In the novel, Nectar in a Sieve, the author, Kamala Markandaya creates various themes. One theme from the book is that tensions can be caused by modernization and industrial progress. This theme is highly prevalent throughout the story and broadens the reader’s outlook on modernization. Markandaya writes of a primitive village that is going through a severe change. Her ability to form a plethora of characters with different opinions, yet to share one main culture, helps highlight the tensions in the village.
The story takes place in the country of India, which in the book was still primordial. At this point in time, the majority of citizens are believers in Hinduism. One common belief is that the cow is sacred and holy. This information ties into Nectar in a Sieve through the tannery that was built to help modernize this small village in India. Tanneries deal with dead cows and cow hides. For this reason, those who are Muslim got the jobs. Since finances and farming are not going swell for Rukmani and Nathan, two of their children decide to work at the tannery. This d...
Before Milkman could reach where he intended on going in Virginia, his car breaks down so he went to an auto shop in Shalimar, Virginia. In Shalimar heWhen Milkman goes to Pennsylvania to look for the gold, he was actually in search of his family’s past. One of the themes in the story is how the history of African Americans histories are not clear and unrecorded. The fact that the history of Milkman’s family history is so unclear and unrecorded he goes through a long journey to find it. Along the way he goes through many places and meets many people that help him find his family history.
Her realization that she is not alone in her oppression brings her a sense of freedom. It validates her emerging thoughts of wanting to rise up and shine a light on injustice. Her worries about not wanting to grow up because of the harsh life that awaits her is a common thought among others besides the people in her community. As she makes friends with other Indians in other communities she realizes the common bonds they share, even down to the most basic such as what they eat, which comforts her and allows her to empathize with them.
Our first introduction to these competing sets of values begins when we meet Sylvia. She is a young girl from a crowded manufacturing town who has recently come to stay with her grandmother on a farm. We see Sylvia's move from the industrial world to a rural one as a beneficial change for the girl, especially from the passage, "Everybody said that it was a good change for a little maid who had tried to grow for eight years in a crowded manufacturing town, but, as for Sylvia herself, it seemed as if she never had been alive at the all before she came to live at the farm"(133). The new values that are central to Sylvia's feelings of life are her opportunities to plays games with the cow. Most visibly, Sylvia becomes so alive in the rural world that she begins to think compassionately about her neighbor's geraniums (133). We begin to see that Sylvia values are strikingly different from the industrial and materialistic notions of controlling nature. Additionally, Sylvia is alive in nature because she learns to respect the natural forces of this l...
Symbolism is a poetic and literary element that interacts with readers and engages their feelings and emotions. In Sold, thirteen-year-old Nepali girl, Lakshmi, is forced to take a job to help support her family. Involuntarily, she ends up in prostitution via the Happiness House; this sex trafficking battle forces Lakshmi to envision her future and possibility of never returning home. The very first vignette of the novel speaks of a tin roof that her family desperately needs, especially for monsoon season. At the brothel, Lakshmi works to pay off her debt to the head mistress, Mumtaz, but cannot seem to get any sort of financial gain in her time there. Both the tin roof and the debt symbolize unforeseen and improbable ambitions, yet she finds the power within herself to believe. How does Lakshmi believe in herself despite her unfathomable living conditions and occupation?
In the novel Segu, Maryse Conde beautifully constructs personal and in depth images of African history through the use of four main characters that depict the struggles and importance of family in what is now present day Mali. These four characters and also brothers, by the names of Tiekoro, Siga, Naba, and Malobali are faced with a world changing around their beloved city of Bambara with new customs of the Islamic religion and the developing ideas of European commerce and slave trade. These new expansions in Africa become stepping stones for the Troare brothers to face head on and they have brought both victory and heartache for them and their family. These four characters are centralized throughout this novel because they provide the reader with an inside account of what life is like during a time where traditional Africa begins to change due to the forceful injection of conquering settlers and religions. This creates a split between family members, a mixing of cultures, and the loss of one’s traditions in the Bambara society which is a reflection of the (WHAT ARE SOME CHANGES) changes that occur in societies across the world.
Both Hosseini and Hinton, although writing about very different scenarios, characterize the same theme in each of their novels - class separations harm all people. Learning from their work, we can aim to break down these barriers between social classes and bridge the gap between our separated societies.
In “The Flowers,” by Alice Walker, the flowers are used throughout the story to symbolize the beauty and naivety of childhood. In the beginning of the story the author shows the main character Myop walking down a path along the fence of her farm. Myop sees “an armful of strange blue flowers with velvety ridges…” The flowers are bright and colorful, reminding the reader of an innocent type of beauty often associated with them. This suggests the flowers were inserted in the story by Walker to reveal how young and innocent Myop appears to be. Later in the story, after Myop had discovered the dead body of a man who seemed to have been hung “Myop laid down her flowers,”. As Myop put down the flowers she was also putting down the last of her innocence.
In Nectar in a Sieve, Rukmani and Kenny highlight the differences in the two cultures, showing how the two cultures have different standards for relationships and how Westerners try to change suffering and poverty while Easterners accept it. As Rukmani points out to Kenny, “Have I not so much sense to see that you are not one of us? You live and work here… but this is not your country” (Markandaya 106). Kenny and Rukmani are friends, but their different values on subservience in relationships and suffering cause them to butt heads during most of their conversations.
A putrid odor permeates through the crowded village as scrawny children shriek in tears of hunger. Rats scamper along the filthy, dirt road covered in bloody corpses. Ferocious barbarians continually invade villages causing calamity and chaos among the townspeople. Subsequently, the economy is in a state of immense turmoil as trade declines and trade routes diminish. Innovation and prosperity are at a standstill because the population can barely survive.
Edwidge Danticat's novel, The Farming of Bones is an epic portrayal of the relationship between Haitians and Dominicans under the rule of Generalissimo Rafael Trujillo leading up to the Slaughter of 1937. The novel revolves around a few main concepts, these being birth, death, identity, and place and displacement. Each of the aspects is represented by an inanimate object. Water, dreams, twins, and masks make up these representations. Symbolism is consistent throughout the novel and gives the clearly stated and unsophisticated language a deeper more complex meaning. While on the surface the novel is an easy read, the symbolism which is prominent throughout the novel complicates the audience's interpretation. The reader is left to look beyond the language and uncover the underlying themes of the novel. Through symbolism Danticat is able to use inanimate objects to represent each of her character's more deeply rooted problems. In order to prove this theory true, I will thoroughly examine the aforementioned symbolic devices and provide a clear interpretation of their significance in the novel.
In the age of industrialization when rural life gradually was destroyed, the author as a girl who spent most of her life in countryside could not help writing about it and what she focuses on in her story - femininity and masculinity, which themselves contain the symbolic meanings - come as no surprise.
In the beginning of the story we are introduced to a young girl and the setting for the story is laid out. It is through the setting and background information we can compare life to today and the way we live. The young girl is traveling through the woods with her grandmothers cow at dusk. “The woods were already filled with shadows one June evening, just before eight o'clock” (Jewet) The girl is about the age of nine and she is
War ravaged the land and tore people apart emotionally and physically. One recurrence that came about during the war was the raping and “ruining” of women. To be ruined meant that a woman was raped and/or tortured so severely that she would no longer be capable of having sex. In a culture that values the fertility of its women, this lead to the breakdown of many communities. A perfect example of this breakdown would be in the case of Salima and Fortune. Salima was taken into the bush and raped for 5 months and when she returned home her husband, Fortune, turned her away. This violence committed against Salima caused her to be forced from her community, and it also forced her to take up work at Mama Nadi’s. Here she has to endure a change of identity in order to do the work required of her and to come to terms with her past. At the end of the play, Salima dies and states the haunting words; “You will not fight your battles on my body anymore”(94). These last words sum up just how intrusive the war has become in the lives of everyone in its path and also represents a clear shift in Salima as an individual. Instead of the woman who just wanted her husband back at the end of the play, we are left to contemplate a
Literary elements are demonstrated throughout the story and further improve our understanding of the central idea. The setting is important to the central idea because it shows the reader the type of society being described in the story. The language is also important to the central idea because it contains metaphors which further prove that the people are afraid of going against tradition because they are scared of being the target of violence. The conflict contributes to the central idea as well, because there are many examples of the society going against character, Mrs. Hutchinson, for not respecting the traditions put in place. The central idea is important to our understanding of the story because it sums up the main objective and furthers our
Tom Wingfield is the narrator and a major character in Tennessee William’s timeless play, The Glass Menagerie. Through the eyes of Tom, the viewer gets a glance into the life of his family in the pre-war depression era; his mother, a Southern belle desperately clinging to the past; his sister, a woman too fragile to function in society; and himself, a struggling, young poet working at a warehouse to pay the bills. Williams has managed to create a momentous play using a combination of different elements, including symbolism. Three noteworthy examples of symbolism are the fire escape, a sense of hope and an escape both to the outside world and from it; the glass menagerie itself, a symbol for Laura’s fragility and uniqueness; and rainbows, symbols of unrealized hopes and aspirations. Through the use of these symbols, a greater understanding of the humanistic theme that unfulfilled hopes and desires are an unwanted, but important aspect of the real world is achieved, and The Glass Menagerie is crafted into a meaningful classic drama.