In Provoked and “The Disappearance” by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, they describe how the Indian women leave their native country and immigrate to Western countries due to the arranged marriage that they have no rights to choose. Although the Indian women try to learn and integrate into Western culture, their husbands expect them to be a traditional Indian woman who should stay home and take care of the children, certainly isolated from mainstream society. If the Indian women try to rebel or challenge their husband’s authority, they are subject to their husband’s abuse in the fact of their machismo culture. This is because men try to retain their authority in the household as well as their status in the house.
In the Indian culture, the men …show more content…
Indian traditional clothes represent the style of dictatorial, conservative and restrictive as they usually cover the body while Western clothes represent the freedom of expression that we can add our own tastes to form a new trend. In “The Disappearance”, Divakaruni mentions, “Once in a while, of course, he had to put his foot down, like when she wanted to get a job or go back to school or buy American clothes. But he always softened his no’s with a remark like, What for, I am here to take care of you, or You look so much prettier in your Indian clothes, so much more feminine” (2). This demonstrates how the husband attempts to convince her wife that she is prefect without making any alteration. Kiranjita’s husband asked his wife to remove the new jacket and put on the traditional clothes before thay can go out (Provoked). This illustrates how Kiranjita’s husband is a stubborn person that he does not change his attitude easily that he requires his wife to listen to him. In Provoked and “The Disappearance”, the Indian woman’s husband forbids his wife to wear any Western clothes as he tries to prevent his wife from absorbing the Western culture. This is because he is afraid of his wife will become a modern Western woman who will eventually question his authority in the family. He also wanted his wife to remember her role in the …show more content…
In order to gain freedom, one needs to confront the hindrance or restraint by speaking out and accepting the challenges. In Provoked and “The Disappearance”, the Indian woman and Kiranjita had been subject to their husbands abuse for many years and had not told anyone. This is because their husbands had prohibited their wives from learning English, which become a barrier for them to communicate and show the details of the situation to others. This led them to bury their suffering and pretend their lives were happy. If they expressed their problems earlier, they would not beat up. Nonetheless, they chose to continue to live under their husband’s dominant until major event occurred to change their lives. In “The Disappearance”, the Indian woman decided to escape from her husband and seek out a new life. In Provoked, Kiranjita led her husband resulting into death while she was convicted to murder and sent to the jail. At once she felt she is free as she can be the one she wanted to be. In Provoked, Kiranjita states, “I came out my husband’s jail and enter the jail of law, it is here that at last that I have found a kind of freedom” (Provoked). This signifies that she has more emotional freedom in the jail than in the house as she can finally open her mouth and open her heart to voice her thoughts. She also can be the one she wanted to be when surrounding with