Based on the short story that I had studied which is Everything’s Arranged from Siew Yue Killingley. Basically, this story is about a Ceylonese girl named Rukumani that having a secret affair with a Ceylonese boy named Devanayagam while studying at University. Both of them love each other deeply. As they went for long vacation, their secret affair had been discovered by their parents. The story tell about how these young couple, especially Rukumani have struggle and suffer because of their family members, relatives and their community as they try to get together in life. During that time, love marriages are still alien to Indian cultural. The typical India community belief that falling in love before marriage is a big sin. That’s the conflict in the story, about the rejection of love marriages by old generation.
The theme for this story is forbidden love. Jesse Beighley, December 2015, said that forbidden love happen when society deemed it as wrong or its something that you yourself don’t believe it is the right thing to do. And believing there’s a taboo when keep on doing it. Other meaning for forbidden love by Broken Spores, November 2017, means someone or something you want aren’t supposed to have. From these two definition, forbidden love mainly means that something or someone you can’t have either it is from beliefs or a fact. This is the challenge that Rukumani and Devanayagam is facing in this story.
Through the theme just now, there’s an event that shows forbidden love in the story. The event is when Rukumani’s parent would really kill themselves when they heard the rumour Rukumani’s relationship with Johnny, even though it is not true. This clearly shows that Rukumani’s parent doesn’t want someone with other races marrying their daughter. It is mainly because they were ashamed. In their community, people would think that Rukumani already had an intimate relationship with Johnny. Even though Rukumani and Johnny was just friends. That’s how stressing their community was. It’s basically the same with the society nowadays. In the United States of America, if you have a relationship with someone, people will think that you already had an intimate relationship with that person. But people will think it’s normal there, it’s completely different in Malaysia, people will think negatively and talk bad things behind. Sometimes, these stereo-type of thinking are the one who is destroying the community. Even a fake rumour can destroy one’s life. So we should be positive to maintain a healthy community.
Another event that shows forbidden love in the story is when Rukumani told her parent about the truth that she was actually in a relationship with Devanayagam and not Johnny,but Rukumani’s parent still doesn’t approve the relationship. Despite that Devanayagam was actually the person was arranged by the parents to marry with Rukumani. This incident really shows how badly Rukumani’s parent were obsessed with traditional beliefs and thought this relationship is forbidden that can lead to a big sin. In the modern days, almost a same thing implies to the incident. Like on how parents nowadays are so strict wanting their children to marry with someone with the same religion. For some people, this matter is important. But, for me. If you have feeling toward someone even though you have different religion belief. Just go with it, because there’s a lot of people who is unmarried just because they give up the love of their life just to obey their parents. David Vestlie, October 2018, said that ‘your religion doesn’t make you a good person, your character and action do’. If we relate this statement to the story, it’s basically means that even though you are marrying someone with the same religion. It doesn’t mean that you will be having a happy ending, because in marriage. Tolerance is the key for a long marriage.
Next, there’s another theme in the story which is arranged marriage. Based on the Merriam Webster dictionary, arranged marriage is a marriage in which the husband and wife are chosen for each other by their parents. The incident that can be related to the theme is One of an event that happened in this story is when Rukumani failed to share her feelings with anyone else, she decided to write a letter to Auntie Sally. She was so worried and stressed out that her parents would force her to marry a stranger. She even talked about committing suicide. In this moment, Rukumani was so desperate and felt lost. To relate this problem in the modern society, Rukumani wasn’t the only one. There’s a lot of people who faces the same problem as Rukumani. Some people were forced due to traditional beliefs like Rukumani, while others due to bussiness partnership, combining two company using their children marriage. For me, parents shouldn’t force their son and daughter marrying someone they don’t love, because we are talking about their future life. There are some cases that people commit a suicide just because of this, and for that parents should really give their children to choose their future life.
So, in a nutshell, based on the incidents. Arranged marriage is something that isn’t relevant anymore. People have the right to marry someone that is from other races, and religion. It’s mainly about acceptance. If there’s acceptance in the community, it will be a peace and harmony society.
