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In Marriage is a Private Affair by China Achebe and Love Must Not Be Forgotten by Zhang Jie, they explore the problems of individuals seeking love and fulfillment in a changing culture. In both stories, the main character is confronted with the problem of having many obstacles stand in between their true love. They must make the choice of whether to follow their heart or follow their culture. In Marriage is a Private Affair Nnaemeka must decide whether he will obey his father or marry the one he loves. In this first quote, I shall never see her was the reply. From that night the father scarcely spoke to his son. (p. 191) Nnaemeka must decide whether his father or his wife is more important.
This is a complicated decision for Nnaemeka because he must choose between the man who raised him or the woman he loves. It was also difficult because if he chooses his wife, then his father may never speak to him again, but if he chooses his father, then he may never experience true love ever again. In another quote, If it had occurred to him that never in history of his people had a man married a woman who spoke a different tongue, he might have been less optimistic. (p. 191) Nnaemeka must decide whether he will follow his culture and marry his arranged wife or go his opposite way. This is also an intricate decision for Nnaemeka because he has lived in Ibo for so long that the Ibo culture is all he really knows, so abandoning his culture just to marry his love may be quite hard for him.
This is an incredibly complex problem he is confronted with because if he goes his own way, he may never again be accepted by his people and his culture, and he will become all alone with no one to help him when he is in need of help. These problems that Nnaemeka encounters are very similar to the problems that the Mother in Love Must Not Be Forgotten encounters. In Love Must Not Be Forgotten the Mother is faced with a problem in which she has found her one true love, but is unable to marry him because he is already married. In this first quote, How wretched Mother must have been, deprived of the man to whom she was devoted. (p. 203) Mother is unable to be with the one she is destined to be with because she is stripped away from him when he feels that it is his duty to marry another woman. This must be burdensome to the Mother because after waiting her entire life, she has finally found her true love, but cannot marry him because he is already married.
Because this is no normal marriage, her true love cannot divorce his wife and marry her because this marriage is a debt of gratitude to the worker who had once saved his life. In this next quote, Because I started off blindly, I took the wrong turning, and now there are insuperable obstacles between me and my dream. (p. 204) Mother is challenge with obstacles that cannot be overcome. Mothers problem that she is coped with is that she had not waited for her true love and has suffered for this. Another of Mothers problem is that through her life of suffering, she has found her love, but because of her eagerness and lack of experience in love, she is unable to marry him because they are both already married. These problems she is faced with and the problems Nnaemeka is faced with shows the similarities between the two main characters and their true love. These two stories present the numerous similarities between love and culture, such as the problems that occurred between them and their love.
The similarities between the two problems are that there are always barriers between the couples love. Another similarity of the two is that they both found their true love, but never became truly happy. For example in Marriage is a Private Affair Nnaemeka never got his father to be pleased of his action and in Love Must Not Be Forgotten the Mother never got to marry her true love. Even though they were faced with these elaborate decisions, they both followed their heart and did what they believed was right. Nnaemeka married Nene, and Mother, although never marrying her true love, was happy enough having found him.
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Research essay sample on True Love Private Affair
