Girl by Hanif Kureishi Essay Example

her mother, she reads Nietzsche literature, which Is hard stuff. She tries to become more academic and educate herself, so she can switch social classes. You can see the transformation by where she starts out; at her mothers decaying house ND she Is now reading Nietzsche literature.

Nicole tries to break the vicious circle and get a better life than her mother, even though that Is not always easy.

She still tries her best In breaking the pattern. Major, the other mall character, Is twice the age of Nicole, so around 50 years old. He Is a ass's kid, which he sees as a romantic age. "l ;m a sixties kids. He said.

It was a romantic age"3 His ethnic background is Indian, probably a second-generation immigrant. He used to be addressing at demonstrations and was a political leftist activist. Now he has a job as an editor of a addict newspaper and is rather wealthy.

His mother brought up Mejia and his father and grew up only 8 miles away from where Insole's mother lives.

Nicole and him had a secret relationship for 2 year before Mejia told his wife about the affair and got divorced. So he left his wife and kids for Insole's sake. But he still understands sterility, because despite all the culture Mejia and his wife shared and had in common, it is not all that matters to him. Passion and feeling are more important to him, because Nicole gives him that, and she is the first one he can not sleep without, he says. Mejia and Nicole need and depend on each other.

She looks up to him and

wants to be the perfect academic girl for him. He has life experience, is rather wealthy and has a big amount of knowledge. She also adores him for the fact, that he gives her all the attention she never got before. "She had never had anyone listen to her so attentively or take her so seriously, as if he wanted to occupy every part of her"4 Mejia needs Nicole in his life because she is younger and gives him freshness in his life and a chance to start over.

She also gives him fun and passion. You could say that hey are each other's life projects.

No matter how much Mejia adores Nicole, he still tends to look and talk down to her. He knows that he comes from a higher social class than her. Sometimes also makes her cover her spots on her face when they go out, but Mejia says it is Just in case they meet anyone he knows. Often it seems like he sees her more as an object for his good image.

But they are still both victims; Nicole for being a white woman and Mejia for being a second-generation immigrant. Mejia only proved social mobility, because he moved himself up the latter into a different social class.

But one thing they both have in common; they were both abandoned by their fathers. No matter if it was through divorce or suicide, they still left them. Insole's mother treats Mejia as an inferior person and talks down on him, most likely because of his skin color. When Mejia and Nicole arrive, she only serves Mejia Indian food, even though he

might have a completely different taste.

All she sees is his skin color. That is why the visit is not as expected for Mejia. The house seems very cold and abandoned by spirit. Not even close to what he is used to from his culture.

The relationship between Nicole and her mother is tricky, because it seems like Insole's mother doesn't want the best for her daughter.

She criticizes that Nicole quit her Job - even though she never had a Job herself. She could be interpreted as being envious of her daughter, because Nicole chose a different path of life than her. The language of the short story carries large imprint of collect. Mejia speaks a finer language than Nicole and her mother, because he derives from a more classy neighborhood and has a better educational background than Nicole and her mother, ho don't origin from the same class of society.

Mejia is also twice as old as Nicole, maybe around the same age as her mother, because he is born in the ass's. Because of his age he also speaks a different kind of language than Nicole, because he is not born in the same generation as her.

That kind of specific variety of language is called chronicler. The short story is very easy to read because there are not used any fancy words. The author kept it very simple when it comes to the language. Main focus is on unconditional, maybe forbidden, love, where you do not think about hat society thinks.

The age and social class difference makes the relationship between Nicole and Mejia very special, and also hard. But that

is also another theme in this short story by Hanoi Kurdish; the cultural and social differences. Mejia has left his family to be passionate with his younger lover, because passion means more to him than culture, but they are still at two different points in their life. Mejia is enchanted by his lover, but the age difference brings some difficulties along the way in their relationship.

In several situations Nicole feels inferior towards him - specially when it comes to the knowledge he has. She dressed for him, too, and couldn't go into a shop without wondering what would please him"5 Due to her love and need for acceptance she dresses up for him. She studies more so she doesn't look too ignorant in his eyes. The two of them have to struggle for the love they have, but with Insole's history she must have learned to fight for what's good in her life. There is big focus on the search for cultural and personal identity in the short story, which is very typical for postcolonial literature.

The cultural, and especially age preference, do not exactly benefit Nicole and Mejia in every way.

Of course Insole's young age flatters and interests Mejia, but for Nicole the age difference is not always a benefit. Mejia has kids and Nicole does not feel ready to be a mother yet, so she pushes his family away. "Nicole had said she didn't want them coming over to the house. She had wanted to punish him, and destroy everything"6 Also, Nicole does not like so call Mejia her boyfriend, but only lover, which shows how she distances herself from him.

".

.. But Mejia, her older lover: it sounded trite calling him her 'boyfriend"7. Something that is very special for this short story is, that the roles are reversed.

The white are actually and blacks, and the blacks are actually the whites.

Mejia is the second-generation immigrant politician with an academic background who has a lot of life experience. On the other hand Nicole is the weak one. She is very young, has no academic background and origins from a family with no culture. This point out something, that is very typical for postcolonial literature and what Hanoi Kurdish point out. Postcolonial literature is often a reaction to a stereotypical view on Lonnie people; people like Mejia.

The short story ends with Nicole and Mejia having a daily routine together and Just enjoying each other's company.

"Soon they would eat. After, they would go over everything, knowing they would wake up with one another"8. After all the hard phases they have been through throughout their relationship, they finally get to enjoy the harmony by being with each other. Cultural and personal differences do not matter anymore, if you are able to put all stereotypes aside. Hanoi Kurdish succeeds in showing, that after all nothing else matters, except love between one another.