The Theme of Sisterhood in 'Saving Sourdi' by May-lee Chai

Many of us have siblings or someone we love and cared about. Then, the happiness, and wellness of them are very important. Saving Sourdi is a story, which events focus mainly through the eyes of one of the sisters. For instance, Nea plays the role of the principal character in this story, who reflects sharing a strong sisterhood bond with her sister Sourdi. Still, these sisters are forced to be separated, making Nea’s mission of getting her sister back the conflict of the story’s plot. In fact, Nea’s character is static throughout the reading, while she remains acting childish and refusing to accept change. The author, May Lee Chai uses only Nea’s perspective, and her inner struggles to tell the story, influencing the reader to be sympathetic for the loss of a sister and how this affects emotionally a well as mentally.

To point out, Nea is not only the main character on the story, but also the narrator at the same. She is telling the story from how she sees, feel and perceive things around her making her, a first person narrator. However, still being a young woman, Nea lacks of knowledge and for this reason she acts as a naive narrator in this case. Especially, since she does not have full knowledge of what is happening in the life of her sister, she ends up not interpreting accurately what she thinks Sourdi is going through leading her to take bad and impulsive decisions. In addition, she drags along other people into her reckless impulses for being the hero of her sister. In fact, she does not seem to think before she acts, and the consequences her actions has on other people. For example, she drags Sourdi´s friend Duke into her ¨rescue mission¨ by lying to him in order to take advantage. In some way she is manipulative and controlling. Furthermore, since the narrator is also the main character, we as a reader can only get her one side of the story and only empathize with her emotions and struggles. However, there is more information behind of what is happening that as a reader don’t realize because it is only all about Nea. Different perspectives are necessary for a better and deep understanding, but in this case the reader is induced to see through Nea´s eyes as well as being influenced by her emotions.

For instance, as they grew up in the transition of childhood to adulthood, the development of the characters of Sourdi and Nea differently manifested, portraying Nea as the one who is falling behind on maturity. Particularly, Nea’s behavior is most likely to be anxious, aggressive and impulsive and that directly influences her decisions all through the story. For example, when the man on the restaurant was touching Sourdi, Nea almost stabbed the man in a reckless move. On the contrary, Sourdi transition is more mature turning from a teen into a young adult, meaning that changes like a marriage would be part of this transition, and she embraces this changes for good. In addition, Nea’s character has an interesting psychological point of view within the sisterhood relation she shares with Sourdi. Actually, Nea ends up acting like the older sister while the opposite would be Sourdi acting as the older sister, but Nea was the one who is worrying about Sourdi happiness and safety every time. In general, Nea continually attempts to save her sister throughout the story, but with no success every time. Especially, the main event when Mr. Chhay and Sourdi got engaged, Nea felt that Sourdi would not be happy in an arranged marriage. This event in particular denotes Nea´s main actions of the story. Nonetheless, Nea’s only wish was the closeness and happiness with her sister and this marriage was stripping these from them in her point of view.

Many people do realize and believe that family is the most important thing in the world. Family not only provides values and support, but also love and the sense of belonging. Moreover, Nea´s family is not normal family because she does not have a father, so her mother takes care of the family. The mother tries to do what is best for her daughters, so for being a single parent she has to work a lot, causing her to not be as close to her daughters as she wants. Consequently, Sourdi becomes the most important person in Nea´s life since they grow up together sharing a strong bond of sisterhood. However, the departure of Sourdi had a big impact on Nea when she continued her life with her husband and own childIn fact, Nea felt that her relationship and love from her sister was being threatened by a traditional arranged marriage. That is the hidden reason of why Nea´s stubbornness for getting her sister. For this reason, on the mind of Nea there is always a reason for saving her sister, even though her sister does not need any help. Nea truly believed that her sister would never be happy if she isn’t with her, and in some way she clings to that idea. That feeling of negation when someone so close leaves, pursuing to build his new and own life with another person is portrayed in Nea´s character. Losing that special person’s attention and love is the number one fear of several people.

Overall, the fear that Nea has of feeling that her sister is vanishing from her life terrifies her. Subsequently, this emotion is what alters Nea´s thoughts about the new life of her sister Sourdi. As a matter of fact, this emotion directly affects the behavior of Nea through all the story for acting childish, but also naive. This whole idea of Sourdi being unhappy and in danger is created by the negation itself of accepting that life goes on as a part of the human nature. The principal character experience a stage that many people all around the world go through when someone in the family leaves home to make a new one with someone else. That fear is what is portrayed in the story through Nea´s eyes, even though her sister end up accepting that change of his life and embracing it. Nea´s feelings towards change was the opposite to her sister, Sourdi. However, that side of the story from the sister is left out, and as a reader is difficult to fully understand what is really happening between these sisters. Change is inevitable, and almost all times for the best of ourselves, it just a matter of acceptance and embrace it.