Undisputed Values
For many decades, families around the world tried to establish their own values. Values that organize their relations and habits. Moral values are the strongest values of conservative families. Gyanranjan, is an Indian writer who produced the definition of respect and honor in his story “Our Side of the Fence and Theirs”, from the vision of the narrator’s family. The narrator’s family is a conservative family who have their own habits and beliefs which establish their definition of respect and honor. The narrator’s family realized that what they believe in honor and respect should be reflected in their socializing, wedding traditions and sexual modesty habits. The narrator’s family considers socializing as a principal habit in Indian society. They have only one neighbor behind the fence, they are surrounded by a government office and a high
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After that, they have been told by the milkman about their neighbor’s daughter’s wedding. The narrator’s family evaluated their neighbor’s daughter weeding as an ordinary festival celebration because they didn’t realize any kind of wedding traditions like fanfare or uproar or feasting (138). The narrator’s family watched the bride wearing a Sari and carrying a coconut. The girl didn’t show any sort of empresses Even though her mother kissed her warmly and her father patted her head (139). In addition, the girl couldn’t release any tears. The narrator’s mother surprised for the girl’s failure to cry and she said “the girl had become hardened by her education and had no real love or attachment for her mother and father” (139). Also, the narrator’s father has wondered and said “The old days are passing and men’s heart have become machines” (139). All members of the narrator’s family have been shocked because they couldn’t realize any felling from the parents to their daughter’s absence
During the time in the 1950’s, the escalation of mass media with the use of television shows had greatly emphasized the idealist family standards: a white nuclear family standard of living within conventional gender roles that stresses on family hierarchy that became a societal norm as a “perfect family” today. In Gary Soto’s “Looking for Work” and Roger Jack’s “An Indian Story”, bother short stories contest against familial customs. Soto describes how the media shapes the idea of a “family” to the young narrator that inspires him to push his family and himself to assimilate into the while culture. Roger conveys a story of a young Indian boy defying against both his Indian and familial ethics. Together, these stories share a common theme. Both
Traditions control how one talks and interacts with others in one’s environment. In Bengali society, a strict code of conduct is upheld, with dishonor and isolation as a penalty for straying. Family honor is a central part to Bengali culture, and can determine both the financial and social standing of a family. Usha’s family poses no different, each member wearing the traditional dress of their home country, and Usha’s parents diligently imposing those values on their daughter. Those traditions, the very thing her [Usha] life revolved around, were holding her back from her new life as an American. Her mother in particular held those traditions above her. For example, when Aparna makes Usha wear the traditional attire called “shalwar kameez” to Pranab Kaku and Deborah’s Thanksgiving event. Usha feels isolated from Deborah’s family [Americans] due to this saying, “I was furious with my mother for making a scene before we left the house and forcing me to wear a shalwar kameez. I knew they [Deborah’s siblings] assumed, from my clothing, that I had more in common with the other Bengalis than with them” (Lahiri ...
The complexities of human nature are almost immeasurable, though one thing is clear: people need societal validation and affirmation. In the short story, “By Any Other Name”, two young Indian girls, Premila and Santha, are sent to a British school in India, where conformity is forced upon them. Ostracized for their differences, Premila loses sight of her cultural identity while Santha stays steadfast in her beliefs. In Santha Rama Rau’s short story “By Any Other Name”, the author uses the protagonist’s inability to accept or even understand conformity to highlight a key theme: by rejecting the need for validation and refusing to conform, one develops a stronger sense of self.
Alexie, Sherman, and Ellen Forney. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. N.p.: Little, Brown, 2007. Print.
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
The novel ‘Interpreter of Maladies’ by Jhumpa Lahiri is comprised of many short stories including ‘This Blessed House’ and ‘The Third and Final Continent’. ‘This Blessed House’ is centered on a newlywed Indian couple moving into their house and finding Christian trinkets all over the house. ‘The Third and Final Continent’ is about another newlywed couple and their move to America. Both short stories are told from the point of view of the husband and have the recurring element of tradition, therefore the effects of tradition and culture on the daily lives and relationships of newlywed couples are highlighted.
Indian society was patriarchal, centered on villages and extended families dominated by males (Connections, Pg. 4). The villages, in which most people lived, were admini...
The mother of the tale is a person who lives in what can be described as genteel poverty. She is a woman who is said to have “started with all the advantages” (750), but she threw away all of her prospects when she married her husband, who is apparently unlucky. However, she is unable to let that lifestyle go and their family is left with a constant shortage of money. The mother is said to have married for love, but in the time since then it has “turned to dust”. She also has three children, but she does not love them either. She knows that her heart has a “hard little place that could not feel love...” (Lawrence, 750). In order to cover up this flaw she pretends as though she loves her children so the other parents within her social circle believe that she is a great mother. This artificial love manifests itself in the form of expensive gifts, servants, and a nurse (or nanny). However, in the privacy of their own home she is cold and distant from her children, and they know...
Mrs. Sen and her husband, Mr. Sen, moved from India to America, and the property they purchased happened to be next to a boy, Eliot, and his mother. India was a cheerful, exciting place to live, everyone was friends, there were festivals, just about everything that is absent from America. In the US, neighbors aren’t always kind to each other,
In “Caroline’s Wedding”, Caroline’s mother shows how love of family encourages her to survive through the breaking of tradition for her daughter's happiness.
As result of the death of the husband and the son the Mother becomes more isolated because we can identify when the neighbor mentions that mother only rarely leaves her own house to visit friends or do errands. Also, the emotional alienation in the Mother’s case, due to the murders of her husband and son because that affect a lot to her. Meanwhile, the characters in the play frequently discuss the isolation of the Bride’s farmhouse from the rest of the town and how far is everything for her . The emotional alienation in the Bride’s case, due to the pressure to marry because everybody was exited for the marriage of her and they repeat to her the same thing. Also, how Maid and Bridegroom pressure her with the orange blossoms because it represents the purity, chastity, innocence on the
Although she got pregnant by someone other than her husband they did not look at the good and joyful moments the child could bring. Having a baby can be stressful, especially being that the village was not doing so great. The baby could have brought guilt, anger, depression, and loneliness to the aunt, family, and village lifestyle because having a baby from someone other than your husband was a disgrace to the village, based on the orientalism of women. Society expected the women to do certain things in the village and to behave a particular way. The author suggests that if her aunt got raped and the rapist was not different from her husband by exploiting "The other man was not, after all, much different from her husband. They both gave orders; she followed. ‘If you tell your family, I 'll beat you. I 'll kill you. Be, here again, next week." In her first version of the story, she says her aunt was a rape victim because "women in the old China did not choose with who they had sex with." She vilifies not only the rapist but all the village men because, she asserts, they victimized women as a rule. The Chinese culture erred the aunt because of her keeping silent, but her fear had to constant and inescapable. This made matters worse because the village was very small and the rapist could have been someone who the aunt dealt with on a daily basis. Maxine suggests that "he may have been a vendor
The past of the Bride and her mother defines the future of the Bride’s faulty relationship with the Bridegroom with the insinuation that her past will repeat in the same cyclical nature that she cannot escape from. Reminiscing of his wife, the Bride’s Father mentions, “[the Bride] is the living image of [his] wife” (Lorca 51). The living image can refer to two meanings: the physical appearance of the Bride and the implication of foreshadowing that the Bride will become like her mother. The Bride’s mot...
Although the author presents the English prejudice in the novel in many situations, he also presents the Indian reaction and behavior. The author demonstration of British behavior vs. Indian behavior gives the readers the field of free thinking and association to decide for themselves which side they would favor. It also questions the validity of criticisms that think of this book as a bias novel that offends British people. However, the author does indicate his favoritism towards Indians throughout the novel by presenting them as the weak and helpless characters that do not have any authority in their own country, but they poses scientific and spiritual knowledge that earns them respect among their society.
Picnics are of various kinds. One may have a picnic with one’s family. This is not very common in Indian households. Here domestic from the dreariness of perpetual domesticity. And yet perhaps it is likely to be the pleasantest. The relationship between parents and children, between brothers and sisters, too often becomes formal and lifeless. An outing in the open air, away from the well-marked conveniences that are so necessary to make existence smooth, is in the nature of a pleasant surprise it startles us out of our habitual routine; it bring out the very best in each of us; and we realize that we are human beings with distinctive personalities.