Somehow, the new year is right around the corner, and we can’t quite figure out where 2023 went. What we do know is this: December might mean the end of the year, but it also means that annual student and teacher subscriptions are 50% off!
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Before December 31st, be sure to give yourself the gift of academic success with access to our study guide archive, essay lab, practice quizzes, downloadable PDFs…including these three brand-new titles:
The Wretched and the Beautiful by E. Lily Yu
Human beings are fickle, shallow creatures…or at least they are according to E. Lily Yu. In this 2017 short story, she rails against Executive Order 13769, colloquially known as the “Muslim Ban.” By arranging a sci-fi scenario that eerily mimics our own, Yu uses estranged, seemingly impossible scenes to illustrate the absurdity and callousness she saw evidenced in EO 13769—and in humanity itself.
When a spaceship of disheveled, unhappy, and strange-looking aliens crash lands in an unnamed beach-front town in the United States, the townspeople are less than enthused by their new neighbors. Though the aliens communicate their desperation, having narrowly escaped certain death on their own planet, the townspeople (and, later, global governments alike) are hesitant to offer help.
Yu’s abrupt description of humanity’s readiness to condemn the aliens to their fate, unwilling to offer the barest support due to either fear of or distaste for the aliens’ “otherness,” is an evocative metaphor for the United States’ treatment of refugees.
Her words are carefully pointed, driving home the cruelty of EO 13769 without ever overtly gesturing to the scenario. “The Wretched and the Beautiful” is an excellent example of how science fiction and social commentary dovetail, marrying estranged settings and scenarios with those that are all too familiar. To read more about how sci-fi functions as a means of social discourse, check out our analysis here!
Soap by Nissim Ezekiel
“Some people are not having manners” begins the unnamed speaker of Nissim Ezekiel’s “Soap,” a comedic poem describing a mundane interaction that quickly devolves into absurdity and chaos. In stilted, dialectic English—which is, he explains, better than his Hindi—the speaker describes a simple errand: Running to a nearby shop to buy soap, an item as bland and innocuous as the errand itself. However, the unassuming chore rapidly becomes an emotionally charged affair.
The shop owner, whether intentionally or not, attempts to sell the increasingly outraged speaker a “defective version.” Though the narrator does his best to maintain his composure, he is eventually overtaken by emotion, exclaiming:
YOU ARE BLIND OR WHAT?
The shop owner, of course, rises to the occasion. The argument, originally spawned over conflicting views on soap quality, spirals into petty insults and yelling. It is not until a crowd begins to form that the speaker realizes the ridiculousness of his choices—especially given that the shopkeeper is much bigger than him.
and I am not caring so much for
small defect in well-known brand soap.
So I’m saying
Alright OK Alright OK
this time I will take
but not next time.
Ezekiel’s brief glimpse into the behavior of the speaker and those around him speaks to the basic mechanisms of human interaction, poking fun at how we segment our behavior to conform to expectation. Through this short, five-stanza comedy, Ezekiel makes light of human interaction, finding absurdity but also depth in even the simplest of scenes.
By Any Other Name by Santha Rama Rau
Though limited in word count, Santha Rama Rau’s 1951 short story, “By Any Other Name,” is rich in heritage and history. It is a fictionalized recounting of Rama Rau’s own lived experience attending an Anglo-Indian school in her home country. In retelling her childhood experiences, she touches on the small-scale effects of colonial influence on a nation, a language, and a people.
When Santha and her older sister, Premila, attend their first day at a British school, the English headmistress anglicized their names. The two girls, she decides, should be referred to as Cynthia and Pamela, respectively. When addressed by her English name, Santha notes that she feels estranged from herself. It is as if “Cynthia” is an entirely different person—one she doesn’t seem to care for very much. Ultimately, Santha and Premila’s time at the school is brief. One day, Premila walks into Santha’s class, grabs her by the hand, and together, they walk home, never to return.
Santha and her older sister, Premila.
Rama Rau steeps her story in the recollections of an adolescence touched by British imperialism in India, which lasted well into the twentieth century. Hers is a tale of linguistic imperialism and the impact that language—particularly the language of an oppressor—can have on a population.
It is an estranging effect, one that separates Santha from herself, as if there can exist both the Indian version of herself and the version her British peers and schoolmasters expect of her. Through the lens of a young girl—her younger self—Rama Rau describes just how overt and insidious colonial influence is, as well as how visible it was, even to a five-and-a-half-year-old girl:
I understood it perfectly, and I remember it all very clearly. But I put it happily away, because it had all happened to a girl called Cynthia, and I never was really particularly interested in her.
And…that’s a wrap on 2023
Don’t forget to start your 2024 off right with 50% off annual access to our entire content library. Until then, we’ll see you next year!