Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Habibi Question
After class today, I realized that I left with out bringing up a question/concern that I had while reading the text. I feel that Liyana's mother's character played into the role of a typical house wife too much, does anyone else feel this way? I know that we didn't know what she did in the United States, but it seemed like she didn't have any protest to moving, and once they did, she fell into the stay at home mom and just accepted everything. Always shopping, always cooking, etc, and we never hear about how she feels about the move. We know how the rest of the family feels, and she is in the same shoes as her children- she is in a strange land, adjusting to a culture that she is not used to. She finally picked up a job, but it was only part time. I am all about women being able to do what they want, but I felt like she was much more of a follower then a leader. She has raised such a strong girl, but I felt like she forgot how to be strong for herself. The book had so many strong women in it, it's just unfortunate that Lyiana's mother wasn't.
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4 comments:
I was also surprised by the representation of her mother. Her mother never really was involved in the story. Little is said about her except that she has a somewhat plain appearance and the family in Palestine pronounces her name "Soo-Sun." I feel more could have been added to the story by giving Liyana's mother a larger voice.
Her mother's story of moving from the only country and culture she has known to a different world could have added to everything Liyana was going through instead of making it seem that Liyana was the only having a hard time adjusting. Her mom just seems like a happy housewife, then she still is a happy mother and wife working as a DJ and becoming involved in an organization.
I think, if we were actually looking at the book, we might find that Nye left some subtle clues that the mother was more complicated than the "housewife" trope. (And I use trope to distinguish between the figure that gets used in the media and real "housewives".)
Does anyone have any ideas about why Nye might have constructed Susan this way?
I agree with what Katie and Jessica are saying about Susan. In fact, last week as I was trying to determine what question I wanted to use for the paper, I thought about involving the mother's role as one of them. However, I decided not to because I thought there were bigger issues to discuss. When it comes to why Nye may have constructed Susan the way he did, I keep thinking back to all the times the book mentions she does volunteering and I believe she even writes letters. She does seem to take a political and more controversial role, but it is more subdued. I think that Nye may have constructed her this way so her role did not dominate other's in the book. Nye may have wanted other messages to be more clear than the roles of the mother.
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