Sufiya Zinobia represents the shame of Pakistan's discrimination of women, through her experiences as a first born child, being a woman. Being from Pakistan, Sufiya knows being born into a family as a first born, and a women, that this is something than brings shame upon her family. Not only was her dad disappointed, but her own mother treated her like she brought shame upon the family. From the beginning of the novel you notice how shameful it is to have daughters. Old Mr. Shakil had three daughters, keeping them locked up away from the world out of shame. They grew up with each other always fantasizing and making up their own languages. On his dying day his eldest daughter asked if they were going to be rich now, he yelled back "whores, the dying man cursed them, don't count on it."(6). This is how low women were really thought of in Pakistan. In Shame "a Pakistani father, murdered his only child, a daughter, because making love to a white boy brought such dishonor upon her family that only her blood could wash away the stain."(117) Being a woman, or daughter in Pakistan is just was Sufiya was to her parents, shame, that same shame that she represents to Pakistan, that of being a woman. It is known from the beginning of the book that the shame that Sufiya possesses will bring about about violence in this story. Sufiya blushes whenever even noticed, because she does not want others to notice her. At one point she almost commits suicide, which is the ultimate shame and violence. McLeod mentions how important women are to nationality, something that Shame does not recognize "we are reminded that women are participants in national, economic, political and military struggles, contrary to many nationalist representations which depict women in a supportive and nurturing relation to men". (139) McLeod goes on to talk about how women supported and were part of the decolonization and resist patriarchy. Pakistan at a time when women meant nothing, needed to realize that women were not their shame, just looking for a way to belong and help along the way.
Rushdie talks about the strange things women were not allowed to do in this video. He discusses how women were not allowed to dress Westernized underneath their burkas. If a woman was wearing a skirt her thighs would rub against each other making sexual friction and this heat would be shown through their eyes. He talks about how ludacris this is. He also talks about incest and what is okay and what is not okay. Things you are not able to control is not incest. They even went so far as to say if your aunt lived upstairs and floor broke and the aunt ended up in ones bed, that no man could restrain them self.
Feeling like one belongs to a nation is the most important aspect of nationality, In Bapsi Sidwa's Cracking India, Lenny noticeseveryone's feelings change among her friends, when the going gets tough. Cracking India discusses a time in India when everyone was clinging to a nationality, whether it was Hindu, Muslim, or Sikhism. Lenny notices differences through out this book that separates the different religions. From hair, to the young Muslim girls being allowed to wear make-up, everyone notices each others differences at this time to cling to religion, without anything else to cling to. Throughout the book Lenny's Ayah is a popular character at the Queen's Park. This is a place where everyone comes and wants to impress Ayah, from the ice-candy man, to Masseur. Ayah ends up becoming fond of Masseur. Later in Cracking India Ayah's friends all flee Lahore and leave her there alone, and Masseur passes away. At this point, feelings are such a strong part of belonging and Lenny feels for Ayah " And Masseur's death has left in her the great empty ache I know sometimes when the muscles of my stomach retract around hungry spaces within me.... but I know there is an added dimension to her loss I cannot comprehend. I know at least that my lover lives somewhere in the distant and possible future: I have hope"(p.188). Lenny begins to feel for Ayah because she means the world to Lenny, this feeling is also like the feeling of of belonging in a nationality. It is just that "a feeling". McLeod talks about how feeling is just part of why we have a nationality "These feelings of community are the emotive foundation for the organisation, administration and membership of the 'state', the political apparatus which enforces the social order of the nation"(p. 82). Everyone wants to feel like they belong, Lenny wants to Ayah to feel like she belongs, and also wants to someday find someone to share her life with. The feeling of belonging is the feeling of nationality and in Cracking India Lenny struggles to find where she belongs, wanting everyone to be the same. This Muslim girl with make up on reminds me of the ones that Lenny would see walking around the park.This novel is completely about womens issues. Lenny being a young girl with polio and her Ayah who she eventually tried to cover for because she is of different religion but ends up hurting her by mistake. To the right is a picture of Ice Candy Man. This is the name they gave the book in India. They called in Cracking India in the United States.
In Rudyard Kipling's poem "The Overland Mail", the vast jungle becomes an everyday obstacle for some as job to get mail across to the overland. The significance of the landscape is crucial to understanding the poem. The poem starts as dark is beginning to take over the night. The runner starts his journey off in the dark of the night starting at the railway. McLeod states "In the first stanza there is created the sense that the landscape which lies ahead is not going to be hospitable. It is referred to bluntly as a 'jungle', and the poet warns of 'robbers' and 'tigers' that must 'make way' for the mail to be delivered in the 'Name of the Empress of India', Britain's Queen Victoria"(71). India is portrayed as this land that contains many obstacles that must be crossed just to deliver mail from the homeland to the hills. These messages cross obstacles of safety. The landscape threatens the runner with water problems which could destroy roads. The landscape of the nature is represented as danger. The Empress of India symbolizes the dangers like the 'tiger'. The vast, and empty landscape leaves only the runner and the robber."This is a depopulated landscape. The only figures who feature are those significant to the British in the Indian hills and who either maintain or threaten the smooth running of their postal service. In presenting this part of India as a wilderness of obstacles, an ominous, anonymous jungle, Kipling virtually empties it of indigenous Indians. This depiction of the landscape is clearly mediated by the limited perception of the British and shapes a particular and selective envisioning of space"(72). Next it talks about how India is out of control until the reach of the calm of the British . This all symbolized the colonization of India during colonialism. McCleod also talks about the landscape of the poem moving higher and higher which he wants to argue as a metaphor for the conquest of India by the British. This metaphor of the landscape just shapes India into a fight between the hills of homeland and the settled British. The landscape may be an obstacle, but this is nothing the people of India have not before come to face.
"Said argues that Orientalism can be found in current Western depictions of "Arab" cultures. The depictions of "the Arab" as irrational, menacing, untrustworthy, anti-Western, dishonest, and--perhaps most importantly--prototypical, are ideas into which Orientalist scholarship has evolved. These notions are trusted as foundations for both ideologies and policies developed by the Occident. Said writes: "The hold these instruments have on the mind is increased by the institutions built around them. For every Orientalist, quite literally, there is a support system of staggering power, considering the ephemerality of the myths that Orientalism propagates."-http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Orientalism.html There is so much discussion of the sexuality of women in orientalism. They are sexualized by men and men are also somewhat feminine.
In this picture this woman is being sexualized along with the women next to her. The men behind and beside them are enjoying the show and as well seem to be dressed a little bit feminine.
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