My existence follows a script written decades before my birth. It strips away my individuality, following a meticulously designed screenplay which would earn a 100% rating from those creating the plot line, akin to the rotten tomatoes of our world. This status quo is an impenetrable wall of steel. Power dynamics sculpted through centuries of colonization trap us into a role in society, unaffected by how hard we work or the amount we care. The fluidity of one’s identity, branching out from collective truths such as ethnicity and religion, has become negligible. To a great extent, value is determined based on the color of one’s skin and what the gods believe in. The long term effects of colonization create an unjust, biased society which will always have a…show more content… I made a contradictory statement by saying “This novel explores the human condition of accepting the overall belief in a society, and the struggles that align in going against this instinct”. While Nasigia’s words implied that it comes naturally for one to rebel against difficulties, I examined the difficulty in negating ideas so heavily reinforced through every facet of society. For instance, I mentioned the stigmas against the smell of Indian food, the Hindu belief of equating the value of an animal’s life to a human’s and our traditional clothing. From personal experience, I can conclude that this makes it very hard for children to accept their culture. During our discussion, I conveyed this idea with both self connections and scenes which showed it coming to fruition. “She thanked practically everything under the sun, and while Clara wanted to dismiss it as silly, [...] she could feel tears rising, but choked them back, thinking of Sister Mary and her handy strap”
