Kingston Mukherjee Bharati's No Name Woman

How Women Have Been Repressed
There are a lot of things that I have read and have influenced me. I think that reading an essay, book, or even just a poem can bring endless imagination. Reading opens endless worlds, and often time helps people in the real world. In “No Name Woman” by Kingston Maxine H., “Two Ways To Belong In America” by Mukherjee Bharati, and “What If Shakespeare Had Had A Sister” by Woolf Virginia, the authors write about how women have been repressed through the years in different cultures and different times.
In “No Name Woman,” Kingston writes about how her aunt was chased and almost killed by the people in her village, because they thought that she had gotten pregnant outside of marriage; after being chased and almost killed by the villagers, she commits suicide and kills her newborn baby also. Kingston writes about how women were supposed to follow certain rules imposed on them, without embarrassing their families. Her mother warns Kingston to not “humiliate” her family (9). Kingston’s mother warns her not to act the same as her aunt, because she
would be punished for not following rules—just like her aunt was. Kingston is scared to even date any boy that she likes, because she is worried about ending up the same way as her aunt.
In “Two Ways To Belong In America,” Mukherjee writes about how she and her sister moved into the United States from India. She writes about how even though they were in a completely different country with completely different cultures, they were supposed to follow family traditions from India. Both Mukherjee and her sister were supposed to go to the United States, secure their degrees and marry men of their “father’s choosing” (2). Both of them were supposed to focus on their education and not change any of the family values that they were taught in India. They were “well raised sisters,” so they did not say “what was really” on their mind (7). But, despite that, Mukherjee changes everything about herself. She marries an American man, who is not chosen by her father and she wants to become an American citizen. On the other hand, her sister insists on keeping her Indian citizenship, while living and working in America. They both struggle with a sense of belonging, but while Mukherjee wants to belong in a foreign country, her sister wants to belong in her home land.
In “What If Shakespeare Had Had A Sister,” Woolf writes about how when Shakespeare’s work and other artists’ work was created, all writers were men.
There were no women playing any roles in any plays, or even try and write anything; women were not allowed to write or create art. Woolf writes about how she struggles wondering as to “why no woman wrote a word” of the literature in the “time of Elizabeth” (1-2). She wonders as to how it is possible that everything that had to do with art or literature was created or played by men. Woolf keeps asking questions about “what would have happened had Shakespeare had a wonderfully gifted sister, called Judith,” who would have been just as smart as Shakespeare (8)? Would the situation have been different for her because she would have been a woman? Would she have been repressed into not using her intelligence to create anything, just because she is a
woman?