Quotations Rotations Exercise - WAPZ #1 Quotation #6: “Come what may I had to become a respectable woman, even if the price were to be my life. I was prepared to do anything to put a stop to the insults that my ears had grown used to hearing, to keep the brazen eyes from running all over my body.” (p.93) Analysis: Literary devices: + Characterisation: “respectable woman” + Tone: formal/old fashioned saying / hence ton Analysis: - "Come what may" is a traditional saying that expresses determination - emphasis on respectability indicates the societal norms & values that likely view women through a patriarchal lens. - Firdaus's desire to be seen as "respectable" underscores the pressure women often feel to conform to societal standards. Analysis: Literary devices: + Hyperbole → of her giving up her life + Metaphor → “price”, It can not be traded or sold / she is happy to sacrifice her life (existence) Analysis: - underlines the extreme lengths Firdaus is willing to go to achieve respect - reflection of the dire situations many women find themselves in, especially within societies that undervalue and mistreat them - Conveys the profound level of despair and desperation Quotations Rotations Exercise - WAPZ #1 Analysis: Literary devices: + Hyperbole → “anything”, deliberate exaggeration Analysis: - Anything, stresses the desperation, and lack of availability of choices - She wants to achieve a life without humiliation and degradation - Her ears had grown to hear → conveys the constant occurrence of the insults and emphasizes that she wants them to stop Analysis: Literary devices: + Metaphor: “brazen eyes” & “running over my body”, work together as a metaphor → brazen eyes cannot run over the body + Personification: giving eyes human-like traits of being “brazen” & “running”. Analysis: - Brazen eyes running over her body → convey the invasive objectification she experiences from males when they look at her (blatant and disrespectful glaze) Brazen = bold Other Quotes: 1. “I kept my eyes closed and abandoned my body. It lay there under him without movement, emptied of all desire, or pleasure, or even pain, feeling nothing. A dead body with no life in it at all, like a piece of wood, or empty sock, or a shoe.” (p62) - Sentence structure Diction Imagery / Simile Quotations Rotations Exercise - WAPZ #1 2. “How many were the years of my life that went by before my body, and myself became really mine, to do with them as I wished? How many were the years of my life that were lost before I tore my body and myself away from the people who held me in their grasp since the very first day?” (p87) - Irony Repetition Personal Pronouns Tone Characterization 3. “Your wishes are my orders,’ and he paid me on the spot.” (87) 4. “Now I could decide on the food I wanted to eat, the house I preferred to live in, refuse the man for whom I felt an aversion no matter what the reason, and choose the man I wished to have, even it was only because he was clean and well-manicured.” (p.74) Sentence Structure Repetition of Personal Pronouns Diction (aversion → strong word for hating someone) 5. “It was also said that none of the men had succeeded in breaking my pride and that not a single high-ranking official had been able to make me bow my head.” (p.98) 6. “Come what may I had to become a respectable woman, even if the price were to be my life. I was prepared to do anything to put a stop to the insults that my ears had grown used to hearing, to keep the brazen eyes from running all over my body.” (p.93) 7. “I realized that as a prostitute I had been looked upon with more respect, and been valued more highly than all the female employees, myself included.” (96) - Sentence structure Tone Characterization → Men pay her for a commodity hence why they respect her, only because money is involved Irony → She had more respect for being a prostitute than working in an office Quotations Rotations Exercise - WAPZ #1 8. “A man does not know a woman’s value, Firdaus. She is the one who determines her value. The higher you price yourself, the more he will realize what you are really worth and be prepared to pay with the means at his disposal.” (58) - diction → economics (value, price, worth, paying) 5 economic references and words that relate to being a prostitute - Sentence structure - Tone - Characterization Semantic field → economic reference 9. “I was telling the man he could have my body, he could have a dead body, but he would never be able to make me react, or tremble, or feel either pleasure or pain.” (p93) - Sentence structure Tone Repetition 10. “I discovered that all these rulers were men. What they had in common was an avaricious and distorted personality, a never-ending appetite for money, sex and unlimited power.” - diction → avaricious (greedy for wealth) 12. “The first piastre was all mine, to put in the palm of my hand, and surround with my fingers, and squeeze…mine to do with it what I wanted, to buy what I wanted, to eat with it whatever I desired.” 13. “Now I realized that the least deluded of all women was the prostitute. That marriage was the system built on the most cruel suffering for women.” 14. It was as though money was a shameful thing, made to be hidden, an object of sin which was forbidden to me and yet permissible for others, as though it had been made legitimate for only them. (pg. 67) 15. But because I am a woman I have never had the courage to lift my hand. And because I am a prostitute, I hid my fear under layers of make-up. (pg. 11) Quotations Rotations Exercise - WAPZ #1 17. Men impose deception on women and punish them for being deceived, force them down to the lowest level and punish them for falling so low, bind them in marriage and then chastise them with menial service for life, or insults, or blows. (pg. 86) 18. “The time had come for me to shed the last grain of virtue, the last drop of sanctity in my blood”. (p.111) 19. But because I am a woman I have never had the courage to lift my hand. And because I am a prostitute, I hid my fear under layers of make-up. (pg. 11) 20.‘You are not respectable,’ he replied, but before the words ‘not respectable’ had even reached my ears, my hands rose to cover them quickly, but they penetrated into my head like the sharp tip of a plunging dagger…the words continued to echo in my ears, took refuge in their innermost depths, buried themselves in my head, like some palpable material object, like a body as sharp as the edge of a knife which had cut its way through my ears, and the bones of my head to the brain inside. (pg. 68)
