The Prophecy

4 Pages 921 Words

“THE PROPHECY” AND HOW TWO DIFFERENT CHARACTERS CAN BUILD AN EVERLASTING FRIENDSHIP“ The prophecy” is a short story written by the Indian Anjana Appachana in the 90’s. This story is about the friendship between two seventeen year old Indian girls, and how they try to face the pregnancy of one of them. “The prophecy” is set in a modern Indian upper class society, but we can still see the differences between a traditional style of living, influenced by the British Colonialism and the Indian society; and a more modern and liberal style of living influenced by the Western society. All these differences are represented in Hemu´s and Amrita’s characters respectively. Hemu is much more traditional, rational and we could think that a better friend than Amrita.

In what most Hemu and Amrita differ is in their values; as Hemu is much more conservative in hers than Amrita. Hemu thinks that virginity should last until marriage, “if it happened before marriage he would not respect me”, she says. This makes her also worry whether Rakesh (the father of the baby Amrita is going to have), respects Amrita or not. Hemu also sees the family in a traditional way; she wants to get married and she thinks that “marriage would be that wondrous path of rapid heartbeats and unending, intimate discoveries”. She is anxious about marriage and what she first asks Chachaji, the astrologer, is if she is going to get married, and if it’s going to happen in a short time. In contrast, Amrita is much more liberal, independent, modern and adventurous. Amrita obviously doesn’t think of having relations before marriage as a bad thing; she doesn’t want to get married; she wants to be a journalist and wants to travel across the world. But for Hemu, marriage is the solution to Amrita’s problems and she “didn’t understand at all” why she doesn’t want to...