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    Civility Is All That Counts

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    Rahul Kumar
    The short story "Civility is All that Counts" by S. J. Duncan is set in a matriarchal Khashi society. In the story, a man known only as "father of Bor" is trying to sell his old jeep. He gets frustrated and rude with potential buyers after being tricked a couple times. His wife scolds him for his impatience and tells him to be more civil. Though he has reasons for his irritation, he is not able to express them. The story is a lighthearted exploration of gender dynamics in a matriarchal society, where the code of civility favors the wife over the husband.

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    Civility Is All That Counts

    Uploaded by

    Rahul Kumar
    8K views1 page
    The short story "Civility is All that Counts" by S. J. Duncan is set in a matriarchal Khashi society. In the story, a man known only as "father of Bor" is trying to sell his old jeep. He gets frustrated and rude with potential buyers after being tricked a couple times. His wife scolds him for his impatience and tells him to be more civil. Though he has reasons for his irritation, he is not able to express them. The story is a lighthearted exploration of gender dynamics in a matriarchal society, where the code of civility favors the wife over the husband.

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    review of a khasi story

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    Civility is All That Counts

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    © Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)

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    The short story "Civility is All that Counts" by S. J. Duncan is set in a matriarchal Khashi society. In the story, a man known only as "father of Bor" is trying to sell his old jeep. He gets frustrated and rude with potential buyers after being tricked a couple times. His wife scolds him for his impatience and tells him to be more civil. Though he has reasons for his irritation, he is not able to express them. The story is a lighthearted exploration of gender dynamics in a matriarchal society, where the code of civility favors the wife over the husband.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    8K views1 page

    Civility Is All That Counts

    Uploaded by

    Rahul Kumar
    The short story "Civility is All that Counts" by S. J. Duncan is set in a matriarchal Khashi society. In the story, a man known only as "father of Bor" is trying to sell his old jeep. He gets frustrated and rude with potential buyers after being tricked a couple times. His wife scolds him for his impatience and tells him to be more civil. Though he has reasons for his irritation, he is not able to express them. The story is a lighthearted exploration of gender dynamics in a matriarchal society, where the code of civility favors the wife over the husband.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
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    The writer S. J.

    Duncans short story, Civility is All that Counts is rooted in the Khashi way of life an important feature of which is that it is a matriarchal society. This aspect of the society is revealed in a very subtle manner. The story has been translated from the Khashi and retains many indigenous expressions. On the face of it, it is a very simple story in which the main protagonist the husband referred to in the story only as father of Bor has been tricked a couple of times by those who had shown an interest in buying the old jeep that he wants to sell. In his irritation as well as to save himself from being tricked again he becomes cautious and impatient and blunt and alienates the last customer, one Mr. Horson who finally buys the car, as well as his wife who advises him to control his temper and be civil with people. He is told to be civil but he is not able to speak out his reasons for being irritable. The story is not a very serious or political one but in its light hearted way it highlights the battle of the sexes in a matriarchal society. There is a comical play in the way the wife and husband are sarcastic with each other. We see the male protagonists slight insecurity when he says that his wife or mother of Bor started talking to Horson as if they were long time friends and even scolded him for being irritable with him. He however never gets a chance to explain his not so unconvincing reasons for behaving like that. However what is clear in the story is that the battle of the sexes in a matriarchal society seems to be much less pronounced and exploitative as is much too common in patriarchal ones. The code of civility helps the wife more than the husband and is shown in a good humoured way as a matriarchal tool to control the husband. The narrator in the story is a male and the title of the story seems also to be a pun on how in the civility the wife is able to exercise control over him- the husband. The story is a comic one and the tone of the story is not in a typically realistic mode. There are many exaggerated scenes in the way he is tricked several times inspite of the extreme caution that he tries to display comically shown as how his fingers grasp his ears as soon as he suspects that he is going to be tricked. The fact that he gets tricked so many times in petty ways shows seems to be indicating the poverty of the people who resort to such means. The first customer Haripod steals the new tyres of the jeep whereas the next one simply takes a ride to the place he had to go in the name of testing the car.

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