Mind the Gap

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40Q61ujLjw0

Coming of Age

Unlike myself, who found somewhat of a connection to where my Farish family crest derived from and learned about our history at the Museum of London, Karim came from two radically different histories which leaves him confused about himself.

 

As a multicultural person living in London during the 70’s, Karim grappled with all parts of his identity and who he was. He was part of a new bread in London that were starting to go against their expectations and social norms. The funky clothing that the youth were starting to wear helped express their individual freedoms.

The Poster For Hair at the V&A museum helps to show us how the youth during this time period were starting to go against their assumed “roles”. The younger generations were starting to be advocates for free love and freedom of expression.

After WWII, London was struggling with immigration from other countries, specifically India and Africa.
Even though these costumes used in today’s Lion King are much nicer than anything Karim would have worn, both Karim’s costume as Mowgli and the Lion King ones are trying to look stereotypical of the country they were trying to represent. And during Karim’s time, they just so happened to think that all Indians were very dark skinned without much clothing which he thought was offensive.
“It turned out that on stage I would wear a loin-cloth and brown make-up.”

Coming of Age as a Writer

Briony Tallis was a very odd little girl and was very different from the rest of her family.

 “The Tallises began to understand that the baby of the family possessed a strange mind and a facility with words." 

Just like Florence Nightingale and her sister Parthenope who were complete opposites, the same was true for Briony and her sister Cecilia. 

“She was one of those children possessed by a desire to have the world just so. Whereas her big sister’s room was a stew of unclosed books, unfolded cloths, unmade bed, un-emptied ashtrays, Briony’s was a shrine to her controlling demon."

 

But as Briony came of age as a writer, like the great and everlasting pieces of literature within the British Library, she knew that her final novel’s purpose was to exist and preserve her imagination far after she had passed away. 

“When I am dead, and the Marshalls are dead, and the novel is finally published, we will only exist as my inventions. Briony will be as much of a fantasy as the lovers who shared a bed in Balham and enraged their landlady."

Briony desperately wanted to change what she had done to Cecilia and childhood friend Robbie.

“She longed to have someone else’s past, to be someone else, like hearty Fiona with her unstained life stretching ahead, and her affectionate, sprawling family.”

Briony deeply cared for Robbie who was fighting in the war despite the fact that it was her actions that got him there in the first place.  

“She thought too how one of these men might be Robbie, who she would dress his wounds without knowing who he was, and with cotton wool tenderly rub his face until his familiar features emerged, and how he would turn to her with gratitude, realize who she was, and taker her hand, and in silently squeezing it, forgive her.”