Passages from text
Pg #’s
Comments & questions
"Perhaps that was why they could not find me a rich husband, and married me to a tenant farmer who was poor in everything except love and care for me, his wife, whom he took at the age of twelve."
Chapter 1 Page 4
(E) Rukmani doesn’t seem to look very highly of herself at this time. She was really hoping for a rich husband and have a sweet prosperous life but instead she was married to a poor farmer. She doesn’t, at the beginning, really appreciate Nathan and the things that they now have like how she cried when they reached the house and other examples. She wonders why it has to be her that is so unlucky but she learns from Nathan that she was actually very lucky and that love and care is more important than having a rich husband.
“I realized I must have looked like a water buffalo, running in such a frenzy."
Chapter 2 page 14
(E) This simile gives the reader an interpretation of what Rukmani looked like as she ran away from the snake that startled her in the garden, and then was killed by Nathan. This quote is important because it paints a picture in the reader’s head of what exactly Rukmani looked like when she ran away from the snake, giving it an extra visual to connecting with the book. Also the quote gives the book some comedy in it as you can imagine Rukmani running like a water buffalo away from a small snake in her garden has to make you chuckle.
"I placed even more faith in the charm my mother had given me, wearing it constantly between my breasts. Nothin happened. At last I went to him again, begging him to do what he could. He did not even remind me of the past."
Chapter 3 page 20
(R) This scene is very emotional and could possibly allude to another story. It shows Rukmani holding on to the only relic she has left of mother since she left for marriage with Nathan. But this scene is similar to Cinderella where she uses her fairy godmother to grant all of her wishes but in the book Rukmani uses Kenny’s medical treatments in fertility to assist her in having another baby, preferably a son. Nathan does not know about the medical treatments Rukmani received as do the evil stepsisters not know about the fairy godmother that Cinderella has. “. . . For in the beginning I had not wished my husband to know that I was putting myself in the hands of a foreigner, for I knew not what his reaction would be. I had consoled myself that it would be time enough to tell him if a child was born; and now I found I could not do it, because he would surely ask why I had not told him before . . . What harm, I thought, if he does not know; I have not lied to him, there has just been this silence.”
Chapter 4 Page 26
(P) Rukmani goes to Kenny for medical treatment when she learns that she cannot conceive a baby, and when she does this she doesn’t tell Nathan in fear that he will be mad that she left herself in the hands of a foreigner. I predict that this secret that Rukmani is hiding from Nathan will eventually come back to haunt Rukmani and maybe threaten her marriage with Nathan. I predict that somebody threatens to tell Nathan her secret kind of like blackmail to get an edge over Rukmani or to get something he/she wants from Rukmani.
"My heart quailed at his words for fear he should betray me. Yet. No betrayal, since how could he guess my husband did not know I had gone to him for treatment."
Chapter 5 Page 33
(E) She is very nervous here that her husband will find out about her taking fertility medication to bare more children. Luckily he finds out and is not mad but taking fertility medication is very frowned upon in the village and the society that they live in, the image that Nathan and Rukmani have is the most important thing to them and the secret of the medication getting out would ruin their reputation and Rukmani doesn’t want to do that to Nathan. She is very relieved when Nathan finds out and states he isn’t mad so she is feeling better.
"One hundred rupees