A minaret in Cairo, Egypt
1. In what ways, if any, could Amina, the mother, be seen as saintly?
OR
2. We learn that in effect Amina is imprisoned in the house. The only place she is allowed to go outside of her house is to visit her mother, and as we learn, when she does, she goes in a closed car with her husband, who makes sure no one from the outside world can see her; he drops her off and picks her up again a few hours later, and not even this happens very often. How might her being restricted to her house affect her attitude toward her chickens?
OR
3. The daughters are almost as restricted to their own house as their mother (they are allowed to visit s few close-by neighbors, but that's it). How might their being so restricted affect their attitudes, such as Aisha's attitude toward the police officer?
OR
4. Find a phrase that indicates a specific setting of the book, and comment.
15 comments:
The daughters are almost as restricted to their own house as their mother (they are allowed to visit s few close-by neighbors, but that's it). How might their being so restricted affect their attitudes, such as Aisha's attitude toward the police officer?
I'll start with Aisha because she is easier to explain. I think that Aisha being couped up in the house is a prime factor in why she feels so strongly for the police man. When life developes a certain routine that never changes, it's easy for it to become boring. May I go back a few chapters? On page 25 and in chapter 5 it's talking about how Aisha will spy on the police man and he will see her peeking through a crack in the window, and she watches as his features are "illuminated by the light of joy" as he sees her watching him. Then, it goes on to describe the way Aisha feels as "Her heart, on fire and reaching out, awake for the first time, looked forward impatiently to this moment..."
I think that this shows that part of Aisha's attraction to the police man is that he is from the outside world. He is something new and something dangerous. She isn't allowed to look at him like she does, and she certainly isn't allowed to show herself to him like she does. If she were allowed to watch him, she wouldn't keep it such a secret. Since Aisha's life is so much inside of one building and so much of the same thing over and over, I think that when danger is close at hand, she'll just reach other and touch it every once in a while. It gives her the rush she needs so she won't jump off the roof from bordom.
Khadija reacts to the confinement in a totally different way. While Aisha seems to deal with hers in a silant, deadly fashion, Khadija is loud to escape. I believe that she wouldn't have learned to have such a "sharp tongue" if she didn't need a way to entertain herself.
Sang Eun
1. In what ways, if any, could Amina, the mother, be seen as saintly?
The mother, Amina could be seen as saintly because of her attitudes toward everything. It is impossible for her to even think about being mean or causing any harm to anything. She truly and sincerely believes in God and whatever she does, she follows her God's words. Even when she is slaughtering chickens, she prays to God for forgiveness. As a mother of the children, she is a perfect model of morality. However, she seems to be concentrating too much in her religion. That's the problem because sometimes religion can lead people to unrealistic world. Especially, it was easy for Amina to be like that because she almost everyday stayed at home doing housework. If she had went out for work, then she wouldn't have had time to get closer to her belief than now. However, she was locked in her house unless her husband let her to go to see her mother, so it was more possible for Amina to become saintly.
Heather Rhee
Queation 2/
Answer/
Amina is imprisoned in the house for the most of the time and the only thing she does during her day is cleaning, cooking, and taking care of her family. This kind of life seems to be very boring and I feel sorry for Amina because she didn't know anything about the outside world.
The only beautiful, meaningful place for her was the roof where her chickens and pigeons and the garden was taking place.
She loved her chickens and she treated them in a kind way. For example, she prolongs the lives of the chickens and sometimes when she must have to kill them, she asks forgiveness to the God. She feels happy and peaceful when she see the chickens and pigeons.
I think the happiness feelings of her which comes out when she have her own time in the roof, is related to her imprisoned life. She had no chance to feel excitement at all due to her surroundings which didn't let her to see the world. Raising and taking caring about something else than her house and her children was new to her and it might made her to be interested. Also meeting some living creature other than her family had made her to be excited too. People tries to keep the things, which is special and important for them, in a safe way all the time. Chickens were the precious thing for her and I think this feeling she had caused the kind attitude of her toward her chickens.
Yeena Sung
1. In what ways, if any, could Amina, the mother, be seen as saintly?
“ Perhaps she had attempted to be firm but had been overcome by her emotions and weakness.”
I would have to say she has a lot of features as being saintly. Whenever she tries to say something to her daughters when they did something inappropriate, she can not say it in a way that the daughters would actually stop. She said it with humor, and tenderness, and with cautiousness. It was all because she loved the daughters so much. It is mentioned in the book that she tries to handle them with strictness and firmness like their father but she fails because her love and affection in stronger than those other emotions. I think this also has to do with her thought that relaxation and peace of mind is more crucial than anything. And since she has been like this for such a long time( since she got married to her husband she learned to obey without any argument because she thought it was a way of being peaceful), she is not able to be firm with her children.
Question 2
Amina is imprisoned in her house and is only allowed to go out to meet her mother once in a while. She works and cleans the house during the day while her husband is out and serves her husband when he is home. The place where Amina was happy with love and delight was the roof. The roof had her garden, chicken, and pigeons. She enjoyed watering her flowers and scattering grains to the birds. She really loved spending time on the roof. I think that her being restricted to her house affect her attitude toward the roof. Because she was not allowed to go out and enjoy or see the outside world, she needed a place for her to love and enjoy. Also, because she did not have any friends or companion except her family, she became attached to the birds and plants on the roof. She even thought that birds understood and responded when she made little noises.
Sung Kun Kim
2. We learn that in effect Amina is imprisoned in the house. The only place she is allowed to go outside of her house is to visit her mother, and as we learn, when she does, she goes in a closed car with her husband, who makes sure no one from the outside world can see her; he drops her off and picks her up again a few hours later, and not even this happens very often. How might her being restricted to her house affect her attitude toward her chickens?
- House is the only place that Amina could stay. She is not allowed to go anywhere except for her mother's house. But even this, she can't stride along the streets, go shopping and all these things that normal women do. Her only tunnel to the outside world is the roof. On the roof, she grew flowers and raised chickens and roosters. She had made a garden just for her who can't even experience the outside world. Because chickens are the only living thing that Amina could see beside her family, she really cares for them. She thinks she can even talk with them. So the restriction had made Amina love the chickens like her children.
1. In what ways, if any, could Amina, the mother, be seen as saintly?
Amina is seen as saintly because she is so kind to her family. Her daughters bicker all the time and she never says a word. Over the course of time it became a way of life for her. She had tried to stop it before, but it was not in her nature to say harsh words to her children. She lacked the firmness and sternness it took to discipline her children. She might have liked to be firm, but she was not able to. She had too much love towards her family to hurt them in any way, even if it was to discipline them for the good. She also could not allow herself any type of relaxation. She always had to be supervising the house and what went on inside it, no matter how simple and small. She found pleasure in doing household chores. She does everything for this family without one complaint and does it energetically and with such joy in her heart.
3. The daughters are almost as restricted to their own house as their mother (they are allowed to visit s few close-by neighbors, but that's it). How might their being so restricted affect their attitudes, such as Aisha's attitude toward the police officer?
Especially for Aisha, her attitude toward the police officer is very shying. Since she does not have much experience about being with outside world people, she does not know how to communicate with people regularly and normally.
1. In what ways, if any, could Amina, the mother, be seen as saintly?
I agree strongly with Sang Eun and Christy in regard to Amina's saintly attitude towards life. She appears to be very quiet, and lives by an extremely strict code of morals dictated by religion and another force in her life similar to religion: her blind, unquestioning devotion to her husband's word. Amina is constantly making an effort to remain, according to her culture's set of morals, virtuous. However, also in a saintly manner, Amina is extremely gentle and sweet towards her children, though the restrictions and rules she quite often imposes on them are not gentle and sweet. She is, in the eyes of her children and family, the yin to her husband's yang. With this balance she creates in the household, she could very well be called "saintly".
savannah,
question #4,
Find a phrase that indicates a specific setting of the book, and comment.
"They grew tall and spread out untill the area was transformed into an arbor garden with a green sky from which jasmin flowed down. An enchanting, sweet fragrance was diffused throughout."
I think this sentence paints an extremely beautiful picture in our minds. "green sky from which jasmin flowed down" was my favorite part. I think the beauty and tenderness of this phrase shows Amina's outlook on life. The book shows Amina as a very grateful person. She is grateful to her husband, she is greatful for her children, she is greatful for her wealth and all in all she is greatful for life itself. I think this phrase is trying to represent the beauty and uniqueness she recognizes in everyday things. She also sees the world ina sort of dreamlike view so the description "green sky" instead of maybe leafy branches would sort of represent that imaginative, dreamlike quality.
question 1
1. In what ways, if any, could Amina, the mother, be seen as saintly?
I think Amina can be seen as saintly. In the previous chapter of this book, it talks about how Amina prays for her childern and her husband. In this chapter pages 32 to 35, there is a sentence that says "She would give it a drink, seek God's mercy for it, invoke God's name, asks forgiveness, and then slaughter it." Amina prays and seek god's mercy for the chicken when she kills the chicken. And by reading this sentence you can know that she really worships god.
4. Find a phrase that indicates a specific setting of the book, and comment.
"Then for a long time, with smiling lips and dreamy eyes, she enjoyed the scene surrounding her. She went to the end of the garden and stood behind the interwoven, coiling vines, to gaze out through the openings at the limitless space around her."(pg. 34)
This quote paints a beautiful picture in my mind. Especially the way Amina views this sceneary. She doesn't just look at it and then not take it in, she enjoys the true meaning of the beauty. This setting reminds me of an open vineyard in tuscany italy. This is because of the coiling vines and large open space that can go on for miles. I like the choice of words the author uses to paint a picture in ones mind. For example limitless, interwoven, and coiling. The author could have used unworthy words like large or combined but this creates a better imagery in ones mind.
Answer to #1:
"She loved the chickens and pigeons as she loved all of God's creatures... Her imagination had bestowed conscious, intelligent life on all animals and occasionally even on inanimate objects."
Amina, aside from being a devoutly Islamic woman, is kind and loving, almost seen as heavenly. She has unnatural affection for everyone and everything she comes in contact with. Although she is confined within her house, she strives to achieve all that she can where she is. She always seems very resilient, putting on a smile and having true compassion, despite the intentional oppression against her. She could almost be viewed as a martyr.
4. Find a phrase that indicates a specific setting of the book, and comment.
'Over the course of time it had turned into a customary way of life when her father was not at home and no one could think of anything pleasant to say. She had tried to stop it by using entreaty, humor, and tenderness. That was the only type of discipline she employed with her children It fit her nature, which could not stand anything stronger. She lacked the firmness that reaching children occasionally requires."
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