Clothes essay - Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Clothes
The short story “Clothes” written by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni delivers a connection between the clothes a person wears and their identity. The different stages of her life reflect onto the variety of types and colors of clothes she wears. The change she goes through forms her new identity.
In the first part of the story, we meet Sumita for the first time in her home country India with her friends. She is scheduled to have her very first bride viewing, where she is going to meet her future husband Somesh and his family for the first time. She is trying to stay calm but the nervousness keeps rushing over her. In India, marriages arranged by the parents of the bride and the groom are very common. Sumita’s friends have had arranged marriages and her mother as well. Somesh and his family live across the world from where Sumita is, in America. “I’d be going halfway around the world to live with a man I hadn’t even met. Would I ever see my parents again? Don’t send me so far away, I wanted to cry, but of course I didn’t.” (p. 173, l. 30-33) Besides Sumita’s nervousness it also shows the struggles of the people, who migrate from their known home country to an entirely new country where the culture and the people seem foreign to them.
Sumita is preparing for the very first meeting with Somesh. Whenever a big change is heading her way during the story, she wears a sari with a color that matches the situation and mood she is in. “It was the most expensive sari I had ever seen, and surely the most beautiful. Its body was a pale pink, like the dawn sky over the women’s lake. The color of transition.” (p. 174, l. 12-14) A sari is the common clothing for women to wear in India for several big occasions. But Sumita sees it as more than that. She sees it as something that reflects her hopes, feelings and inner thoughts. The various colors of the saris have very different meanings for her. The word “transition” in Sumita’s situation refers to her becoming a married
The short story “Clothes” written by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni delivers a connection between the clothes a person wears and their identity. The different stages of her life reflect onto the variety of types and colors of clothes she wears. The change she goes through forms her new identity.
In the first part of the story, we meet Sumita for the first time in her home country India with her friends. She is scheduled to have her very first bride viewing, where she is going to meet her future husband Somesh and his family for the first time. She is trying to stay calm but the nervousness keeps rushing over her. In India, marriages arranged by the parents of the bride and the groom are very common. Sumita’s friends have had arranged marriages and her mother as well. Somesh and his family live across the world from where Sumita is, in America. “I’d be going halfway around the world to live with a man I hadn’t even met. Would I ever see my parents again? Don’t send me so far away, I wanted to cry, but of course I didn’t.” (p. 173, l. 30-33) Besides Sumita’s nervousness it also shows the struggles of the people, who migrate from their known home country to an entirely new country where the culture and the people seem foreign to them.
Sumita is preparing for the very first meeting with Somesh. Whenever a big change is heading her way during the story, she wears a sari with a color that matches the situation and mood she is in. “It was the most expensive sari I had ever seen, and surely the most beautiful. Its body was a pale pink, like the dawn sky over the women’s lake. The color of transition.” (p. 174, l. 12-14) A sari is the common clothing for women to wear in India for several big occasions. But Sumita sees it as more than that. She sees it as something that reflects her hopes, feelings and inner thoughts. The various colors of the saris have very different meanings for her. The word “transition” in Sumita’s situation refers to her becoming a married