In White Teeth there is definitely a tone of oppression amongst its female characters. Through out the novel all the women are oppressed in one way or another. It is demonstrated through Aslana. Though she yells at Samad and physically fights with him she still stays with him. Even after he sends one of her sons away, she still stays married to him, though she barely speaks to him. We also see oppression demonstrated through Irie. She is a young girl who is biracial and feels as though she does not fit in. She describes wanting to "merge" with the Chalfens. "She wanted their Englishness...To Irie, the Chalfens were more English than the English
(p 272)." This proves her feelings of opression. She feels so different she describes going into the Chalfen house as "Sneaking into England; it felt like some terribly mutinous act, wearing somebody else's uniform or somebody else's skin (p 273)." Another way in which we see this in Irie after she gets her hair done. She thinks that her hair now looks beautiful and cannot wait to show Millat. When she gets to his home his two cousins are there and basically tell her that it looks horrible. As they are trying to fix her hair, they explain to her that Millat does not like her as he likes other girls because she is his friend and she truly knows him. They call her different and her internal response is "Sometimes you want to be different. And sometimes you'd give the hair on your head to be the same as everybody else (p 237)." This shows almost a level of desperation in her attempt to fit in and just be what she considers "normal."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Irie definitely is being oppressed, and it seems like it is only her mother who supports her for who she is. I cannot recall the page, but it mentions her father being excited about her blue eyes, and then one day she looks up at her mother and they are brown. It seems as if all her life she is being held to certain standards, because she is half English (half white), when she has the obvious characteristics of a Jamaican woman.
Hi
I agree with you about Aslana and her husband the relationshipe they have between them. Because I also find out they have some physically fights,such as when they both went to talk to Mrs. Owens "Samad pressed Alsana's hand and she kicked him in the ankle, he stamped on her toe"(110).
Post a Comment