In Brick Lane, there were two really large themes that stuck out to me more then any other–I was very interested in the theme of First Wave Feminism (in terms of women’s education) and a culture of assimilation.

First Wave Feminism- One of my favorite quotes is  “Knowledge is a mirror and for the first time in my life I was allowed to see who I was and who I might become.” (Cloud Atlas David Mitchell). Knowledge in many regrades is a form of power. Because for Nazneen, for the greater half of the first novel, she could not speak English, but her husband could. Even in Chanu’s first dead end job, he still had the power as someone who spoke English and knew about English text to even get a job. Nazneen was stuck in the house, and she was desperate for knowledge, she wanted to go to school to learn, but there was always an “excuse” for her to stay at home and fulfill some other “womanly duty”. Chanu at first would say that she wouldn’t have to go out because he would just get her whatever, or when she had her first child, she was suppose to be taking care of him. etc. etc. etc. There is a power in being educated, a power that she didn’t have, and that severely crippled her. She wasn’t really allowed to see “who see might become” because of her position.

As the reader, I could tell that she wanted more then anything to learn English. she held onto the word “ice skating” for the longest time, and she wanted to know more. I’m going to briefly talk about the tattooed woman and her role, because Nazneen really wanted to talk to her so badly. For me the tattooed woman represented an idea of freedom or at least the allure of something different. She was a mysterious woman who would sit at her apartment and smoke. She was different from Nazneen in every which way, but Nazneen had an almost obsession-like attitude of wanting to talk to the tattooed women. I saw that as another desire for education to have the ability to talk to that very “different Western woman”

Now again, I have Professor Mcleod for another class and we talked about the position of privilege of Feminism in the West. I don’t to sound ethnocentric, but because of my sociological environment I feel that a woman shouldn’t have to ask her husband/brother/male-person where she can and can’t go. However, those are ideals from a Western Culture and a Western Feminism.