A Woman Alone

 

            The scene I am about to describe is one that does not outwardly seem of great importance but I believe it is important because the connotations of self-discovery within the main character in it. In this scene, the main character, Nazneen has just seen her husband off to work after realizing only a few days before that she is pregnant with his child. She decides to take a stroll and think for a while and ends up having a great adventure within this short scene. There is no character that she is constant contact with the whole time during her eventful walk so I decided to write a few characters perspective on their short time seeing Nazneen.

 

The Tattoo Lady.

It was around 9:00, in the morning that is. I was sitting there, like I do everyday. I guess I am a kinda habitual person. I was smoking my morning cigarette and drinking my morning beer, and I see that Indian girl, at least I think she’s Indian, there are a lot of them in my neighborhood, and she was saying good-bye to the ugly old husband of hers. You can see it, y’know; she’s not truly in love. Ha! Listen to me, talking about true love. As if the world worked that way. As if life could be meaningful. No, life is short and cruel and worthless, and so that was how I lived my youth. Now I’m old, and poor, and I sit here everyday and think about how much life sucks. It’s pretty hilarious how everyone tries so hard, especially that Indian girl, faking it for her big fat husband. Right now she’s waving at me. I’ve never actually talked to her, I don’t even think she speaks English. I tip my beer can at her and she smiles and starts to walk out of the apartment building we live in, looking straight ahead, Ignoring those jerky, teenage, Indian hoodlums that hang out by the stairwell as they talk loudly and stare at her. What buttheads. They’ll probably end up like me someday, sad and alone. But the Indian girl, she’s headed somewhere.

 

The Man in The Suit

I’m Late. I thought. I’m late and it’s the biggest meeting of the business quarter. My steps quickened, but the mass of people walking down the street made it seem impossible to move forward any faster than then the pace I was currently going. Stupid taxi. Dropping me off two stupid blocks away from the Morgan and Morgan headquarters. Not only that, but my new suit was now wrinkled and linty from the disgusting cab. I shook my head. There was no way I could break through the traffic-like flow of people. It was like a river of grey and black and blue; the colors of the corporate world. All of a sudden I saw a strange color up ahead, a frantic pink fish darting about awkwardly against the flow of the dark river. As I walked closer I saw that it was an Indian, or perhaps Bangladeshi woman in a pink sari. She looked more than out of place; it was as if the buildings and the street itself were rejecting her. Strangely though, no one seemed to notice her. No one looked at her. Perhaps it was because she was so strange that no one wanted to question her with a quizzical look, or perhaps it was simply because all the people in the street were engrossed with their own individual missions that they could not spare a second of their time to watch the wide eyed woman staggering down the street. Well if no one else is looking at her, why should I? If they don’t find it strange, why should I? These questions popped up in my mind, as I stared straight at her. She was standing in the middle of the busy street, parting the flow of people, and looking up a big-marble office building with awe. How different must her life be that simply to see a building such as this would evoke such emotion? I stared at the building. The Office of Staney-Simson Inc. I was suddenly reminded of my meeting I was now 8 minuets late to. Simply seeing this young woman had taken up at least 6 minuets of my valuable moneymaking time. How dare she. I blew out air in a puff of anger, and headed down the street at an even brisker pace. No stranger should be more important than my own business. It was a strange little occurrence in my day, but nothing more.

 

 

            I decided to tell the stories of these two people (the tattoo lady, and the business man) not because of any relationship with the main character, Nazneen, which they really didn’t have, but because of the different ways they saw her and she saw them. To Nazneen, the tattoo lady is a curiosity. “The tattoo lady was still in her nightdress. From the stump of her cigarette she lit a fresh one, keeping the sacred flame alight. She was fat like a baby. Her arms were ringed with flesh and her hands seem tiny. This woman was poor and fat. To Nazneen it was unfathomable. In Bangladesh it was no more possible to be both poor and fat than to be rich and starving.” (37) Not only is she a curiosity to Nazneen, she also is very different and make Nazneen aware of differences between her homeland and this new society. With the businessman it is much the same. As Nazneen takes an unpremeditated stroll through London, she finds herself in the financial district and says this about it. “The building was without end. Above, somewhere, it crushed the clouds. The next building and the one opposite were white stone palaces. There were steps up to the entrances and colonnades across the front. Men in dark suits trotted briskly up and down the steps…Every person who brushed past her on the pavement, every back she saw, was on a private, urgent mission to execute a precise and demanding plan: to get a promotion today, to be exactly on time for an appointment…”(39). I decided to write the story through one of these people’s eyes.

 

 Paper #2

            The book Brick Lane by Monica Ali, is a powerful and beautifully written story about a young Bangladeshi girl named Nazneen, who leaves her homeland to live with a man she has never before met in London. The book has many powerful characters, including Nazneen herself that assist in the telling and diversifying of the story and provide ideas and theme. The character of Nazneen sort of represents, so far in the story, a strong-willed woman, true to her heritage and religion, who has sacrificed much in order to please her family and her God. She labors in the house, for her husband and for their child, even if she is perhaps feeling tired or sick. She is a martyr of sorts. This however, is greatly contrasted by her sister, Hasina, who’s rare breathtaking beauty had doomed her to a life in which she married for love and destroyed her families reputation and relationships with her, except for Nazneen of course. She writes to Hasina constantly, using her as a sort of escape to better times when they’d play together in their old village, without a care in the world. Hasina stands for this freedom, this happy playful life that Nazneen no longer knows, as she is bound to her responsibilities for her husband and child. Another character that seems to represent a theme in the story is Chanu, her husband she was arranged to. He is in many ways very different from her. He lives in the past and the future, regretting decisions everyday and longing for goals in the future. Nazneen lives in the moment. Chanu is very modern, and speaks English and wishes to live in new land of England. This difference from Nazneen to her new life, which can be represented as Chanu, is also a theme. The character of Nazneen's little baby Raqib also represents a theme in the book. Raqib, to Nazneen, represents innocence, and the way things used to be. He is a young baby with a clean slate for life, he can do things that Nazneen is unable to do now in her age and can live a life rich in way that a young Nazneen would have never imagine in her life back in Bangladesh. Another character whom, although she is not really a main character, but who interacts and provokes thought is Razia. Razia is a neighbor of Nazneen who befriended her when she first arrived in England. Soon Razia becomes a target of neighborhood gossip when she rebels against her abusive husband, (also an arranged marriage) by cutting all of her hair off and doing other things of the like, such as going to college to learn English and wearing men’s trousers and not a sari. But Razia is a strong independent woman who shows Nazneen that there are other ways of living in this new land. Living to benefit the family and the children by evolving from old customs that may not be in the best interest of moving forward.

The title of this book, Brick Lane, is an actual place in London, a place in which, at one point in the book, Nazneen stumbled to as she was having a self-realization and an epiphany about her life and the lives of people. It is a brick paved street filled with multi-cultural shops, eateries and homes, the sights and sounds of which seem to pleasantly mingle to create a wonderful sort of street music. She witnesses white children playing alongside Indian children and people living harmoniously with one another. I believe that this correlates to one of the main themes of the book, which is that of different peoples living happily and easily together. To live without any form of racism or stereotyping, which is still a major problem both in the past and today. I also think this Brick Lane is sort of a goal for her. Nazneen lives in a sort of not-so-nice neighborhood and perhaps as she is starting to settle in finds that this Brick Lane is a goal for her. An ideal neighborhood to raise her child.

  Some recurrent themes and ideas that are sprinkled throughout the writing of the book are the themes of finding one self and also of challenge ideas and stereotypes that are passed on from generations. The author of this book is very good at weaving them throughout and relating them to the story at hand and developing them. Some themes are almost like a person themselves, throughout the story they are growing and different characters being to react, and demonstrate ideas from these themes.

A key line from the book, one that also demonstrates a theme is “Fight against one’s Fate can weaken the blood.” (4) This line refers to the fact that, as a baby, Nazneen refused to feed from her mother for many days until she finally did and lived. Her mother did not force her to drink as she thought it would be wiser to leaver her to her Fate, to see whether or not Fate would allow her to live. They said that to do otherwise, to rebel against whatever god had planned for you, would bring fatal consequences. This gives rise to the theme of fate, which is throughout the book, which Nazneen demonstrates by not rebelling against Fate or things such as her arranged marriage.