When a person is better off than another, it can be best described as being in a more fortunate position or condition of life. Although “better off” can be defined, it is also a matter of opinion. Showing an example of people being better off than others, Ama Ata Aidoo introduces us to two sisters that are completely different from each other. Mercy is the younger sister that works as a typist and lives with her older sister, Connie, and her husband. Much to Connie’s dismay, Mercy has been dating an older man that is well-known to have multiple relationships at one time. A pregnant Connie is married and is also a teacher. Even though Connie disapproves of the men Mercy dates, her situation is not much better due to an unfaithful husband. In “Two Sisters,” the one common theme is that both sisters have negative and positive things in their lives. The men in their lives, Connie’s desire to hold what is dear, and Mercy’s motivation are examples of these negative and positive things.
The most glaring negative aspect in Mercy’s life is the men she chooses to date. Ama Ata Aidoo references the material things that Mercy’s boyfriend, Mensar Arthur, provides her by saying, “...I have been thinking she manages very well. But these shoes. And she is not the type who would borrow money just to buy a pair of shoes” (142). The shoes are not only an accessory, but also symbolize the advantages of dating men that are richer than the available men that are interested in Mercy. Mensar Arthur is a Member of Parliament and is portrayed to have countless wives and girlfriends. Even though Mensar Arthur takes care of Mercy financially, he shows how he also treats her like a child by saying, “And you promised you wouldn’t tell her,” It was a Father’s v...
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...ir lives. Still trying to find her way, Mercy’s choice of unavailable, rich men is a negative impact on her future. However, she uses this financial stability as a motivator to be happy, making this a positive trait. Connie’s decision to overlook her husband’s unfaithfulness and negativity shows that men are also a negative impact in her life. Similar to Mercy, Connie also turns a negative trait into a positive characteristic by protecting her emotions from her husband’s cruelty, as well as Mercy from adulthood. Both sisters are very similar, but also different. Is one better off than the other? Well that’s a matter of opinion. After analyzing the full story, in my opinion, both sisters have an equally challenging life.
Works Cited
Aidoo, Ama Ata. “Two Sisters.” Under African Skies. Ed. Charles Larson. 1st ed, New York: Farrar/Straus/Giroux, 1997. 140-152. Print.
Since Connie is a teenager, she relies on her parents to take care of her and provide for her. Even though she fights against her family, they are still the foundation of the only life Connie knows. Her constant need of approval from men becomes a habit for Connie because she doesn’t get approval at home, instead she gets disapproval. “Why don’t you keep your room clean like your sister? How’ve you got your hair fixed-- what the hell stinks? Hair spray? You don’t see your sister using that junk.” Because of this criticism, she isolates herself from her parents. For her, her only way of getting approval is to be independent from her parents and those who are trying to protect her. Connie’s search for independence only comes to her but only in a harsh
The novel, Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson is an incredible read. In this book, Mr.
Zahan, Dominique. The Religion, Spirituality, and Thought of Traditional Africa. Trans. Kate Ezra Martin and Lawrence M. Martin. Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1979.
The narrator and her husband’s interactions shows her as submissive in terms of gender equality. Although John perceives the narrator as a child with no volunteer ideas, it is shown in her journal that this theory is not valid because she was shaped to comply by the society and the norm. The narrator’s inferiority negatively impacts her mental and physical health to the point she had to rip off the wallpaper to break free. Nevertheless, when read critically, the story also unveil the women’s suffrage movement and its struggle. Since this story was published, women are slowly breaking away from men’s suppression and gaining more rights. In short, society and culture define gender roles; however, the changing economic, social, and education environment open up a new path for women. Nowadays, women are given the chance to prove themselves and can act beyond their gender roles. However, the equality between genders has not been achieved yet. Therefore, women should continue to fight for their rights and freedoms until they are treated with respect and enjoy
Head, Bessie. “Snapshots of a Wedding.” Unwinding Threads: Writing by Women in Africa. Ed. Charlotte H. Bruner, et al. London: Heinmann Books, 1983. 157-161.
Jeannette Walls was born into a poor family who often had to live homeless and without food. The environment in which she grew up in is what gave her the characteristics she possesses. One trait that describes Jeannette is that she is very adventurous. Since she was constantly exposed to new surroundings, she became curious of them. While she was homeless in the desert, she would play a game with her father called Monster Hunting. She grew to not be afraid of anything, since she could fight off these so called “monsters.” Also, Jeannette is very decisive. To get away from Welch, a poor town in West Virginia, she made sure that she would get enough money to move to New York. She did this by getting a job to save up money for a bus ticket and for college. Along with this, Jeannette is very ambitious. She worked very hard to get accepted into college by working for the school newspaper, since she wanted to become a journalist. On the other hand, Melba Patillo was born into a middle class family who lived in Lit...
“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity,” from Kaiser Permanente, is a good quote to tell us the important of mental, physical, and social well-being for our health. If a person doesn’t have all of three conditions, he/she doesn’t have a healthy body and healthy life. Tuyen, my aunt’s brother in law, is an example. He needed to work twelve hours per day without day off and health care to take care of his family. Therefore, he often feel tired, stressed and depressed about his job over twenty years. One day of five years ago, Tuyen got a terrible sick and became mental retardation after that. So, he looked like a baby boy and couldn’t make money for the family
However, as I continued to read the story I began to wonder if maybe Connie’s life was not in any way parallel to my own. I have a younger sister where she has an older sister, but that is where the similarities end. Her mother is always telling her that she should be more like June, her older sister. It seemed to me that June living with her parents at her age was unusual, but the fact that she seemed to enjoy this and was always doing things to h...
In conclusion, co-dependency and rivalry is very common in the world today. Though it is not a big issue out in the open, it is an emotional attachment that only one can define. In this short story the two main aspects of having siblings is the theme which revolves around codependency and rivalry. Having siblings is a part of everyday life and problems do occur which sometimes makes a person, or changes a person in ways. In this situation, Pete and Donald are completely different people but they are in fact very dependent upon one another.
Both stories show the characters inequality with their lives as women bound to a society that discriminates women. The two stories were composed in different time frames of the women’s rights movement; it reveals to the readers, that society was not quite there in the fair treatment towards the mothers, daughters, and wives of United States in either era. Inequality is the antagonist that both authors created for the characters. Those experiences might have helped that change in mankind to carve a path for true equality among men and women.
With the main character Celie, she overcomes her hardships with her childhood and marriage to achieve complete happiness. Her childhood consists of a father that rapes her and gives her kids away. He also gives her away to a man known as Mr. ___. He too beats her and does not allow her to see her sister, Nettie. Celie falls in love with another woman who allows her to start her life over. Shug Avery gets her away from her husband, Mr. ___, and allows her to start her own financially independent life, as a pant producer. The only thing Celie lacks in order to ac...
Angeles, Los. (2009). African arts. Volume 28. Published by African Studies Center, University of California.
Most women, especially in the seventeenth-century, are not given the right to choose their own destiny. Women are expected to serve for others, whether it is a husband, or owner, and not to have real fulfilling, genuine roles in the world. This restrain against women detains them from living the independent and free life that everyone deserves. In the novel, A Mercy, by Toni Morrison, the main female characters, Rebekka, Florens, Lina, and Sorrow, are victims of a controlled lifestyle, and are forced to live in a world that is shaped for them. Toni Morrison reveals the inferior, degraded, and vulnerable role of women during the late-seventeenth-century.
...econd African Writers Conference, Stockholm, 1986. Ed. Kirsten Holst Petersen. Upsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1998. 173-202.