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Nectar in a Sieve 2861 Views
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Description:
What's the deal with "Nectar in a Sieve"? Shmoop amongst yourselves.
Transcript
- 00:04
Nectar in a Sieve<<siv>>, a la Shmoop. Have you ever told someone a story about something
- 00:10
that happened to you a long time ago?
- 00:13
Like… when you regaled your friends with the tale of the time you fell off your bike
- 00:19
and had to go to the hospital?
- 00:20
Or when you told them about the time you fell off your skateboard and landed face-first
Full Transcript
- 00:24
on the concrete?
- 00:25
Hm. Maybe you should be wearing protective padding…
- 00:28
We like to tell stories about our past.
- 00:30
But… why do we like doing that so much? In Nectar in a Sieve, our narrator, Rukmani,
- 00:41
who is now an elderly woman…
- 00:42
…tells us of her childhood.
- 00:48
So why did the author…
- 00:49
… choose to tell this story as a reflection of Rukmani’s past, rather than in the form
- 00:54
of a normal narrative?
- 00:58
Maybe it’s because she wanted to show how different things were years after the events
- 01:01
that took place in the story.
- 01:03
“Ruku” struggles with money problems…
- 01:05
…a growing emotional distance between herself and her children…
- 01:12
…droughts, starvation, death… all that good stuff.
- 01:17
But the book ends on a hopeful note.
- 01:19
And because our narrator has lived to a ripe old age, we can only assume that things got
- 01:20
better.
- 01:20
So perhaps we’re supposed to see how all those struggles… the strikes at the tannery…
- 01:24
the overcoming poverty… the resilience in the face of tragedy…
- 01:28
…all win out over desperation and despair in the end.
- 01:33
Or could it be that the author doesn’t want us wondering whether or not Ruku is going
- 01:36
to die?
- 01:37
She’s an elderly woman when she tells us this story, so we know she’s not going to
- 01:41
kick the bucket in some freak bicycling accident in her twenties.
- 01:45
By giving us the information that Ruku survives, it allows us to focus more on the story at
- 01:51
hand…
- 01:51
…rather than tempting us to play prophet and try to predict the outcome.
- 02:00
On the other hand… are we supposed to see… not how the world around Ruku has changed…
- 02:04
…but how she has changed? Has she become more or less optimistic as
- 02:11
a result of her hardships?
- 02:12
Has she lost faith in love and goodness in the world, or did her experiences enforce
- 02:17
her positive attitude?
- 02:19
Does she have regrets, or is she satisfied with the way her life has played out?
- 02:26
We wouldn’t be able to answer these questions… or to even ask them, really… if the story
- 02:32
were being told as it unfolded. So… why are we some… fly on the wall of
- 02:37
this time machine?
- 02:43
Are we supposed to see how Ruku has changed…
- 02:45
…how the world has changed…
- 02:47
…or are we just supposed to not worry about her suffering an untimely demise?
- 02:52
Shmoop amongst yourselves.
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