Kathleen Balan-Celino

University Studies 183A-002: Work of Art (CRN 63741)

May 9, 2015
Essay
BOOM! Bombs exploding. BANG! BANG! Guns shooting. BOOG! Fist
punching. CLAP! Hand slapping. A handful of sounds that is associated to violence. Yet
within those sounds lies an unheard voice unable to speak, which is forcibly silenced by
society. All throughout the world, a person, a family, a community, a country is in the
midst of violence, whether the situation is noticeable or not, big or small. Violence takes
all sorts of forms physical, spiritual, cultural, psychological, verbal, etc. Physical
violence occurs when someone uses a part of his or her body or an object to control a
persons actions or to hurt or kill someone/something. Spiritual (or religious) violence
occurs when someone uses an individuals spiritual beliefs to manipulate, dominate or
control that person. Cultural violence occurs when an individual is harmed as a result of
practices that are part of her/his culture, religion or tradition (Defining Violence and
Abuse). Out of the various forms of violence mentioned, there are three that specifically
matches each of the three novels read in class physical, spiritual, and cultural. For
Eowyn Iveys novel, The Snow Child, there is physical violence. As for Shan Sas novel,
The Girl Who Played Go, there is cultural violence. Lastly, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichies
novel, Purple Hibiscus, there is spiritual and cultural violence. In each of the three
novels, we will examine how the three forms of violence affects the voices of the women.
First is Eowyn Iveys novel, The Snow Child. Within this novel physical violence
plays a role in silencing the womans voice. Fainas unique character lives in the

wilderness by herself, which means she is accustomed to the lifestyle of being in the
woods. The following quote is a scene that introduces Fainas silent voice is when she
comes to Jack and Mabels cabin with a dead white ermine pelt:
An ermine?
The child nodded and held it out to him. Beneath the fur its dried skin crinkled
like the parchment paper. Mabel came to his side and touched the tiny empty
eyelids and the bristly whiskers. She ran her fingers down the white fur to the
black-tipped tail.
Thats a nice little pelt, he said and went to give it back to the child. But she
shook her head.
Put it back in your pocket so you dont forget it.
Again the barest shake of her head, a small smile.
She wants us to have it, Mabel whispered.
Is that it? Is it for us?
A smile (Ivey 96).
This quote strongly shows the silence in Fainas voice because Mabel and Jack try to
understand her action of giving the ermine as a gift, which speaks for her. Another
powerful scene is when Garrett attentively watches Fainas movements as she elegantly
kills the swan:
The beak glanced across her cheek. She shoved the swans head down into the
wet snow and spread herself on top of the bird. Garrett could imagine the heat of
the swans body beneath her, could hear the bird hissing and sputtering and that
growl from somewhere in its strange round body. The swan fought, then calmed,

and the girl reached with her knife toward its head, slid it under the neck, and cut
sharply upward (Ivey 280).
While reading this passage, Garrett is clearly taken aback because Faina didnt hesitant to
kill the swan. But he knew she would kill the swan because it would feed her for weeks.
This violence silences her voice because her actions spoke loud enough for Garrett to
hear, for the reader to hear. The elegant way of killing the swan shows her experience and
her way of life, thus silencing her voice.
Second is Shan Sas novel, The Girl Who Played Go. For this novel, cultural
violence silences the voice of the girl who played go, Song of The Night, and her best
friend, Huong. In the following quote, Song of the Night realizes that she may be
pregnant with Mins child and reality overcomes her thoughts:
I stroke my belly and reality intrudes once more: Min is a prisoner of the
Japanese; when will he be released? I dont know his family. If I go to his house,
they will drive me away. At school my name will be written in the roll of shame,
and I will be expelled. The whole town will know. Even if I can accept the
humiliation, my parents couldnt bear the sneers and the whispers. Children in the
street will throw stones at Moon Pearl, jeering, Your sister is a whore! (Sa 179180).
From this quote, Song of the Night is restricted to tell her family about the baby. Her
voice is silenced by the Chinese culture because shes already thinking of the possible
outcomes of her being pregnant. Instead of considering the option of telling her family of
the baby, the cultural violence is hindering her the mere idea of shaming her family and
causing them distress and dishonor. Another example is Huongs situation. In the

following quote Huong tells Song of the Night her situation with her father and the
arranged marriage:
My father arrived this morning. Hes taking me away with him at the end of the
academic year. Ive had it!
Our lessons end this week. I despair at the thought of Huong being married off to
the son of some minor country dignitary, and the effect of this emotion brings on
the contractions again (Sa 226).
In this scene, Huong cant object her fathers decision because the culture is forcibly
silencing her voice. As written in Family Violence From a Global Perspective, it says:
Chinese culture has been influenced by Confucian philosophy that advocates patriarchal
beliefs and values for more than two thousand years (Lin & Ho, 2009). Confucian
philosophy set highly rigid rules for traditional Chinese women in order to keep them in
an inferior role in society. For example, San cong si de specified three obedient behaviors
and four virtues as a guide for the model Chinese woman. San cong means a woman
should obey her father before she is married, serve her husband in marriage, and follow
her son after her husbands death. Si de refers to fidelity, tidiness, propriety in speech, and
commitment to needlework (Tang & Lai, 2008) (Asay 53).
This clearly explains that women are seen inferior and forces them to be silenced in
society because, as women, they have no other choice, but to obey the male figure in the
household.
Last is Chimamanda Ngozi Adichies novel, Purple Hibiscus. Adichie captures
the oppression of women, spiritual influences, and the environment of family violence.
All throughout the novel, Papa-Eugene uses the name of God when hurting his family,

which causes Mama Beatrice two miscarriages, Jaja to lose feeling on his small finger,
and Kambili to be hospitalized. Every time Papa hurts Kambili, she stays silent because
he uses God as an excuse for his punishment methods, thus silencing Kambilis voice.
Mama Beatrice isnt able to speak what is happening in her family because of her
position in society. In Molara Ogundipe-Leslies Re-Creating Ourselves: African Women
& Critical Transformations, she writes:
The oppression of women within marriage takes various forms. First, the woman
loses status by being married because in the indigenous systems, which are still at
the base of the society, the woman as daughter or sister has greater status and
more rights wither her birth lineages. With marriage, she becomes a client or
possession; she is voiceless and often rightless in her husbands family except, in
groups, through what accrues to her through children. She also loses much of her
personal freedom which she can only gain at prices expensive to herself as the
admittance of other wives or publicly acknowledged girl-friends. She also has to
submit to dominance by her husband, or face execration and blame from the total
society (Ogundipe-Leslie 75).
From Ogundipe-Leslies background information, we are able to grasp the silence from
Mama Beatrice because her position in society gives her no choice. As a married women,
she is voiceless and no one will entertain what she has to says, even if her family is
experiencing family violence.
Although these three distinct novels are separated by different cultures, I was able
to make a connection between them. Through the mutual affects of violence against
women in these three cultures, I was able to see through the eyes of the authors and what

they wanted to convey. A woman like myself may be living a life free from oppression,
but another woman my age in a different country may be experiencing otherwise. In this
vast world, violence is affecting a womans voice and actions. Society limits woman the
ability to defend themselves against abuse and the rights that they deserve. Women are
automatically judged because of their gender. People shouldnt encourage gender
violence, but support the equality between male and female. Women should not be
labeled as inferior to men, but treated as an equal because we are all humans that step on
the same ground, work for the food on our plate, pray to the God we believe in, and use
the same soil to live on.

Bibliography
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Purple Hibiscus. Chapel Hill: Algonquin, 2003. Print.
Ivey, Eowyn. The Snow Child. New York City: Little, Brown, 2012. Print.

Shan, Sa. The Girl Who Played Go. Trans. Adriana Hunter. New York City: Knopf
Doubleday Group, 2003. Print.
"Defining Violence and Abuse." Types of Violence and Abuse. Government of
Newfoundland and Labrador, 7 Mar. 2014. Web. 06 May 2015.
Asay, Sylvia M., John D. DeFrain, Marcee L. Metzger, and Robert T. Moyer. Family
Violence From a Global Perspective: A Strengths-Based Approach. Thousand
Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2013. Print.
Ogundipe-Leslie, Molara. Re-Creating Ourselves: African Women & Critical
Transformations. Trenton, NJ: Africa World, 1994. Print.