East Is East

East is East- first draft

Firstly, parental care is presented through physical contact in Act 2 scene 1 (page 42- 43) where Ella is nursing her youngest child Sajit after his circumcision. ‘She hums to him and strokes his hair’. This shows how worried Ella is about Sajit, as she does not usually use gestures like this to represent love for the children, she usually uses smaller gestures, for example on page 59 Ella strokes Tariq’s hair’ These stage directions show the reader or the Audience how Ella is the more physical parent, in comparison to George.

Ella has a different relationship with all of the children. She buys felt tip pens and allows Saleem to attend Art College against George’s knowledge, she argues with George about Meenah’s school skirt, and she feels that Tariq and Abdul should be told about the engagement. Also Ella still speaks to her eldest son Nazir who was disowned by George for wanting to be a hairdresser and refusing to get married. She says to George ‘he might be dead to you, but he’s still my son’. This all shows that Ella is more emotionally connected with the children compared to George, you can see this whenever Nazir is concerned also, George has another ‘family’ in Pakistan of which he doesn’t see. This could show how George doesn’t regard family and blood very highly, and he see’s culture and religion as more important than his family, for example he outcasts his eldest son Nazir for wanting to be a hairdresser and refusing marriage.

On the other hand George does show parental care towards the children, as it can be recognised by the reader that he is always trying to do what he sees as best for the children. This is shown when he says ‘I try to make good life for my family’ (page 42). This shows that he is trying his best, he then goes on to explain how people didn’t like the fact that he married Ella and how he got a lot of trouble because of this, this shows that the reason George is forcing religion on the children is...