Week 1 Blog

I think that in the short stories that we have read this week, all the women have been viewed as outcasts of society. In "No Name Women" the aunt was viewed as an outcast because she had had an affair and in "Mrs. Sen's" Mrs. Sen was viewed as an outcast by society because she didn't fit in with the regular American public. Their classification as outcasts was not only due to the fact that they had either done something wrong or that they were an outsider in a new place, but also that they were women. In Kingston's short story, the aunt is viewed as an outcast, so she decides to take her own life because she knows that there will be no forgiveness in her future. She also takes her child's life, leading the author to believe that it was a girl. The author comes to this conclusion because if it was a boy then there may have been a way for him to achieve forgiveness, but there was obviously no hope. This shows that just by being a women in her culture you were already a sort of outcast, easily shamed and blamed with no way to be forgiven. Mrs. Sen was also at a disadvantage. She was seemingly forced to come to the US because her husband, possible by arranged marraige, got a job teaching at a university. The move also forced her to almost give up her identity as an Indian woman and to become an American woman. Her struggle and eventual distaste for this transformation led to her being looked down upon and labeled as an outcast. The two stories are both centrally located around the idea that women are inferior and are more easily labeled as outcasts from society. I do feel that this is true, it seems like society is quicker to blame a women for a problem than a man.