Liberation wars are common for such countries as Bangladesh and Iran, especially the conflicts that happen between the 1970s and the 1980s. Citizens were challenged by the necessity to survive, find food, and gain respect when no support was offered to them. Today, it is possible to read about those events in archives and find credible facts about purposes, strategies, losses, and outcomes. However, reading short stories and other works in the fiction genre promotes a better understanding of the situation from a subjective perspective. In this paper, attention will be paid to “What Price Honour?” by Rizia Rahman and her description of women’s status during the military conflict. Many children became orphans in a short period, and nothing could be changed. Rahman’s story describes the development of female bravery through the example of a nineteen-year-old girl, Halimun. Compared to Farkhondeh Aqaei’s “The Little Secret,” where the horrors of hospital care are presented, Rahman focuses on the horrors of everyday life. “What Price Honour?” shows how women resist sociocultural inequality by controlling their human needs like hunger and pain, using communication, and never neglecting the norms like clothes and self-respect.
The war usually penetrates a human life unexpectedly and cruelly, neglecting the volume of loss and suffering for different populations. It is expected that men are able to cope with the military-associated needs and protect their families. However, when a family loses a leader, the situation dramatically changes and shifts gender roles. In her short story, “What Price Honour?”, Rahman introduces a girl whose “father, mother, brother, and sisters had been killed by the army” (83). Halimun has to survive on her own after the “bloodthirsty hyenas” decided to get their fill of her (Rahman 83). The girl is all alone in a world where floodwaters continue destroying human houses, where no food or clothes is available, and no help can come from the outside.
Hunger is one of the most dangerous and hardly controllable needs that reveals the worst human qualities in unfavorable light during the war. When reading regular statistics, a person may learn how many people died because of hunger, the lack of care, and poor food access. For example, in his article, Yaghmaian mentions the corrupted and “deeply embedded economic structure” that “demonized laughter and joy and celebrated sorrow and hunger for martyrdom”. However, the reader cannot realize the true meaning of this message and the pain people had to experience during the war. In “What Price Honour?”, hunger is described as something that “turned into a hundred sharp knives and stabbed her stomach” (Rahman 86). The author tries to share the person’s feelings and dreams when no food has been eaten during the last several days. In her intention to underline the power of hunger, the author compares this need to other damage like “the flooded ditches and canals, the inundated paddy seedlings, the collapsing mud huts, the washed-out garden” (Rahman 83). Nothing matters more than one bowl of rice at the moment.
In the story, Halimun faces a number of problems related to military outcomes. She has nothing to wear or eat, nowhere to live, and no one to ask for help. Nevertheless, even after being humiliated by the soldiers, all her actions and thoughts are about her hunger and the necessity to find some food. She is ready to kill a person but protect her possibility to eat something. Bangladesh women suffer from hunger a lot, and their future remains uncertain. In comparison, Iranian women are not bothered by the lack of food as at the moment of storytelling, “the food is always there” (Aqaei 159). However, as well as Halimun suffers from abdominal cramps, the main character in “The Little Secret,” Vaji, also reports terrible abdominal pain that makes her helpless. In both cases, the authors want to admit that the abdomen is a weak region for many women, the vulnerability of which is exposed during the war.
There are many ways for people to treat pain and manage their hunger, and the worth of communication and human relationships cannot be ignored. When people initiate conflicts, they underline certain problems in the current government and try to find solutions by any available means. Women and the youth are ready to resist and fearlessly confront the enemy to regain their rights and freedoms (Yaghmaian). Yet, all these words and descriptions do not represent a true picture of human relationships that are challenged by the war.
In Rahman’s story, communication plays an important role as it shows the level of support, the depth of knowledge, and the value of information. There are two major characters whose journey to find some food is described. Although Halimun has lost her family in the war, Ramiz, a twelve-year-old boy, calls her “Sister,” which proves that “everyone is in the same condition” (Rahman 85). The same appeals to people like “brothers” or “sisters” are observed in the works of other Iranian authors like Aqaei to underline equality and similar opportunities. Ramiz’s desire to help Halimun and his offer to stay with them prove the existing humanity even under such harsh conditions. However, the purpose of Rahman to develop these dialogues is not to focus on the positive aspects of communication but explain the damage to a human soul.
During a certain period of time, Halimun is alone and has to earn a living, find food, and protect her house against natural and social disasters. Rahman adds a new character to her life in order to demonstrate how the already done damage might affect her relationships with another person. Ramiz comes to support the girl and offers her some food. He even informs us about “two coconuts floating beside the chillis fields” (Rahman 86). Instead of cooperating and sharing the possible prey with food, Halimun decides to keep the chira with rice for herself and survive the next twenty days (Rahman 88). The war and hunger have played their roles and turn a nice girl into a heartless monster who can take someone’s life. This transformation is easy neither for the girl nor for the boy, and both of them lose something vital at the moment. Despite the betrayal, Ramiz is ready to give his last gamchha to Halimun and support her. Halimun, in her turn, does not want to ask for forgiveness, help, or another chance but chooses the path of humiliation that ends with food.
Finally, the description of war and its impact on people in the literature contributes to a better understanding of multiple details that fulfill human life. For example, Yaghmaian says about the impossibility to forget about the years of anguish that haunted citizens during and after the military conflicts. After reading “What Price Honour?”, it is hard to forget how the character struggles with the desire to keep her last sari or the pot of chira. Today, people do not pay much attention to what they may wear, and the women of Bangladesh, Iran, or India cannot neglect this detail as it is a part of their self-respect.
Almost every culture has specific elements of clothes that underline a person’s independence and dignity, and the war may deprive people of these values. In Rahman’s short story, the choice between saving the sari and obtaining the pot with rice is identified. Although “at the moment the pot of chira was more important than her sari,” the girl knows that “she had no other clothes” that “cover her shame” (Rahman 89). Aqaei also defines the role of clothes when the main characters have to wear chadors every time they should leave the room (152). The role of clothes is more important in “What Price Honour?” compared to other literary works of the course. The moment when the boy gives his gamchha proves that even men or young boys influenced by the war know how vital the sari for a woman or a young girl can be.
The analysis of the pot-sari dilemma aims at defining the two critical things for people – food and clothes. Many modern people do not recognize that they face the same question always every time they go shopping – either to buy some food or to buy a new element of clothes. Thus, they choose the former to meet their basic need to satisfy their hunger. To demonstrate how crucial this choice actually is, Rahman chooses the two extreme measures – to have or not to have a particular thing (food or clothes in this case). The decision is hard and makes people insane in the necessity not to die because of hunger or shame. In her pursuit of both and neglecting such qualities as self-respect, cooperation, and support, Halimun loses everything, including her honor. There was a chance for the young woman to share food and benefit from Ramiz’s attention and support. Due to the lack of life examples, education, and proper childhood, she makes wrong decisions and destroys her life with dignity.
In conclusion, one should admit that wars have a tremendous impact on people and their ability to cooperate and respect each other. Instead of focusing on humanity and support, many individuals try to protect themselves and survive. In many European and Arabian countries, women constantly face sociocultural inequality, and the war makes them more vulnerable in controlling their needs and understanding the right norms. “What Price Honour?” is a complex story that, in comparison to “The Little Secrete” and current statistics, reveals the horrors of everyday life under the pressure of unfair judgments. Despite the decision to save more food for herself and even the intention to kill a young boy who comes for help, it is wrong to treat Halimun as a negative character. She is a result of soldiers’ mistakes and social cruelty, hunger, poverty, betrayal, and misunderstanding. The war does not differentiate between women and men, adults and children, poor and rich. It destroys everything it could on her way, and Rahman’s opinion is a good example of how hunger, communication, and poverty change a person and overcharge honor.
Works Cited
Aqaei, Farkhondeh. “The Little Secret.” Afsaneh: Short Stories by Iranian Women, edited by Kaveh Basmenji, Al Saqi, 2005, pp. 143-165.
Rahman, Rizia. “What Price Honour?” Galpa: Short Stories by Women from Bangladesh, edited by Niaz Zaman and Firdous Azim, Al Saqi, 2006, pp. 82-90.
Yaghmaian, Behzad. “The Iranian People and their Many Wars.” The Globalist, 2020, Web.