A great injustice & the merry maid are two stories written by different writers from the different cultures. Both of these stories are great, and they have the theme that stills relevance to our world nowadays. For both stories, the main subject that they want to stress out is pre-marital sex and its effect, and the theme of ‘child abortion is not a good solution for pre-marital sex’. As mentioned above, both stories have very strong connection, despite their different writers. Nevertheless, it is an issue that must not be taken lightly, since it is a moral issue. By talking about moral, we are actually talking about human ethics. How can human develop good ethics and good moral attitudes when they are being created by unethical and immoral actions? Hence, this is a big issue that can greatly affect the human lives.
Now let us look at the first story that is ‘A great injustice’. In the story, Ah Nya and Steven intentionally had sex before marriage, as mentioned in the first line of the story that is “Pregnant?” As a result from the relationship, Ah Nya got pregnant. Being in the different caste as Steven, there is no doubt that there could never be a marriage bond between them. Moreover, Steven comes from a wealthy family as what Steven mentioned in the story, “You know I can’t survive without my parents’ money”. In short, Steven is the sort of people who are very particular in material. Hence, they need to find a solution for the problem that both of them created, and they must find it quick. Finally, Ah Nya decided to kill the baby when she went to see the woman. Evidence can be found when the woman said “So, you’ve come”. As the mother, Ah Nya also agrees because she said that the baby would only bring trouble to her life. In the end, she took the life of an innocent unborn child, but she did not want to take the blame. That is why she said “I didn’t, Ma, society did”. She actually blamed the society for the murder.
The next story is ‘The Merry Maid’. Just like the story above, Lakshmi and Shanmugam also committed sex before marriage. What’s more surprising, they did it when Lakshmi was still studying. This can be found in the line “... her friendship with this boy, her classmate and lover, and the pregnancy, and then the escape from home to live with a friend”. As a result, she had to gave the baby to an ‘Indian-looking guy’ who she taught was a Hindu, but it turned out that the man is an indian-muslim named Johan. This shown in the story in the line “At that time she thought that Johan was an Indian and a Hindu like her. He was not. He was a Muslim!” So, her child grown up the way she never expected to be, a Muslim girl in a Muslim a family. At first, she had a plan of taking back her beloved child, but in the end she cancelled the plan when she said “We gave her away in desperation, and beggars can’t be choosers. At least she is well and happy, and we can only rejoice about that. We can’t take back what we gave”. The reason is simply because she thinks that Johan and his wife can give Sakinah a better life and a better future.
From the stories above, we could see that they have almost the same beginning but totally different ending. A great injustice has a wicked ending, while the merry maid has a happier ending. Even though the problems are the same; that is pre-marital sex that produced a baby, nonetheless one story found a better salvation than the others. Let us look deeper into the story to understand why child abortion is not a good solution for pre-marital sex.
First and foremost, child abortion is a sin. Sex before marriage itself is already a sin as when Ah Nya asked “If society accepts an unmarried father, why does it reject an unmarried mother?”, yet the sinner are planning on killing an innocent child as in when Ah Nya thinks “deep inside her, she yearned for an abortion”. This is equal to actually kill a human being, except that this human being is still unborn. Not to mention that the process of abortion is like a trip to hell. The physical pain and suffering that the mother will undergo will be very memorable, not because of the fun, but due to the painful sensation of ridding the baby. In the story itself the author explained in “As the woman worked on her, she screamed in agonizing pain. It was a nightmare. The whole room turned into a torture chamber as Ah Nya lay at the mercy of the remorseless hands of the abortionist.” Moreover, there is no guarantee that the mother will survive the process. Some of them also died with the unborn baby, and that is a huge risk that the mother will need to take. She has done a stupid action by producing the baby, and now she tried to act more stupid by committing the mission of half-suicide. However, from her opinion, she has saved her family’s dignity when she said “Now, I’ll clear your name... I’ve saved the baby from a bleak future of dishonour.”
Secondly, she can get rid of the baby in a more moral way to avoid the shame from the community. It means that she could give the baby to orphanage or even unknown people, just like Lakshmi in the merry maid in line “she had abandoned the child, her ‘love child’, on the doorstep of the big house that she had selected during the later stages of her pregnancy”. She knows that her current condition is not good to have a baby, thus she decided to ‘donate’ the baby to Mr. Johan because she wanted the child to have a home, just like in line “she wanted this child to have a proper home, a temporary refuge”. Even though Sakinah turned out to be a person for the different religion, but she lives. That is what really matters. She lives. In order to have a better human generation in the future, we must have the ‘generation’ first. How can we expect to have it if we are actually killing our future leaders?
Thirdly, child abortion is an act of immaturity and to protect the so-called ‘pride’. In A Great Injustice, Steven and Ah Nya wanted to have the fun in making the baby, but they do not want the responsibilities to take care of the baby, just like when Ah Nya said in line “I had to, Ma. I don’t want his baby.” This is an act of immature because people are expected to have baby when they make love, but Ah Nya doesn’t want it, nor does Steven. He just wanted to have fun just like in line “She was a very nice girl, honest and sincere, a great companion and a bag of fun...” in the story, both Ah Nya and Steven wanted to protect their pride, just like when Ah Nya said “This one has a time factor” and just like when Steven said “You know i cant survive without my parents’ money”. Ironically, it is the baby that they should be protecting. The right thing to do is like what Lakshmi did, and it is let the baby breath, live and grow up, just like in line “Lakshmi turned slowly and for the first time after more than sixteen years, set her eyes again on the young girl, her own flesh and blood, who seemed to have inherited most of her father’s features.”
In conclusion, abortion is definitely a stupid thing to do, but not to forget that sex before marriage is the main thing to be avoided. Prevention is better than cure, but the step of curing the mistake must be rational and ethical. If not, than there would be no difference between us and them animal.
No comments:
Post a Comment