Review on Chapter Matchbox

 Match box

 

 "Matchbox" is a story written by Ashapurna Debi. It tells us about the male dominance in Indian families. She compares women as matchbox. Because matchbox have enough gunpowder to set a hundred Lanka's on fire.  Like women are also powerful  

but they sit around meek and innocent,in kitchen,ìn the pantry,in the bedroom, anywhere. But they have the willpower to face anything.

  The central character is Nomitha. Her husband is Ajit. He has a bad habit that he opens the letters named to Nomitha and reads it. Often times he doesn't give it to her. He reads the letter to confirm that nobody is writing any love letters to Nomitha. If Nomitha protests against it he doesn't pay any attention. Besides ,her poor family background makes her suffer everything in silence.

   The reader becomes very empathetic with Nomitha as they understand the poverty and other miserable conditions of her mother. Her mother has the habit of begging money from her daughter and son-in-law. Really the letters she received were from her mother. Mother used to write about the pathetic condition of her house. She asks for money to find a solution. 

  When we come to the climax,we see a woman who gets angry due to the ugly habit of her husband , but he didn't give any attention to her talks and he made  humorous comments. Finally the woman who loosed her control took a matchbox and set fire on her anchol of the sari. By seeing this the husband became frightened and he puts out the fire. 

  This story is pointing out the real condition of most of Indian families. Here the unempowered women became the toys of men. In this story the writer describes women  as matchboxes because even the women have enough power to face anything,they sit as innocent like matchboxes

Written by: Shamil