LANGUAGE IN INDIA

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Volume 18:7 July 2018
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
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         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
         Renuga Devi, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.
         Dr. S. Chelliah, Ph.D.
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Culture and Cultural Conflict in Betty Mahmoody’s
Not without My Daughter

Dr. Gautami Pawar, M.A., Ph.D.


Courtesy: https://www.bleakhousebooks.com.hk/pages/books/6559/william-hoffer-betty-mahmoody/not-without-my-daughter

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to study culture and cultural conflict in Betty Mahmoody’s Not Without My Daughter (1987) written along with William Hoffer. The novel is a memoir of Betty Mahmoody. Betty was born and groomed in the culture of America and married to Moody Mahmoody. She had to come reluctantly to Iran after few years of marriage. There she realized the stark difference between the culture, traditions, beliefs, ideology, and customs of Iran and USA and she found it suffocating to live in the hellish circumstances. She is born and bought up in America where Liberty and Equality are the foundations of its constitution. Treatment to women in America and Iran is like day and night. The differences in this culture lead to conflict as her expectations of a certain behavior coming from her cultural background didn’t meet, because Iranian culture had the different cultural background and different expectations. The paper examines the culture and cultural conflict in Not Without My Daughter.

Keywords: Culture, Cultural conflict, Not Without My Daughter and Betty Mahmoody

Introduction

Betty Mahmoody is an American author and well-known speaker. She is known for her memoir, Not Without My Daughter, which is written along with William Hoffer. The second book on her credit is For the Love of a Child which is written along with lawyer Dun Chock. The book deals with promoting legislation on behalf of families who have been forcibly separated. The book is about real stories of parents trying to locate young sons and daughters testify to the enormity of the problem. Betty Mahmoody is also holding the responsibilities as the President and co-founder of an organization One World: For Children that encourages understanding between cultures and strives to offer security and protection to children of bi-cultural marriages.

Not without My Daughter is one of the famous books as it is a real-life story of Betty. The book is also translated in Marathi by Leena Sahani and translated in Gujrati by Aruna Jadeja. The movie is also screened on the book with the same name. The book opens with Betty’s arrival in Iran with her four-year old daughter Mahatob and Husband Dr. Sayyad Mahmoody (Moody). Sayyad Mahmoody is an Iranian-American living in the United States. When the family arrives in Iran, Betty realizes that her husband plans to stay in Iran and has no intention of letting her or Mahtob return to the United States. The book depicts the culture of Iran and the state of Iran at that time. It also describes treatment to women, the hellish circumstances created by Moody and his family and the trauma and Betty’s successful struggle for escape along with her daughter. The book was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.


Dr. Gautami Pawar
Associate Professor and Head
Department of English
Abasaheb Garware College
Pune- 411004
Maharashtra
India
gautamipawar24@yahoo.co.in

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