At the risk of unfairly conflating religious or cultural beliefs with moral values, I would like to pose the following question in order to obtain a more in depth understanding of the feminist critique. Alsana says to Clara and her "niece-of-shame", Neena: "You should have learned that silence, what is not said, is the very best recipe for family life" (Smith, 65).
Elaine Showalter, in her essay "Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness", attacks this exact type of expressive repression stating, "The problem is...that women have been denied the full resources of language and have been forced into silence, euphemism, or circumlocution" (Showalter, 241).
The tricky area is how to view Alsana's servility. Is she expressing her own personal beliefs that she is comfortable with or is she blinded by her upbringing, taught by those who only wish to continue and further the unchallenged obedience of women? Does the feminist critique make such distinctions or are they inevitably intertwined? What do you feel about Alsana's remarks, are they respectable or repressed?
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2 comments:
I tend to think that Alsana's attitudes are more of a matter of her upbringing during which she was firmly educated on the role of woman in society. Neena points out the antiquity of Alsana's ideas earlier in the conversation, saying, "Oh yes, Auntie, yes, the little submissive Indian woman. You don't talk to him, he talks at you... You don't even know where he is, what he does, what he feels, half the time. It's 1975, Alsi. You can't conduct relationships like that anymore."(Smith,64)
I love the quote that you used and I don't think I could agree more with Sean's comment. The quote used is entirely based on the clash between "traditional" and "modern" relationships as they exist within the society at this time, Alsana and Neena playing off one another's beliefs. The ironic concept in my opinion is that though Alsana preaches these traditions of "silence" to Neena to prove a point, yet acts in a completely opposite manner as we've seen; Screaming and yelling at Samad, breaking plates and various household items, and even ripping all of her close off before storming out of the house nearly naked if not for a large coat. That is hardly a, "little submissive Indian woman".
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