After being invited to her second cousin's wedding, Uma packs up and leaves her boyfriend Kurt behind to travel to India with her parents. During this journey, Uma meets new people, improves on and finds out more about her dance, as well as discovers more about her heritage. By observing and becoming more educated about these people and topics, her view of herself and India change. However, each time she picks up on a notion or meets one of these people, she always expresses her feelings leaving an imprint on the reader. In the short story “Devadasi” by Rishi Reddi, Uma observes and experiences gender and cultural values that she strongly reacts too. She first noticed and was heavily affected by the gender roles in India. However, as the story
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In India, the culture heavily valued family and marriage. As a result, Uma spent a great deal of time meeting and spending her vacation with family members as well as preparing for the wedding. However, prepping for weddings in India are quite different than the prep for a wedding in America. It was elaborated on that “she had already met members of her extended family multiple times at the pre wedding dinners and ceremonies”(176). This tradition of having not only one diner and one pre-wedding ceremony similar to most weddings in the United states, but multiple, began to illustrate the value that weddings were given in India. On top of this, the importance of spending time with family was also shown since these ceremonies and dinners were mainly composed of family members. Uma however reacts to this is a way that shows she feels superior to the Indian culture. This is mainly due to the fact that she views herself as an American and she therefore believes that Indian culture is an subordinate to American culture. This can be viewed when she was talking to her driver after the wedding. They began to talk about the difference between American and Indian weddings and Uma told him “with authority, even though he had never been to one”(180) about Christian weddings. Since Uma talked was …show more content…
To begin with Uma was exposed to and impacted by gender roles. She first resented them since it caused her to have less freedom than she would have liked. However, as the short story came to a close, she decided to stop resisting them and to follow them when she encountered the government. However, her view on India's cultural values did not change throughout the short story. Uma talked about how marriage and family were highly valued upon in India, however she found it to be unnecessary and an annoyance. Eventually, she decided that she would identify as an American instead so that she could even further demonstrate her resistance to the cultural values. Though after this, her parents quickly reminded her that they still enforced India cultural values when they punished her for befriending someone outside of her caste. This concept of people resenting and or conforming to both gender roles as well as cultural values can be viewed in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean. Here, a woman called Elizabeth Turner meet a pirate and fell with him. However, she was from Europe's upper class therefore she was not aloud to date anyone that was in a lower class from her. However, she retaliated against her father and ended up marrying the pirate against her father's wishes. This is similar to Uma because in the short story, she wants to befriend her driver
In India, the culture heavily valued family and marriage. As a result, Uma spent a great deal of time meeting and spending her vacation with family members as well as preparing for the wedding. However, prepping for weddings in India are quite different than the prep for a wedding in America. It was elaborated on that “she had already met members of her extended family multiple times at the pre wedding dinners and ceremonies”(176). This tradition of having not only one diner and one pre-wedding ceremony similar to most weddings in the United states, but multiple, began to illustrate the value that weddings were given in India. On top of this, the importance of spending time with family was also shown since these ceremonies and dinners were mainly composed of family members. Uma however reacts to this is a way that shows she feels superior to the Indian culture. This is mainly due to the fact that she views herself as an American and she therefore believes that Indian culture is an subordinate to American culture. This can be viewed when she was talking to her driver after the wedding. They began to talk about the difference between American and Indian weddings and Uma told him “with authority, even though he had never been to one”(180) about Christian weddings. Since Uma talked was …show more content…
To begin with Uma was exposed to and impacted by gender roles. She first resented them since it caused her to have less freedom than she would have liked. However, as the short story came to a close, she decided to stop resisting them and to follow them when she encountered the government. However, her view on India's cultural values did not change throughout the short story. Uma talked about how marriage and family were highly valued upon in India, however she found it to be unnecessary and an annoyance. Eventually, she decided that she would identify as an American instead so that she could even further demonstrate her resistance to the cultural values. Though after this, her parents quickly reminded her that they still enforced India cultural values when they punished her for befriending someone outside of her caste. This concept of people resenting and or conforming to both gender roles as well as cultural values can be viewed in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean. Here, a woman called Elizabeth Turner meet a pirate and fell with him. However, she was from Europe's upper class therefore she was not aloud to date anyone that was in a lower class from her. However, she retaliated against her father and ended up marrying the pirate against her father's wishes. This is similar to Uma because in the short story, she wants to befriend her driver