Is this response going to be part of a larger essay in
which you explore the different ways in which Rukmani changes? If so, you might like to
think of your first paragraph as being something of an introduction. What is key to
focus on is the way in which Rukmani begins the story as a naive and very young girl,
who, through the course of the story, experiences great hurt and suffering, yet manages
somehow to triumph over those experiences, learning great wisdom and becoming a stronger
and more indomitable person at the end of the tale. Consider this description of Rukmani
from the final chapter:
Ashes and dust, scattered to the winds,
moistened by the rain, unrecognisable. I picked up the fragments of my life and put them
together, all but the missing
piece...
Even after suffering
the death of her husband and being alone in a different part of India away from her
family and friends, Rukmani shows incredible resourcefulness in the way that she is able
to make some kind of order from the "fragments" of her life in the midst of the "ashes
and dust" that blow around her in a richly symbolic fashion. This is something that the
young peasant girl whom we meet at the beginning of the story would never have been able
to do.
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