Summary Of Ira By Markandaya

Living in a community of poverty, life is rough, and many people do what they must to feed their families. With daughters in the household, poverty is even greater, for you must reserve a dowry in order for the daughter to marry a man. Although marriage makes the man and woman husband and wife, the husband has the right to return his wife to her family if she cannot conceive a child. Ira is one example of a woman who could not birth a child. As Ira's life collapses into depression she retracts back to living with her family and promptly falls back into her commonplace as an active household member, for as soon as Kuti is born she treats him as her own son, then when Kuti begins suffering from starvation Ira intervenes by becoming a prostitute,
But as time passed Rukumani noticed "Ira: the transformation in her was astonishing as it was inexplicable. I had feared she might dislike the child, but now it was as if he were her own." (Markandaya 65). With Nathan hard at work trying to preserve what little they had left, and Rukumani tending to the other children. Ira becomes a mother figure to Kuti, rather than a sister role model. Through this relationship Ira does all she can do to help her family, and if that means crossing her values in order to save the moral of family, then she would. For Ira is a courageous feminine figure who wouldn't have to think twice about selling her body to feed her family in desperate
Perhaps he was to her." (Markandaya 119). But to other people, her son was a defect, not like them, and otherwise useless. Through all the rude comments, and violent actions Ira stood by Sacrabani through every step of the way. Although others thought of Sacrabani as different, Ira looked past his appearance, and she saw the wonderful kind son that he