Glimpse-JK

   Within the sections surrounding Amina’s accident the reader is able to see glimpses of real emotion, a part of her that has been tamped down by marriage. The surge of fear and excitement at the thought of going outside was undeniable. Her reactions to what many would consider normal activities are oddly intense, she is barely able to walk properly once outside the door, her emotional display of tears in the mosque. Yet this is quickly put down as she remembers her “characteristic temperance and resignation” (181)

            I was upset with her fainting and being hit by a car, her timid and breakable nature was brought back to the forefront. The fainthearted mother who could barely scold her children was back a woman who used her faith to hide from the demons she had created in her mind and no longer the one whose faith and appreciation for beauty moved to tears by the sights around her. The descriptions formed the image of a child, and while that was slightly off putting and fit in with her previous portrayal, the emotions that came forth from the adventure had within them a flash of personality, similar to the first one we were shown when she thought back to the time when she asked her husband about his nights out.

            At the end of the healing process, witnessing her husband’s reactions and scheming it is no wonder Kamal believes that “marriage doesn’t bring happiness” (327). His actions were only slightly better while she was healing, he stopped by and asked how she was, and yet she was thrilled over this attention.  Yet we learn he was merely plotting.

            Another glimpse at her rebellious side came out in a whisper when he began attacking her once he saw she was healed.  He beings questioning her, as if she has tricked him somehow during their twenty-five years of marriage, to which she responses that she doesn’t “deserve talk like this”. Yet this is washed out by his rage and her feeble will.

            While in my previous blog I talked about how the book fits into the mold that the West has created for the Middle East, especially in the ideas of marriage, the opinions from the children and the grandmother were similar to mine. The children question how Sayyid is able to go out and party when his wife is in pain, and Amina’s mother asks why men who are just as jealous as he is are fine with their wives going outside. I was hoping for Amina to react rebelliously against the tyrant that is her husband, at least other characters are made to express their ideas on the absurd situations occurring in the marriage.