Minutes of Glory by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o and The Fat Man In History by Peter Carey - Essay Example

Comparison of ‘Minutes of Glory’ by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o & ‘The Fat Man In History’ by Peter Carey This essay aims to compare major themes of identity crisis and low esteem in the protagonists characters in the two subsequent short stories by Ngugi wa Thiong'o's and Peter Carey. Both the stories are about twin sisters raised in different cultures. ‘Minutes of Glory’ is set up in an African society, while ‘‘The Fat Man in History’’ revolves around Australian culture. The two stories are different yet similar in terms of the predominant theme. The underlying idea of both the stories revolves around complexes, which are driven by psychological and physiological perspectives, as well as cultural. ‘Minutes of Glory’ is a heartrending and distressing portrayal of a young African woman, Beatrice Wanjiru. The protagonist has been portrayed as a character which suffers from inferiority complex and identity crisis, along with the feeling of entrapment and isolation. She finds herself trapped in an urban setting, who is battling with an identity issue and is seeking approval in a post-independence setting, where women are oppressed by men of the New Africa elite. She considers herself as an injured bird, who is forced to land but due to her injuries she is trembling in the due process (Achebe& Catherine, 71). The story establishes women self-realization rather than eternal isolation, and that validates the diligence in conquering her desired objective in life. Instructed from an omniscient perspective, the story narrates about the woman's sufferings from the harshness and cruelty of the male dominant, white society. She's a college drop-out because her parents did not have enough money to support her education expenses. Being a naive small countryside girl in need of job, she falls feed to the deceit of a exploiter which guarantees to find the woman work, instead, dumps the girl after a -night stand. Consequently, Beatrice discovers that she has been caught up in a situation absolutely foreign to her knowledge, the occupation of prostitution, which was certainly dehumanizing for womanhood. Ngugi demonstrates that separation from home or family is a key factor involved in the exploitation of women in a traditional African community. Therefore, nobody can protect them after they are uprooted from their home and family. Nguhi, therefore, wants her readers to understand that this sense of dislocation due to the influence of foreign values, which might be brought upon by Westernization is detrimental for African women. She inadvertently has relegated herself towards the position outside to her parents' community. On the other hand, Wanjiru's life as a prostitute is abhorrence on the traditional values of her people, which is why she has been in self-hatred. She even attempts suicide, but does not follow through it. Beatrice’s basis of this low confidence was also because of her being a black African woman, precisely her skin color. She used to admire white culture. The searing to involve the woman's black skin color may be construed, to portray Beatrice in-front of the readers to pulverize the woman's damaging image, wishing a fresh Beatrice would come out at the end in the process. Yet, regardless how hard the girl endeavors to vary the girl outside impression and put upwards with ex-perception of popularity, she actually is nevertheless unhappy and also thinks estranged. More or less, everything really does nothing to obscure her lower home-image. During the woman's analysis with all the skin color-amazing ointment that she felt many intense mortification sentiments. Likewise, ‘The Fat Man in History’, first published in 1974 and written by Peter Carey, is a collection of twelve short stories. These stories contain many aspects of Australian life, its landscape and people. The multiple protagonists in ‘The Fat Man in History’ also have been portrayed as six obese men suffering from low self-esteem because of their huge and obese bodies living together in a shared house. The low self and social image of themselves is also one of the reasons why they felt isolated and trapped. Thus, they trembled from the interaction with thin people. The most common attribute of these men are mentioned in many forms, both physical and mental. Hence, the characters appear segregated and captured due to their physical appearance, behavior, environment from the external world. Behind absurd events of ‘Fat Man ever’ lie the unexplainable revolution and the shadowy generals, Kooper and Alvarez, who are eluded a number of times. The pre-revolution leader had apparently been a new corrupt figure known as Danko, who combined with generals is explained Finch as fascists. Prior to revolution, fatness ended up being apparently being accepted, it may be admired, as proof one’s affluence, presumably even one’s selfishness as well as willingness to take advantage of the poorer instructional classes. Being fat, however, came into existence known as the mark of one’s oppressor, a capitalist running dog of the Americans, who are identified while using the vicious Danko program. Thus, Finch with his fantastic fellow fat guys, each a huge batch of flesh, huddle together as pariahs inside a filthy rented home, surviving mainly by shoplifting. As self-appointed ‘Fat Men Contrary to the Revolution’ they plan making use of their leader, Fantoni, for people to inflate the 16 April Statue. Fat induces their alienation, their particular bitterness, their susceptibility to exploitation. Carey explores styles as colonization, technologies, and human relationships there in number of short stories. The fat man ever depicts folks who experience sudden worries after they encounter surreal situations in commonplace conditions. In other business owners, Carey uses irony so that one can highlight the negative impacts of technology and foreign affects on Australian culture and society. Thus, Carey has used black humor and spoof to inspect identity, moral degradation and pretense in modern society. Hence, he has also analyzed the particular function of stories and story-tellers in several communities, since the novel embeds quite a few stories inside the larger structure from the novel. While many of the stories are related in straightforward, sensible detail, the allegoric plot relates to the fore-top in their writing. It is vital to mention that the psychological behavior of both the protagonist in each story can be explained by Maslow’s Hierarchy of need’s model, which asserts that after the most basic need of food, shelter and clothing, a human being craves to satisfy the second most basic need of protecting his self esteem (Maslow, p.238).Thus, Beatrice was unable to satisfy both the basic needs of employment and self-esteem and hence, could not prove to be a productive to the society and eventually ended up as a prostitute. Similarly, the need for self-esteem has also been highlighted as a significant short-coming of the protagonist in ‘The Fat Man In History’, who believed that being fit physically is all what cultivates the roots for stronger self image. Therefore, I conclude that both the characters focused more on their short-comings instead of capitalizing on their personality strengths. One of the most striking features of the fat man in history’s protagonist character is his choice for solitude. It was his inferiority complex driven by his obesity which made him feel unfit for the society. He self assumed that people will judge him on his physical appearance and would be embarrassed by being with him, so he entrapped and alienated himself. This marks another similarity between Beatrice and fat man, because she also assumed that Christian white people were superior to her, which is why she hid against her pseudo identity by changing her name from Wanjiru to a beautiful Christian name Beatrice. Thus, both the authors have reflected a kind of human behavior through these characters, which underscores human inclination of weaving web of thoughts which might not have any link to reality (delusional-thought-process). However, one cannot gather courage to fight against these insecurities and live under the dark shadows of unrealistic approach; commonly observed between Beatrice and the fat man. Last but not the least, ‘The Fat Man in History’ fought against their shadows, which is evident from the fact that they brought in a revolution establishing equality for both American and Australian culture. Whereas, on the contrary Beatrice was unable to fight the demons of low self-esteem, and eventually landed as a victim. The point which holds immense significance here is the indication of the strength of human determination, which can empower him or her to not only achieve the unthinkable. – Had Beatrice realized the strength within her she would have had a fulfilling life. Therefore the above mentioned discussion has highlighted various aspects of human psychology and behavior which are depicted by the characters of both the stories. The predominant behavior in the theme has been self-entrapment and alienation from the society based upon self-assumed ideas about one’s image in the public. Not only personal psychological behavior but society’s behavior towards color cast and creed and its corresponding impact on the society as a whole has also been highlighted in these stories. Both Beatrice and protagonist in fat man have been victimized by the assumed superiority of white culture to other color and cultures in the world. However, ‘The Fat Man in History’ unlike ‘Minutes of Glory’ does not end up in despair, but underscores the power of determination and inner motivation; that can bring about magnums changes in one’s life and society as a whole. Works cited Maslow, Abraham H. Motivation and Personality. New York: Harper, 1954. Print. Achebe, Chinua, and Catherine L. Innes. African Short Stories. London: Heinemann, 1985. Print. Read More