Indian Society andDeath Sentence - Assignment Example

            #2.  Anna Akhmatova had lost her ex-husband to the Bolshevik purges and later suffered the horror of seeing her only child imprisoned for fifteen years.  She then wrote Requiem to her son, for like thousands of other women she waited long hours and days to simply see him or maybe give him some food.  Although written during the Stalin era the work would apply to anyone who has a loved one imprisoned anywhere, especially political prisoners and particularly those jailed unjustly.

            #3.  Although he calls himself mad even from the beginning, Poprishchin is simply trying to cope with a class society that he doesn’t understand, although as a government worker, he is thrust amid the tiers of people.  By the end of his diaries, the man has driven himself mad and is delusional in that he sees talking dogs and envisions himself to be king of Spain.  Modern mental health officials point out that what the man suffered from is a class case of Schizophrenia (Altschuler).   

#4.  After a day of hard labor (for which they were not paid and they had not eaten lunch), Chidam and Dukhiram returned home to a house in which was there no food.  In a blinding rage, Dukhiram murders his wife with a knife.  Because Chandara is covered in her sister-in-law’s blood, it is suggested that she confess to the killing, which she does.  As such, she is eventually executed for the crime.

#5.  Gregor makes it clear he is not satisfied with his dreary (to him) life as a traveling salesman, although as the only breadwinner in the family, he has no choice but to continue.  Kafka gives one the impression that he willed himself into the transformation so there would be a means of escape.

#6.  As the author is considered a feminist in her native India, so is the protagonist Jashoda to a certain extent.  In a caste society only a few years removed from British rule, the chasm between haves and have-nots is wide and her only recourse after her husband’s horrible accident is to nurse the babies of the wealthy.  As such her role is revered while she is needed and she is cast aside to die when she is no longer necessary, a situation she doesn’t understand. 

#7.  Modernist literature was influenced greatly by political and social upheaval in the world, especially World War I and the Russian Revolution, for the events had somewhat tarnished the writers’ thoughts.  Later, the Great Depression and the Spanish Civil War influenced writers like Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway.

#8.  Gregor is a troubled man.  As the sole support for the family, it is revealed that the father lost his business a few years before.  Grateful that he could eat, his father was still very jealous of Gregor and their relationship was very strained.  After the transformation, the father was forced to work again and later decided that his son was more of a liability and should be forced to leave.  The feelings were mutual and his father was the only one of the three Gregor did not mind no seeing.

His mother was an asthmatic sickly woman and after years of realizing he was only a meal ticket to his parents, he doesn’t have much of a relationship with either.  This is only made worse when his mother demands to see him and swoons at the sight of his grotesque appearance.  Yet, unlike his father, she also seems to still exhibit some indications of parental love.

The one Gregor seems closest to both before and after his change is his sister Grete.  Determined to expand her musical talent, he had previously strived to send her to music school.  After the transformation, she brings him food and to keep her from being frightened at the sight of him, he hides behind a sheet when she comes into his room.  However, she too alienated herself from her brother by the end, and all three treat the strangers in their home better than their kin