Bone+China

//Bone China//
Please respond to **one** of the following questions. Afterwards, write your name and grade. Thanks, Mr. Moore.

1. In what ways do the piano and the family bone china carried from Sri Lanka to London serve as emblems of family identity? 2. What sorts of struggles and issues related to identity occur as members of the family leave their privileged lifestyle and place in Sri Lankan society to begin a new life in London?

2) The DeSilva's encountered many struggles/issues relating to their identity once they moved from Sri Lanka to London. While Jacob and Christopher's personal lives in London are not spoken about in too much detail, Thornton, Savitha, and Anna Meeka's struggles are disected in a detailed account of their experiences after the move. While I understand Thornton struggled with being a Sri Lankan man working in a society he had little respect for and Savitha despised living in a society where all of the old traditions she placed so much value in were not cherished, my biggest sympathies lie with Anna Meeka. The years of adolescence are hard enough, but I can't imagine living in a world where I didn't fit in and my family didn't want me to. Anna Meeka wanted nothing more than to be like the other kids and school and not have the "weird" parents. She wanted to dress like her classmates, talk like her classmates, and have a family like her classmates. One of the only things she didn't want to give up were her eating habits - she had a taste for Savitha's Sri Lankan cooking and didn't quite understand why her London friends ate like they did. Thornton tried so hard to preserve Anna Meeka's Sri Lankaness and he put so much pressure on her to become what he thought was acceptable (a doctor). These desires stemmed from his self consciousness of being an uneducated Sri Lankan man working in London society and I'm sure his intentions were pure. However, through doing this throughout her entire childhood he pushed her into marrying a man she thought he would approve of. Of course that marriage didn't work out, leaving Anna Meeka to raise their daughter alone. Alicia seemed to adapt to her new life in London quite easily with little struggle. London seemed to break her out of her shell and allow her to live again, or was it Robert who allowed her to do that? I wonder if there had been no Robert in London, would Alicia have been so happy? While all had some struggles related to their identity after their move to London, they would have struggled in Sri Lanka as well! While they once lived a privleged lifestyle, the civil unrest and their father's drinking/gambling habits put their family at risk to change their identities in their home town aswell. Unfortunately, the DeSilva family was doomed for identity struggles no matter what choices they made regarding where they lived. Jessica Schenkel (Teacher)