The three stories I have been studying

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Explore how relationships are constrained and influenced by the traditions of the different cultures evident in the short stories in section 3 of the Edexcel anthology.

The three stories I have been studying are, Country Lovers, A Stench Of Kerosene and Veronica. The three stories are similar to each other, as they are all about relationships, influences that effects their decisions and how their families are put under pressure by one and other and gender segregation. This occurs in everyday life in some areas of the world. In the Country Lovers the story is set in South Africa. A Stench Of Kerosene is set in Northern India and it’s about a man’s love for his barren wife and how his mother constrains his life, Veronica is set in Nigeria and it’s about a young girl growing up and how her fate was sealed and she didn’t have a say in the matter and her friendship between her best friend Okeke and how he tries to persuade her to come to the city with him to live a better life but she turns it down for a numerous reasons. In Country Lovers there is a lot of segregation happening such as racial, economic and educational. We can see this because in the story we are told that at young ages black and white children are split from each other even if they had become friends they would still be taken to different schools where the white children would have been given better education for their life. In A Stench of Kerosene we can see there is more of gender related segregation in the story because when Manak’s mother thinks that Guleri is incapable of giving birth she finds a second wife for Manak, from this it shows me that women are only needed for giving birth to children in this community. In Veronica we can also see gender segregation for example  when Okeke goes to the city and Veronica does not want to go with him and decides to stay in the village to look after her family in her community it was important that the eldest child looked after the family as if she was the mother, another reason why she did not want to go is because she did not even have standard six (this was the same as SATS)where as Okeke a young male did not have to look after his family and was able to forward his education in the city.

In Country Lovers there is a relationship between the two main characters, Thebedi and Paulus. It all starts when they were young children “growing up on the farm playing together as all children do, knowing no wrong could come from it but, as they grew older there relationship starts to change in to a more intimate one”, they begin to see each other in another way I can see this because in the story it says” When the girl came up the bank and sat beside him, the drops of water beading off her dark legs the only points of light in the earth-smelling, deep shade. They were not afraid of one another” this shows that the feelings between one and another was mutual they both started to grow fond of each other. The chance of them actually having a real relationship was made extremely difficult because of the Colour Bar making it illegal for black and white people to have relationships of any kind. They are also brought together by Thebedi’s charm and her own uniqueness compared to the other girls Paulus meets at his school. She also did things that meant a lot to Paulus, things that that the other girls couldn’t we can see this in the text when the writer writes “She gave him before he went back to school, a bracelet she had made of thin brass and the grey and white beans of the castor-oil crop his father cultivated” and also when the author says “his was admired, friends asked to get similar ones for them” this shows that Thebedi was different to other girls and even though she didn’t have money she could still give Paulus a gift that was priceless.

In A Stench Of Kerosene Manak and Guleri are married in northern India In the mid 20th century where the community was largely Hindu. In A Stench of Kerosene I understood that Guleri and Manak loved each other but North Indian cultural traditions made things harder for them. Due to her culture Guleri’s life seems very dull. She does the same things every day of her life. “She counted the days to the harvest”. Shows how counting the days would make time go by and gives her something to look forward to. Guleri is different to Manak because she won’t let things get in her way. She’s more out spoken. She knows what she wants. “Your mother said nothing so why do you stand in my why?” demonstrating her outspoken character in this story. Her character is far different to Manak’s.  Manak has a weaker but equally important character. He doesn’t stop his mother from arranging another marriage. He doesn’t speak out like Guleri.  In this culture the main job for the wife to have is to have children and raise a family but Guleri can’t have children and Manak’s mother who is a big influence in Manak’s decision make the decision to find Manak a new wife so he can start a family with her When Manak’s mother finds Manak a new wife we can see that Manak is too scared to stand up to his mother but, he does not  want Guleri to leave because he loves her we can see this because the author writes “He begged her” suggesting he is pleading with her  to keep Guleri because of his love for her. She then proceeds to tell Manak to go home, this all shows us that she is accepting that she can’t give Manak a child and therefore she has to leave him because of his mother, this is called fatalism meaning when you simply take all things that come your way as fate and that you can’t change anything.

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Veronica is a story that is set in Nigeria. The culture there was meant to be very male orientated, where men did not have to cook and clean and look after the parents and siblings and therefore were given better opportunities in life than women. This causes the women in this community to have very low self belief and self expectations. In Veronica the two main characters are Okeke and Veronica, they are very good friends but nothing more, we can see that they just want to be friends by how the writer writes” she still had a certain attractiveness that ...

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