Essay Topic: Challenge the Status Quo

Innovation is all about challenging the status quo. It often means having faith in one's dreams plus

persistent action in their direction moves mountains, seas and even the toughest, most impossible

boundaries. You may recall that not that long ago it was illegal for African American and women to even

vote in the U.S. However, due to efforts made by some daring individuals that stood up to challenge the

status quo during their time, America welcomed its first Black president in 2008 and soon a female

candidate for presidency in the 2012 election. In the two short stories "The Dinner Party" and "Girl",

reflected an image of two unnamed female characters challenging the status quo of their stereotypical

roles and attitudes.

The first story, "the Dinner Party" took place at a British India, where a colonial official and his wife

hosted a dinner party with numerous high-class guests attending. During the party, an argument broke

out across the colonel and a young girl who claimed women have outgrown the 'jumping-at-the-sight-

of-a-mouse-era'. It was proven in the story that women did in fact outgrow this when the hostess

controlled herself when a cobra crawled across her foot. With this, hostess symbolically resembled

woman's abilities and strengths that were overlooked by most at that time. The colonel, on the other

hand, represents the people who still believe that women are not as resilient as men. Ultimately, the

writer succeeds in explaining through her characters how majority of men during that time were gender

biased towards women, and underestimate them. Even though a direct face-to-face challenge of the

status quo can't be find in the story other than the young girl's remarks, the actions and self-control of

the hostess provided a critical evident to support the young girls' point, which eventually challenged the

status quo of female attitudes during that time.

The second story took a different approach; it generally stated a long list of some most

stereotypical young female roles and expectations (hence the name "girl"), with only one brief sentence

to