Chandra Opinion Paper
“Should family tradition be upheld?”
Family tradition is great, and I believe that it should be upheld because it brings joy to families and brings them together. Although tradition is wonderful, it also has negative aspects. Some family traditions can interfere with your personal beliefs and values, and can also restrain you from freedom.
A tradition can be an event, a celebration such as a marriage. Marriages bring joy to life, and people together. In the novel, Chandra and Roop’s marriage brought both side of the family and relatives together at Chandra’s house to celebrate. Everyone commented freely of how beautiful Chandra looked, and “what a lucky girl” (Hendry) she was. Since I have a small family in my house consisting my mother, my father, and I, one of the few things we celebrate is our birthdays. On the evening of these special day, one of the family members, including me, will treat us to dinner at a fancy, or favourite, restaurant. On celebrations like this, I am extremely joyful and gracious that we have this kind of family tradition.
Although family traditions can be wonderful, they can also restrain you from freedom. In the novel, Chandra was forced, with beatings, to stay at her in-law’s house and to serve them because Roop had died. By tradition, a widow was unlucky, accursed, could never remarry, and has to serve her husband’s family for the rest of her life. Chandra, now a widow at the age of eleven, had no freedom whatsoever. She was to be secluded; to sit in the darkness of her little room, was only allowed out for a few minutes before dawn, and was always beaten and cursed at by the men and women. In my family, since I come from a strict Asian household, I am somewhat restricted in the things that I want to do. For example, my parents do not let me go to house parties, and rarely lets me sleepover at a friend’s house because my parents think that something bad is going to happen to me. I agree with Chandra that...