In America, long gone are the days of gender based marital roles where the man financially provides for the family, and where the woman is uneducated, maintains the household, and regards her husband as superior. In today’s western society, education is for all individuals, marital roles are defined by both spouses, and needs are equally important regardless of gender. In contrast, there are cultures still existing who value the old marital traditions. The protagonist, simply referred to as “the husband”, in Divakaruni’s The Disappearance, is a fully developed character who values these old traditions still active in his homeland of India; ill equipped to cope with western culture and unable to respect his wife’s needs, this static character is a victim of his actions.
The husband first appears to be a flat, stereotypical character, playing the dictator type husband who drives away his wife. Controlling behavior is represented through actions such as not allowing the wife to get a job, go to school, or wear clothes not meeting his approval. He “put[s] his foot down” when she wants things like this (para.10). Control is shown with phrases such as “he let her have her way, indulged her, even” when describing allowance of his wife to choose tile color (para.10). He is critical of the way she maintains the household and brings it to her attention, referring to her as “a careless woman” (para. 20). Moreover, he expects sex on demand regardless of consent. The husband’s selfishness and dominance is clear to us, however the husband is oblivious of it.
The husband’s character takes shape as these behaviors are associated with the traditional Indian culture in which he was raised. With this correlation, his motivations can be ...
... middle of paper ...
... as “she must have hated me to choose” to give up a life that borne “joy in her face” (para.29). These consequences reveal the husband as the victim in this story.
Throughout the story, the husband struggles in America to maintain the traditional Indian lifestyle he envisions for himself. The western idea of equality and respect for women is something the husband cannot comprehend and is unwilling to do so. His domineering and self-regarding behavior, valued in his culture, causes stresses in his life, yet he holds steadfast to his cultural belief regarding his superiority over his wife. Ill equipped to cope with change; the husband’s character remains static through the end of the story, a victim of his actions.
Works Cited
Divakaruni, C. B. (1995). The disappearance. Compact Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing (8th ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth. 584 - 589
The Essay, I have chosen to read from is ReReading America was An Indian Story by Roger Jack. The topic of this narrative explores the life of an Indian boy who grows up away from his father in the Pacific Northwest. Roger Jack describes the growing up of a young Indian boy to a man, who lives away from his father. Roger demonstrates values of the Indian culture and their morals through exploration of family ties and change in these specific ties. He also demonstrates that growing up away from one’s father doesn’t mean one can’t be successful in life, it only takes a proper role model, such as the author provides for the young boy.
As the story begins, the character of the husband has a negative personality. He lacks compassion, is narrow-minded, and is jealous of his wife’s friendship with a blind man named Robert. His constantly complains that “a blind man in my house was not something [he looked] forward to” (362). The close outside friendship between the narrator’s wife and Robert provokes his insecurities. This friendship has lasted for ten years and during those years, they have exchanged countless tapes regarding experiences they have gone through. Because of this, her husband feels “she [has] told him everything or it so it seemed” (363) about their relationship.
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
Bibliography:.. Works Cited Meyer, M., Ed., (1999). Bedford Introduction to Literature, 5th Ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin.
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 2189.
DiYanni, Robert. "Literature, Reading Fiction, Poetry and Drama." Walker, Alice. Everyday Use. Boston: McGraw Hill, 1973. 743-749.
In all of these pieces of literature, the behavioral norms that are considered appropriate for men and women are tested. In The Yellow Wallpaper, a wife is pushed to insanity, in A Doll’s House, a housewife goes against expectation, in The Great Gatsby, male dominance is pushed to the extreme. Gender roles dictate men and women’s lives. The concept that you must live up to society’s expectations controls men and women’s thoughts and actions, and it must come to an end. All these authors captured a vital lesson to be learned: Men and woman should be treated equally.
This source provided the unique perspective of what was thought to be the perfect household, with a man who worked and a wife who cooked and cleaned. However, it also showed how a woman could also do what a man can do, and in some cases they could do it even better. This work is appropriate to use in this essay because it shows how men talked down to their wives as if they were children. This work shows the gradual progression of woman equality and how a woman is able to make her own decisions without her husband’s input.
...show us that the choices for women in marriage were both limited and limiting in their scope and consequences. As can be seen, it came down to a choice between honoring the private will of the self, versus, honoring the traditions and requirements of society as a whole. Women were subject to the conditions set down by the man of the house and because of the social inequality of women as a gender class; few fought the rope that tied them down to house, hearth, and husband, despite these dysfunctions. They simply resigned themselves to not having a choice.
Initially he views his wife as a mere possession, a toy doll. which he is able to show off at party’s to the admiration of fellow. members of powerful society, ‘curtsy here, curtsy there – and the vision of loveliness was gone as they say in fairy tales.’ However.
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...
Mahin, Michael J. The Awakening and The Yellow Wallpaper: "An Intertextual Comparison of the "Conventional" Connotations of Marriage and Propriety." Domestic Goddesses (1999). Web. 29 June 2015.
... in a husband’s attitude towards his wife: he dominates her, shapes her lifestyle, make her live for him instead of living for herself. Unfortunately, the wife accepts his behavior because she loves him and doesn’t want to lose him. At the same time, the feeling of obedience in order to prevent divorce lives in her only at the beginning of their marriage. As the years pass by, she becomes used to the subordinate mode of life that her husband has thrown on her. And after some time she finds out that she hates her lifestyle because she has devoted all her life to her husband, and the only thing she wants is freedom.
The taste of freedom to this American Man is something he can’t do without. The thought of leaving his life style would make him put someone’s life at risk. The American Man manipulate Jig to get want he wants is to make life without him hard to do. “He chooses his words advantageously, almost deceitfully when trying to convince the girl who an abortion is easy surgery.” (Susanty) The manipulating in this story is hard to define the love that is between The American man and Jig. The American man is making men more dominated over women. That the only way to love someone is to make sure everything is all right by putting other’s lives in risk. The women in the story are either waiting on commands by men or treated like helpless children. Hashmi says, “the American does have "metaphorical capacity," and if he seems unable to grasp the white elephant’s simile it is because he "sees nothing of the beauty or the promise of a more romantic life that prompts Jig's simile. He simply chooses to "shut off" the discussion.” He didn’t want the images or thought of being a father, yet not having as much freedom like he does now. To keep Jig focused, The American stops her from discussing it. This will put Jig back in her place as far as who is dominant in the
Historically, women have been seen as the weaker person in the bond of marriage. Throughout the story, the narrator is degraded in various ways due to the ramifications of engaging in this institutional practice. First, she mentions many instances where John has been erroneous, insensitive, or abusive, but is unable to vocalize any disconnect for fear of repercussions. “He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures” (271). The narrator feels as if John is a hindrance to her being beca...