Alicia Fine từ Gillett, AR, USA

alidfine

05/06/2024

Dữ liệu người dùng, đánh giá và đề xuất cho sách

Alicia Fine Sách lại (10)

2019-10-07 03:30

Tư Duy Đúng Cách - Tư Duy Logic Thư viện Sách hướng dẫn

Sách được viết bởi Bởi:

The words “arranged marriage” conjure images of brides with their faces covered, tyrannical husbands and oppressively large families. Chitra Banerjee-Divakaruni in her book, Arranged Marriage, portrays this entity within India or Indian Diaspora in a variety of manifestations that build and then destroy these stereotypes. Like Indian marriages the stories in this collection are tied on many levels. Throughout her book, Divakaruni weaves themes of family honor and woman in bad relationships. The collection starts with Bats; this story attempts to de-mystify the universal question of why women continue to live in bad marriages (or situations). The child narrator’s mother is a gullible woman who continually goes back to her abusive husband. In her own defense the mother blames, “…the stares and whispers of the women, down in the marketplace. The loneliness of being without him,”. The question, however, is left hanging when the story ends with an image of the narrator and her mother running away once more, wounded and frantic, to escape her abusive father. Similarly in Affair, Ashok mocked his wife, Abha’s beliefs and did not value her strengths. However, towards the end of the story she realizes that, “The old rules aren’t always right. Not here, not even in India,” (Divakaruni, 270). Bats helps the reader understand, early on, that the question this story grapples with has no simple answers. It also provides context for stories that follow, the reader understands the significance of a female protagonists fighting against cultural norms like Abha does in Affair. Clothes fleshes out the theme that often the burden of family honor is placed on the females members of the family. This is exemplified through Mother and Father Sen’s expectation of their daughter in law Sumita. She is not allowed to go to her husband’s store, must dress in traditional attire and “like a good Indian wife” must never address her husband by his name (Divakaruni 25-26). These references imply that a woman’s inappropriate behavior will lead to her family losing face in society and give context to other stories where Divakaruni doesn’t explicitly mention this idea. Divakaruni’s syntactical choices pull the reader into the world of her stories. Her trademark use of italicized Bengali expressions and folk songs is perfect; they create a context that stirs the memories of her South-Asian readers and yet doesn’t alienate a western audience. Divakaruni aptly captures her characters’ voices through her generous use of Indian English and Bengali expressions throughout this book. Divakaruni’s stories leave her readers with more questions than answers. Through the use of simple prose she sets up complicated situations that force the reader to question his/her beliefs about arranged marriages and Indian women. The question of why Indian women continue to live in bad marriages is not completely answered by the end of the book. However, the reader has reached an understanding that this question cannot be written in clear strokes of black and white. It is a question that has fuzzy handwriting and the color of ash.

Người đọc Alicia Fine từ Gillett, AR, USA

Người dùng coi những cuốn sách này là thú vị nhất trong năm 2017-2018, ban biên tập của cổng thông tin "Thư viện Sách hướng dẫn" khuyến cáo rằng tất cả các độc giả sẽ làm quen với văn học này.