Memed My Hawk in the Light Of Social Stratification - Term Paper Example

Term Paper, Sociology Project The question is: Discuss Memed, My Hawk in the light of:1. Social stratification 2. Family relations 3. Gender relations 4. Social change 1. Social stratification Memed, a brave, enthusiastic and tenderhearted boy grows up in a mountain village where people are kept in slavery by the local landlord. This indicates the type of society in which the poor and the helpless are expected to live. It is the same old story of class conflicts that has been bothering the society in almost all the nations in one form or the other, since time immemorial. This sort of social stratification can be compared to the form of slavery that existed in America, where the slaves were considered as the property of the landowners and they could be bought and sold. The boy takes to the same option which some of the slaves availed—escape from the unending toil and humiliation, loss of personal dignity, but he is caught, tortured and was about to be killed. In the end, he gets away from the clutches of the landlord, and as his desperate situation demands, he takes desperate decisions. He is out to take revenge against the society that maltreats him and he wants to protect the people who are subjugated and exploited by the rich. He organizes a roving gang and is hailed as the liberator of the poor people. So, the young man challenged feudalism that was prevalent in the society. The author creates a hero out of the rustic boy of the village. The young man’s story is the pointer to the societal rebellion against the prevailing feudal system. The nature’s bounty was totally exploited by the feudal landlords, and they owned lands not by yards, but a series of villages, and they oppressed the peasants from all ends. The share of crop was arbitrarily decided, corporal punishment to the peasants was their style of functioning, and on the slightest pretext drove them from their homes. The landlord was a terror figure. There was no system of justice, and no appeals were heard, and in frustration the youth joined the army or turned to criminal way of life like becoming a bandit to lead a gang. The bandits live an unstable, brief life and for their security, they wander from forest to forest as the landlords are their enemies and they are permanently at war with them. To the combustible youth to take to the hard option to become a brigand, there must be lots of injustice in the social system. With no rules specified, when justice is arbitrary and a far dream, when the lives of the peasants are at the mere whims of the landlords, the champions of the downtrodden are born. They are indeed the good Samaritans for the poor and threat to the rich. They lead the fight against the serfdom. Resistance to injustice is in the veins of the people, whether it is internal injustice or by the foreign forces. Kemal highlights one such episode when the invasion of the southern Anatolia by the Western imperialist powers took place at the end of World War I. Various segments of the population, which normally do not see eye to eye with each other united for a common objective and Kemal writes, “The brigands, the deserters, the irregulars, the thieves, those who were good-for-nothing and the honest men, the young and the old, all the people of the Chukurova joined in the fight to throw the enemy out of the plain” (247).Ethnic lines were transgressed, traditional norms were sidetracked they resisted as one people to fight against a common enemy to protect their land. The existence of class structure is reflected throughout the novel, which is closely connected to division of labor. Power to rule is also derived from the rich class. Peasants are treated as commoners. They are like serfs of the medieval era totally controlled by the landowners. By belief, they are devout Muslims and often take their sufferings as God-ordained and accept whatever falls to their lot. 2. Family relations The society was governed by hard-traditional rules and regulations. The female gender suffered and had no choices. Though the novel relates to the prevailing conditions in the 1920-1930s, it is reasonable to guess that the conditions before that period must be pretty hard for the women. The plight of some of the characters created by the author throws light on the social conditions. The author highlights the plight of the girl child and the family relations through this incident. Memed, an attractive young man falls in love and desires to marry Hatche, the village belle. But the landlord intervenes and wants her to marry his nephew, an ugly personality. The lovers elope to the forest hotly pursued by the landlord’s cronies. In a fit of anger Memed shoots the nephew and he is dead and the landlord is wounded. Memed becomes a bandit and Hatche lands in jail and the arrogant landlord plots killing of Memed’s mother and she is beaten to death. Memed is on a mission of revenge. In such grim societal conditions it was futile to think of smooth and affectionate family relations, and the womenfolk and girls actually lived in fear about their life and honor. Their daily life was full of frustration and suffering. Polygamy is prevalent in Senegal even today and is practiced on an intensive scale and that vitiates the atmosphere of family relations. The landlords brag about owning three-four wives and they believe that their actions are to comply with the Islamic law. Beating wives and beating amongst the wives is the common feature. Women are not allowed to speak to strangers, even the neighbors and they cannot complain and they should only expect food, clothing and sex. Women have no power to oppose what is told to them and if they do they will be cursed for life and they have no voice. A young girl marrying under compulsion, the old rich businessmen, is common and gender disparity exists in Senegal viewed from any angle. Yet family is the center of day to day life and the familial bonds are strong. The oldest man or the husband is the head of the family and his wife/wives and children are supposed to obey his commands. Arranged marriages are a rule, and marriage by love is an exception, and if not approved by the elders, may lead to serious consequences as it happened in the case of Hatche. 3. Gender relations The reader takes the cue from the interaction of the different characters that mirror the life of women. Women have accepted economic and psychological deprivation as part of their lives and from which they have no escape. They remain frozen within the four walls of the house and do not have the social voice. Doors are shut to them for the societal developments taking place outside their abode and they remain far away from the concepts of social justice and gender equality. The world of women is untouched by modernity in the all-comprehensive sense of the term. But there are exceptions and we encounter some brave women in the story. As Memed begins to lose the support of the peasants who resort to the mode of silence, with their inability to confront the cliche of landlords, and when ultimately he kills Agha, he rides to the house of one woman, Huru, the women who stimulated him to take his revenge throughout, and declares “Mother Huru … It’s done. Now you have no more claims on me” (370). This episode indicates that women, though they did not participate directly in social protests and other societal events, they silently played their roles and intervened strongly when it affected their honor and when their interests were at stake. Though relegated to the background in the ordinary course of life, when occasion demanded, they showed exceptional courage. “In one instance,” the author writes, “a peasant woman related without blinking an eye that she had been well-acquainted with the woman who rolled up Abdi Agha in a down comforter in order to get him out of the flaming house” (151).Yet gender relations are very complicated in Senegal and the roles of women are specific. Their secondary status is accepted as per the gender dynamics of Islam. Polygamy is legal and inferior status of women is taken for granted in this patriarchal society. The influence of religion is strong in dynamics of gender. 4. Social change Kemal writes "No matter how limited a man's field of vision, his imagination knows no bounds. A man who has never been outside his village of Deyirmenoluk can still create a whole imaginary world that can reach as far as the stars. Without travelling, a man can penetrate to the other end of the world. Even without much imagination the place where he dwells can become different in his dreams, a true paradise." (P.77) When such people return to the village, they become the agents of social change. Social life was an action-packed adventure both for the landlords and the peasants in that era. Extreme emotions followed by extreme actions governed their day to day life. The landlords were known as “aghas” and they were incarnation of the evil and they considered forcibly taking the crops of the poor peasants as their birthright. The land was the most cherished asset in those times. Memed was the enemy of the rich and friend of the poor, compassionate and human and as such he was the hero of the peasants. The societal relations were not even and peaceful, revengeful emotions and tribal loyalties played a dominant role in the society. An intelligent author sees the elements of social change through the disposition of his characters and their intricate relationships to the society. The one who controls the economy also controls the society. The feudal lord Abdi Agha, is one such landlord and every inch of his personality is chiseled in cruelty. No one has the guts to challenge his rules relating to economic activities and social aspects of the villages under his control. The relentless physical and emotional abuse creates a dent in the impressionable mind of Memed, his initial problem with Agha is his love affair with Hatche, that lands him into the forest and he evolves as a brigand. He is known as a reputable eskiya and his mission is to rob the rich to give it to the poor and take steps to mend the wrongs done on the gullible village peasants. In effect, he dons the role of a reformer of social evils and becomes the agent of social change. His work turns to be the social agenda and the poor, frustrated with the bitter experiences of injustice and marginalization, hear their inner voice through him to come out of their disenfranchised position. His moral based approach adds to their confidence and he is accepted as a social revolutionary under whose leadership they can they expect to achieve the land reforms of their dreams. Such leaders herald the beginning of social justice. The regional issue thus becomes a universal theme of class conflict and addresses to the struggle of the rural people with modernization. For the resistance and insurgence to become successful all the sections of the downtrodden need to unite for a common cause and describing one such incident the author argues, “The brigands, the deserters, the irregulars, the thieves, those who were good-for-nothing and the honest men, the young and the old, all the people of the Chukurova joined in the fight to throw the enemy out of the plain” (247). As opposed to the specifics of their ethnic heritage which was their normal mode of affiliation, the insurgents evolved as the group of people with a common vision to fight against the common enemy to take control of their land. The author narrates how the wind of change is slowly blowing over the villages controlled by the Agha. Nothing happens in the village without his permission, he owns everything from land to the harvest, and the villagers are not allowed to go to town. The one, who clandestinely makes the visit like Dursun, provides the details that fascinate the youngsters of village. Rich shops, the glory and glitter everywhere, posh, lavishly furnished restaurants, and the innocent one asks, “Who is the Agha here?” Corporal Hasan grasps the meaning of the question, smiles and says that the town has no Agha. Everyone is Agha and has been bestowed with the ownership of their land and shops and the part of Mother Earth. Social change can be seen in all the twelve ethnic groups of Senegal with the spread of education but the people stick to their traditional values. Respect for others, good manners and hospitality are the core values of the society. During the colonial era profits earned by large firms went to foreigners and the nobility. After independence also a small number of rich people cornered the nation’s economy and the author has intelligently brought forth this fact in the initial chapters of the novel. They continued to emulate western lifestyles and the poor rural folk suffer hardships on all counts. Work Cited Kemal, Yasar. Memed, My Hawk. Trans. Edouard Roditi. New York: New York Review of Books. 2005. Print. Read More