Compare how the writers of 'A Stench of Kerosene' and 'Veronica' have used cultural backgrounds to help shape their writing and what the two stories have in common.

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Compare how the writers of ‘A Stench of Kerosene’ and ‘Veronica’ have used cultural backgrounds to help shape their writing and what the two stories have in common.

‘A Stench of Kerosene’ is a story about a young woman, Guleri (whose family live in Chamba), living with her husband, Okeke, and his family. Guleri has never borne Okeke a child, and because of this Okeke’s mother makes him re-marry. The remarriage of Okeke occurs when Guleri goes away to visit her family, for the harvest fair. When Guleri hears of Okeke’s new wife she soaks her clothes in Kerosene and kills herself. ‘Veronica’ is also about a young woman, Veronica, who lives with her family, in a small village. In her village she has a friend called Manak. Manak leaves the village to go to the city and make a career, leaving Veronica in her village. Years later Manak returned, to find that nothing had really changed, and Veronica was married with a child. Civil war broke out and Manak and Veronica lost contact again. When they saw each other again it was for the last time, as Veronica died (like her husband and child had done already) in Manak’s arms.

In every culture there are differences and similarities between them, so when you read two stories from villages that are alike in their dwellings, poverty and expectations the contrasts will be very precise. The two young women are from poor rural communities, one an Asian and the other an African village. The cultural traditions have formed the expectations for male and female roles which the women may or may not accept.

Guleri had to live up to Manak’s mother’s expectations, and Guleri unintentionally rejected them by never bearing Manak a child. She married into a family with expectations for women to bear children to work around the house, and do what they were told to do, while men were more important. As Guleri was a woman and she never had a child, boy or girl, Manak’s mother thought this terrible. Guleri’s actions displeased her greatly and she ‘had made a secret resolve that she would not let [Guleri go childless] beyond the eighth year’ of Manak and Guleri’s marriage. By burning her self (because Manak’s mum made Manak marry again) Guleri was following what could have once been law in her village. Wives who didn’t bear children or who only bore girls were burned, this is what Guleri did to herself. Like Guleri, Veronica had her place in the house, but in Veronica’s case it was beneath her father’s fists. Veronica had to look after her family, her mum, dad, and her siblings. She had to work around the house powerless but dutiful towards her family. Both women felt a duty towards their families, probably due to the unconditional love that one gives to ones family, and also the feeling that their families needed them. When Guleri found that her husband didn’t need her any more she killed herself, while Veronica lived just as long as she had her family, then when her siblings left her and her parents died she had her husband and child, then when they had all gone she let herself go; ‘[She didn’t] want to live’.

As I have said, men and women were expected to do things and act in certain ways. Women were expected to be emotionally weak. In ‘A Stench of Kerosene’ at a quite tense point for Manak, when he was covering his sadness and his mother was commenting bluntly to be a man, and not croak like a woman, Manak wanted to retort “You are a women, why don’t you cry like one for a change!”. This remark proved that women aren’t expected to show emotional strength, also proving that Manak was saddened by the situation, and just being ‘obedient to his mother and to custom’. Differentiating from Guleri, Veronica didn’t have any expectations to be emotionally strong or weak, that we know of, but she was very strong.

Whenever Guleri missed her home and family she went up to a point where she could see Chamba. She would return after seeing the houses ‘twinkling in the sunlight’. She loved her home and family greatly and her heart would be ‘glowing with pride’. When missing her family greatly Guleri obviously felt that the few days she was ALLOWED to spend with her parents wasn’t enough and resented Manak’s parents for this. The use of the word ‘allowed’ made me sympathise with Guleri as all the way through the story I could feel Guleri’s longing to go home. Also, the use of the word ‘allowed’ makes me feel that Guleri didn’t feel very welcome in Manak’s family, and that they were almost unwilling to even let Guleri go home for the fair. It also gives me the impression that Guleri is oppressed by Manak’s mother by words, unlike Veronica who is oppressed by her father’s fists. Guleri not feeling welcome with Manak’s family would explain why she longed to go home so much. There is also a phrase that showed me that Guleri missed her family and this is ‘long awaited morning’ showing that the morning which she left Manak’s parents was always eagerly anticipated. To Guleri a few days out of a whole year to see her family isn’t long enough. Whereas Veronica was already with her family and had no reason to go anywhere else. Being ‘the eldest child a lot of responsibility for bringing up [her siblings] had fallen on her.’. When she thought about her family she would have thought of her responsibilities and how much her family depended on her. It is easy to identify with Veronica’s lack of hopes and ideals that moving somewhere else wouldn’t make all her troubles go away, as she knows that she would need qualifications. The way Veronica talked about herself, and lack of qualifications, I could feel the loss she was at and the hollowness she would have felt. The understanding I have of Veronica’s age, when all the pressures to look after everything were put upon her, evoked the emotion of pity about the situation she was in .

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The use of the short story genre helps us to compare these two stories more easily, as the language and use of words has been chosen carefully, so that feelings are shown without extensive explanations. Also the writers haven’t been able to go into too much depth into parts of the story which haven’t got anything in common as the writers have had to condense the information. The writers have written these stories so that we will enjoy them and the appeal of the story can only be affected by the way in which we respond to the story, ...

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