A New Day in Old Sana'a Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

A New Day in Old Sana'a - Essay Example Ines is much more humble and genteel than Bilquis. Ines paints ‘nagsh’ (scrolls made of black henna dye) on other women for a living. Tariq, on the other hand, is Sana’a royalty—of the upper class. He is under familial obligation to marry a woman he does not love. Though the story is told in a simplistic manner, after having seen American films, it gets confusing in some places. Loose ends don’t seem to tie together and resolutions seem to come to easy and too fast as the story builds toward the usual ending. For example, the story of Riva, the Indian teacher who spanks the spoiled and insolent sister of Bilquis on the hand with a ruler seems an almost unnecessary part of the story until the very ending when the narrator brings us back to his world—on the outside looking in. It all boils down to whether Tariq will choose to do the right thing and marry the chosen bride, or go away with the woman Ines. It seems an easy choice once he discovers Ines loves him, too; but the ending is a classic tragedy. We are left with a sense that he really doesn’t have a choice or a say in the matter. Either way he decided, someone’s life would be ruined. Had he run away with Ines, his pledged bride would be hurt and ruined for life. Though the movie never lets us know if he â€Å"came to love† his wife or not, we do know that there is the eternal triangle: A wife with a husband who loves someone else, a man married to a woman he does not love, and the woman who was left alone to wander the streets at night waiting for him, how long? Forever? The historical context of the film is what many have come to know as still the norm in the Middle East—veiled women in public, men who consider the women lower than animals, and old traditions that die hard and leave modern women wondering just why these women subject themselves to such treatment? What seems old