Behind The Beautiful Forevers Character Analysis

Death and Hope in Behind the Beautiful Forevers could be found many times throughout the novel in many different aspects and tones. In one instance specifically, it is explained how Meena and Manju discuss the concept of suicide quite frankly, as well as the hope the community has held in Navratri. Death and Hope is also prevalent within my own life with my experiences in depression and suicidal thoughts jading me to the different methods and motives for suicide, as well as hope and my general outlook on life and how I live every single day. I can relate to Behind the Beautiful Forevers through the motif of Death because of how the characters discuss methods and motives for suicide as it connects to my past when I was going through depression …show more content…
In this book you can find hope hiding in every little corner, from how people will take on awful jobs just to get the potential of a better life for their family, to the Navratri festival giving girls a time to forget about their worries and just enjoy the nights of dancing and fun. The specific example of hope that I am going to be talking about is the amount of hope and time and effort the women of Annawadi put into making the Nine Nights of Dance festival. By pulling all their efforts into this single goal, it gives the girls a chance to get their minds off larger more gruesome topics of their everyday lives and realities. It gives them a period to just relax and dance all night and although it will not benefit them in anyway at the end of the day, it will still help them forget their troubles for a brief period. I can relate to this example from the book because I like to stress the importance of staying positive in my life. I am constantly smiling and getting people to laugh no matter what kind of day or week I am having. This is a form of coping mechanism which gives me hope for the next day and the next coming days. If I were unable to stay as positive as I normally do, it would be very easy for me to get caught up in all the small bad things that go wrong in everyday life. The two examples of hope are parallels because both …show more content…
In some cases, Death can destroy Hope, in others, Death offers Hope. In Mumbai, death greatly affects reputation, if you die shamefully, or attempt to die and fail, you risk your family’s honor and social caste, this can create a lack of hope. However also in Mumbai, many women feel hopeless over their futures and a lack of freedom and therefore their only solace is that they find in death, saving them from a long life of misery and unhappiness. Sometimes though death can result in a restriction of options, whether it is the death of your husband and you are doomed to live a life like the lonely One Leg, or it is a death of all your children and you are doomed as a woman who cannot bear healthy children, therefore essentially a waste to society. These scenarios and all that lay between them would result in your future being compromised and there in limiting your hope for any happiness. In Mumbai there is a fine line between Death and Hope. Death and Hope in my life are a little clearer cut. In my life death usually can be drawn in connection to the “Circle of Life” theory. In this theory, after death there is life through another and then they die and the cycle repeats. This results in the hope for a new day, a new generation, new possibilities, new outcomes, constantly increasingly new options to be hopeful for. However, in my life, Death and Hope can also be very drastically different. For instance, if