Entry 20: Character Questions

The character Rukmani is believable, because we are able to see her different emotions toward things that we can relate. Rukmani, being married at the age of twelve, learned to be mature in a very short time. She is smart and content about what she had. In the story Rukmani said "while the sun shines on you and the fields are green and beautiful to the eye, and your husband sees beauty which no one has seen before, and you have a good store of grain laid away for hard times, a roof over you and a sweet stirring in you body, what more can a woman ask for?" (page 8) This passage shows that she is satisfied and grateful directly. Then a bit later in the book, "I tried not to show my pride. I tried to be offhand. I put the pumpkin away. But pleasure was making my pulse beat; the blood, unbidden, came hot and surging to my face. / After that, ten times more zealous, I planted beans and sweet potatoes, brinjals and chillies, and they all grew well under my hand, so that we ate even better than we had done before." (page 10) This one shows that she tried to be reserved, but she still couldn't really hold back her emotions. And she would find some other way to express them. Rukmani's motivation is to make the best out of what they had. She always kept hope and had been content.