LIE Presentation :

Everythings Arranged By, Siew Yue Killinggley

DeenaDevy Chandramohan Khalid Bin Ali

Background of the writer

Siew Yue Killingley was born in Kuala Lumpur on 17th December 1940.

She was educated at St. Mary's Girls' School (1947-57), where she was Captain of McNeil House and School Captain, the Victoria Institution (1958-59) and the University of Malaya. She graduated with honours in English in 1963 and then studied for an MA in Linguistics, awarded in 1966.

She went on to study for a PhD in linguistics and phonetics at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London in year 1968 and was awarded a James G Furlong Scholarship. She was supervised by the late R H Robins, and also studied phonetics with Natalie Waterson and the late Eileen Whitley, and she received her PhD in 1972, with a thesis on 'The Grammatical Hierarchy of Malayan Cantonese'.
She taught for nine years at St. Mary's College of Education, where she was Senior Lecturer in English, until she was made redundant when the college was closing down. This led her to found Grevatt & Grevatt in 1981. Since 1987 she has worked in the Centre for Lifelong Learning (formerly the Centre for Continuing Education) at the University of Newcastle, where she teaches linguistics and Chinese (Mandarin).

She published research on English and Chinese, and also poetry. At the time of her sudden death in 8th June 2004, she was teaching two evening classes, on Mandarin and on Chinese calligraphy. Siew Yue Killingley was very active in writing articles, academic books and literary books. Her contributions in literary works are more on poetry compare to short stories. Flute imagery and technique are important motifs in her poetry. Inspired in childhood by an uncle who played the Chinese flute naturally, she became a dedicated student of the flute. She began studying the flute with Mahmuddin bin Ngah in Kuala Lumpur and continues to study it in Newcastle while playing in amateur groups. One of her contributions to Malaysian literature on short stories can be found in Twenty-two Malaysian Short Stories. Ed. by L. Fernando. Heinemann Educational Books, 1968. (Reprinted 1987, 1989, 1992,1993, 1994.). The short stories she has contributes was A Question of Dowry and Everythings Arranged.

Synopsis of the story

Siew Yue Killingley in Everythings Arranged, tell about a Ceylonese girl named Rukumani that having secret affair with a Ceylonese boy named Devanayagam while studying at University. Both of them love each other deeply. As they went for longs term vacation, their secret affair discovered by their parents. The story tell about how these young couple, especially Rukumani have struggle and suffer because of their family members, relatives and their community as they try to get together in life.

Her marriages were arranged against her own wish.The main characters in this story are Rukumani and Devanayagam. Meanwhile, the other characters are Johnny Chew, Amy Wong, Mr. Sambanthan, Susheela, Nadarajah, Rukumanis mother and grandmother, Devanayagams father and Auntie Sally.
As from the story, the setting of the story might be around early stage after our countrys independence. During that time, love marriages are still alien to Indian cultural.

The typical India Community thought fall in love as a big sin and only arranged marriage is allowed. The conflict of the story is about the rejection of love marriages by old generation.

Cultural Criticism
Cultural criticism is what is practiced by cultural critics, the intellectuals formerly known as moralists and publicists. That is to say, they are those who have taken it upon themselves to describe the conduct of their fellow citizens to their fellow citizens, taking conduct in a very broad sense, including prominently that part of it which concerns moving ideas from one mind to another; to judge whether and how that conduct is wanting; and to suggest more desirable states of affairs

 Cultural criticism is the criticism of a culture or society on a continuing basis with the end result being some sort of practical solution being found to fix any problems.( Alice Templeton,1992)

Feminist Theory
According to 2010 Journal Citation Reports (Thomson Reuters, 2011), feminist theory is genuinely interdisciplinary and reflects the diversity of feminism, incorporating perspectives from across the broad spectrum of the humanities and social sciences and the full range of feminist political and theoretical stances.

Area of investigation:
Culture. By analyzing cultural forces ( such as the importance and values of womens roles in given society), critics who emphasize this area of study investigate how society shapes a womans understanding of herself, her society, and her world.

Going to more secluded parts of the campus was even worse, although it meant less chance of being gazed at, for it they were seen by people who knew them and their families they would be accused of making love in quiet corners. It was better to sit in public and take the risk of being seen by family friends, some of whom might just casually mention to their respective families,.. ( pg 185 )

At the same time they liked to pretend that Rukumani was too spiritual to know anything about sex and that topic was never mentioned at home. The time for her marriage to be arranged would soon come and she would find out all about that after she was married. Marriage was such a spiritual thing, really that if sex were brought into it, it would give her wrong ideas, such as those modern Girls. ( pg 186 )

 Rukumanis mother, in order to shift some of the blame from herself, sometimes tried to get her mother- in- law on her side by lamenting loudly that the younger generation of daughters was becoming too modern, and shouted for either Baby or Rukumani to fetch her things which were nearer here than them, just to test their obedience and to show her mother- in- law that she had her girls in hand. ( pg 191 )

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