explaining the forms of violence that stem from these issues (p.213). She explains this phenomenon by focusing on dowry murder in India. Dowry murder has caused a large outcry and shock, even on the path of the author. But there is a certain shock that stems from western individuals, which tends to ‘exoticize’ and reinforce the notion of the other regarding Indian culture. She refers to Elisabeth Bumiller’s novel, May You be the Mother of a Hundred Sons: A Journey among the Women of India, and she narrows her focus down to chapter three “Flames: A Bride Burning and a Sati.” The author provides a context for understanding her story, in which she mentions a brief account of the mythological Goddess Sita, who threw
However, white’s are told that they have an “invisible package of unearned assets that they can count on chasing in each day, but about which they were “meant” to remain oblivious too” (page 345). They have certain freedoms and advantages, but are taught not to look at them as privileges but something they are innately given. In “La conciencia de la mestiza”, the same concept applies; however, whites are no longer the focus. This essay states that being sandwiched in between two cultures, multiple opposing messages are sent and therefore individuals are confused on what to follow or believe. Mestiza, is the word used to refer to women who are brought up with two different backgrounds.
A traditional extended family living in Northern India can become acquainted through the viewing of Dadi’s family. Dadi, meaning grandmother in Hindu, lets us explore her family up close and personal as we follow the trials and tribulations the family encounters through a daily basis. The family deals with the span of three generations and their conflicting interpretations of the ideal family life. Dadi lets us look at the family as a whole, but the film opens our eyes particularly on the women and the problems they face. The film inspects the women’s battle to secure their status in their family through dealing with a patriarchal mentality. The women also are seen attempting to exert their power, and through it all we are familiarized to
To understand fully the implicit meaning and cultural challenges the film presents, a general knowledge of the film’s contents must be presented. The protagonist, Tita, suffers from typical Hispanic cultural oppression. The family rule, a common rule in this culture, was that the youngest daughter is to remain unwed for the duration of her mother’s life, and remain home to care for her. Mama Elena offers her daughter, Tita’s older sister Rosaura, to wed a man named Pedro, who is unknowingly in mutual love with Tita. Tita is forced to bake the cake for the wedding, which contains many tears that she cried during the process. Tita’s bitter tears cause all the wedding guests to become ill after consuming the cake, and Tita discovers she can influence others through her cooking. Throughout the film, Tita’s cooking plays an important role in all the events that transpire.
Deepa Mehta’s Fire uses a lesbian relationship to challenge the idea of women in India being undermined, sexually constrained, and emotionally repressed, especially in their arranged marriages. Sita and Radha are sisters-in-law, living within a joint family in New Delhi. Radha is married to Ashok, who, with the help of Radha, Sita, and the servant Mundu, runs a take out-food business. Sita is married to Ashok’s brother Jatin, who runs a family business, video-rental shop1. Both marriages suffer as neither of the husbands devote enough passion and emotion to their wives.2 Ashok refuses to have a sexual relationship with Radha.
Hess, Linda. Rejecting Sita: Indian Responses to the Ideal Man's Cruel Treatment of His Ideal Wife. Vol. 67. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. Print.
Familial influence can have a great impact on a protagonists’ life decisions and future, whether it be a lack of paternal guidance or cultural expectations. This can be seen in the life of Yunior, the protagonist in Junot Diaz’s Drown. Yunior immigrated to the USA from the Dominican Republic when he was little shortly after, his dad left the family and went to live with another woman. This lead to Yunior’s mom becoming a single mother and the breadwinner of the house. The focus of this essay will be on the chapter in the book called “Drown”. In the chapter Yunior remembers his adolescence with his friend Beto and their life in their Dominican dominated neighborhood. The chapter showcases the financial struggles of Yunior and his family along
Garg in ‘Hari Bindi’ discusses the story of a common woman and made it extraordinary by the active force she was experiencing in herself to live her life. The husband of the protagonist symbolises the power and control of patriarchy that had restricted her life in such a way that she was far from experiencing her freedom at the least level. Big things are no doubt powerful and able to control small things, yet small things are no less important. The overall personality of a person is the result of various small things being joined together.