I did not even try to understand the whole entire web and confusion of who's marrying who, because I'd have to read it at least 4 times to get what happened and what didn't happen because someone did something different than what everybody expected. The main plot of the story I get is the two marriages. From the Hajji Guma's point of view, his sister Khadija wanted to get married with her cousin, which is also his cousin. The other marriage was his niece wanting to marry his son, Munir. Basically, for all of this to work out, Munir needed to agree to his arranged marriage.
What makes this story confusing to a lot of people is that whole first page about how everything is connected. I have to wonder whether it is always like that in arranged marriages, or if it's just this weird family who have richer relatives and marriages that were not consulted.
Here's the problem. Nobody can expect someone who hasn't been home for a long time to agree to something they never heard about. The narrator, Hajji Guma, knows that also. From the way he was thinking, and his worries about whether Munir would accept this marriage, anyone could tell he was very skeptical. Although this marriage thing was a huge mess, the Hajji Guma was still going with it, because it would benefit him.
I don't know, I still like this story, but it was a bit weird, because there is a kind of hidden climax. I looked for the climax, and I've come to the conclusion that it's in the whole story, and it only goes down when they get that telegram from Munir saying he was marrying someone else. Overall, it's a nice story, but I'd need to ponder this story for a couple of days to get the whole thing.
~ALimBookChomper
I think that the Hajj was sad or very mad that the son didn't tell them that he was getting married. I also think that the hajj was going with the unexpected marriage but he was somewhat reluctant and sad/angry. He was also making excuses (I think he is making up excuses) to tell his familly why they weren't invited to the unexpected party. I myself, would be pretty mad if I had an arranged marriage and my son married somebody who I never met before.
ReplyDeleteFirst I think Hajji Guma was the father of Munir not the... whatever you thought. Most of the story was rising action. While the family was waiting for Munir and Hajji Guma was explaining why he was worried (and possible reasons that Munir was late) that was the rising action because you wanted to know what will happen when Munir comes home. As the father continues, you act more and more anxious. Adding to the 4th paragraph you wrote that the problem of the story was if Munir would accept to the wedding proposal, it's the same thing as in The Assassination of Light at the River's Flow. Raha's parents didn't know if she would accept getting married but they didn't care. They wanted Raha to agree to all of their commands. The different thing is that in this story, the parents partially don't matter if he disagrees. They might but since they receive a letter that Munir is getting married, they don't reject and wish for the best for their son.
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