This story was not one of my favorites. In fact, I found it confusing. Instead of 3rd person limited omniscient, almost all of the women's perspectives were entwined. For some of the quotations, it was hard to follow who was talking. It would've been a better story if only Fatiha's thoughts were viewed. As for the title of the story, I don't think "A Wife For My Son" generally describes the story. The title should be from Fatiha's point of view. I realized that the title could refer to the ending where two ladies are discussing the marriage for Yamina, the young cousin who watches the dancers. Still, Yamina is not the main character of the story and I don't think this thought works.
As for the overall story, it was odd to find all of the women's perspectives about not only Fatiha's marriages but all Middle Eastern marriages. Some opposed the thought that young women should get married and preferred if a woman could earn a good education or choose their own husband. Other women thought that the parents know what's best for the child and that if the parents choose, then the children will be happy. This is not true. In a lot of cases, from two of the short stories that we have read, the woman who is getting married opposes the decision. They want to pursue an education and not be ruled about by men. They think they have a right to be free to choose whatever they like. Sadly this is not true (as in The Giver from 6th grade). Didn't the women who are preparing their children's marriage, when they were young, ever disagree with the proposal their parents gave for marriage? Did they ever want to be free? But if they didn't agree to their parent's will, they would be disrespectful. It's weird because in the story, Aicha tried to control who got married in the family and she controlled the women in the family. The conclusion to the story was excellent because it proved a point that families focus on the marriages of their children. After one distressingly gets married, they immediately begin planning another child's marriage WAY to far in advance. They don't care about the feelings of the children. They just want an honored family
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(Warning: I am going to rant a bunch right now)
ReplyDeleteI think that the problem with a lot of what we learn about the middle east is that we impose western ideas upon the knowledge. Most literature about the middle east and arranged marriages talks about how horrible they are, the two people hate each other, and all of that. However, the writing we see almost never talks about how if the system worked for hundreds of years, that it can't be hopeless. There are plenty of stories of people in arranged marriages ending up loving each other. "I was promised when I was ten... and with God as my judge... I have never regretted it..." (p 58). (This theme is also mentioned in "Funny in Farsi".) As I have mentioned before, people need to find a balance between tradition and modernity. There are advantages of arranged marriages (or preferably marriages where the parents can have some influence on if the couple marries). One main advantage is that if you are madly in love with someone you might not notice some horrible personality flaw that you will come to hate in the next 10/20 years (if the couple doesn't divorce first). I would guess that the divorce rates in middle eastern countries are lower than those in the US or the UK, and not just because it is probably harder to get a divorce in the middle east. (Islamic law does allow for divorce initiated by either person in the marriage.
By having both the kids and the parents (and thus combining tradition and modernity), marriages would become more stable for all concerned.
A note on the title of the story- because this is taken from a book, the title could be for the chapter or for the entire book- thus explaining why i doesn't make very much sense.
~Jai
(Erika)