Anyways, I've seen a lot of people asking whether or not Raha actually dies at the end, because she is very vague about it. All she says is, "I don't know which wave I drowned in". I personally don't think that if she died or not is important, because Raha is already in such a bad situation that it doesn't really matter if she actually dies. I think this is what the author was trying to get at, which is the fact that this person is in the worst situation possible for Raha, that she is already "dead" from the situation itself.
Another thing is I've heard a lot of people talking about how the mother's abuse is so...abusive... and unexpected. I agree. It is weird that the mother started to beat Raha and the father didn't do anything, but consider this: Raha's way of describing her life, and everything around her, is absolutely dramatized and way too perfect, in my opinion. I think that part of our complete surprise at Raha's parents' cruelness is just because of the contrast between the picture that Raha paints of her life and the actual reality. Perhaps the author is trying to deliberately make the huge contrast between Raha's seemingly "poetic" life and her real story, I don't know. What I do know is that Nadine is right. In Saudi Arabia, human rights for girls and women are at the total extreme. The beating of Raha by her mother actually might be normal, no matter how cruel it seems.
I remember my section of English talked about how Raha seemed to have a particurly well-off life. This is a life compared to most people in Afghanistan who are trapped in poverty. I actually liked this story a lot, because usually all of the stories we read about the Middle East are about this person in poverty or that person who is a suicide bomber, etc. I don't mean to be cynical, but this story is a change from my usual Middle East reading. My appreciation goes further when readers of this story also get to realize that the good life isn't perfect either. Just because somebody has money doesn't mean they have a better life than someone who is living on the streets and has to beg for food.
So think about it.
-ALimBookChomper
I agree with Andrea. I think that Raha actually dies because that is implied in "what wave I drowned in", but that doesn't really matter. The point that the author is trying to get at is that Raha's life is almost too perfect and something has to go wrong. Raha even asks her mother if she can just die instead, and that is exactly the solution. I feel that dying is almost the better option in Raha's life because it goes from perfect to terrible in just one day. I think that she wouldv'e rather be dead than be married to the fat rich guy that she was arranged to. If the beating of Saudi women is so normal, why did the father have to lie about it?
ReplyDeletei totally agree with your statement. Like i said in my post, i find it ironic how she tries to avoid bad things happening in the world at the beginning of the story, and at the end of the story she was in a situation just as bad as suicide bombers and what not. Its also nice to have a change of scenery about Middle eastern literature, because we usually read about suicide bombers and we get this view of the middle east that everyone is bad. This story however shows that not all people form the middle east are bad, they are just forced to do things they dont want to do ( even though in this story, the girl makes it sound like everything is wonderful rainbows and butterflies and getting beaten by her mother is pure hell... which for me kinda makes me thing the story to be too dramatic... but o well.)
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