AECC English Assignment

Manav Bansal is a second semester BMS student enrolled in an AECC English course. The assignment asks him to analyze and compare two texts: Sultana's Dream by Begum Rokeya Shekhawat Hussain and The Exercise Book by Rabindranath Tagore. Both stories depict the conditions faced by women in late 19th/early 20th century India. They show that women from wealthy families still faced restrictions on freedom and faced discrimination. While Sultana's Dream envisions a world led by women with greater prosperity, The Exercise Book portrays the submissive role expected of women at the time.

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AECC English Assignment

Uploaded by

Disha

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Name- Manav Bansal

Roll No.- 21/BMS/10648

Programme- BMS
Semester- 2nd

AECC-English Assignment-1
The texts Sultana’s dream ( by Begum Rokeya Shekhawat Hussain ) and The Exercise Book (
by Rabindranath Tagore ) are stories that are descriptive of the late 19th and early 20th century
Indian Subcontinent that provides us with the conditions and plight the women in the society had
to face and the opinions and responses to these circumstances different women adopted. In
both the texts women belonged to the monetary ‘well-off’ section of the society, whereas a large
proportion of the population at that time had a different economic situation and different
priorities, still these texts focus on issues that are still prevalent today, through microscopic
observations. In Sultana’s Dream, we can observe that the author was a well-educated woman
who observed the pitiful situation that the women at that time were experiencing. She believes
that barring physical strength, women are much better than men in all aspects and the men are
responsible for all the chaotic activities in the world and women have to bear its consequences.
According to the author, men are inefficient in the work they are involved in and are always
showcasing a “rowdy” demeanor ignoring all the rationalities and if there were a world where
women were dominant, that world would see high growth in areas like science and technology,
economic and will be of unmatched tranquility. Unwanted practices like wars and social divide
on the basis of religion would not exist and the world will be a beautiful place again. Whereas, in
The Exercise book, the characterisation of women in the form of Uma is of a more submissive
side of women where they had to bow down to the men of the household and abide by their
decisions, where they had little freedom so much so that a simple practice of writing can be a
cause of stir and rift in the family. It portrays a time where education of women was borderline
“taboo” and majority of the population seemed to agree with the notion, no matter how illogical
the explanation of these practices may sound, no one was there to present a motion against it.
We can draw several similarities and contrasts between the stories.

Similarities-
● In both the stories, women were deprived of freedom as in Sultana’s dream, zenana is
mentioned where women were not allowed to roam around freely, whereas in the
Exercise book Uma is deprived even of the basic practice like writing.
● In both the stories, women protagonists do not raise a voice or take a stern stand
against the malpractices they experienced.
● Both the protagonists belonged to economically well off segment of the society

Contrasts-
● In Sultana's dream the sister advocates the women’s mindset clearly whereas in the
exercise book, the reader had to draw out conclusions based on one’s cognitive ability,
whether he or she could side with articles of Pyarimohan or notice the plights of Uma.
● The women in Sultana’s dream are all supportive of women taking charge whereas in
The Exercise Book other women for eg. Uma's sister in laws discouraged such practices
since in no way they supported Uma writing even in her personal space rather caused
trouble for her by involving their brother.
● Sultana’s Dream is more focused towards an ideal world where there is negligible
importance of men whereas The Exercise Book takes a more pragmatic approach to the
problems faced by women.
● Sultana’s dream focuses on the Macro-social, political, economic plight of women
whereas The Exercise Book focuses on the day to day discrimination faced by women in
micro affairs.