https://padlet.com/vannahscarborough/fx5k73bzieox Your response must be a paragraph in length. Grammar and mechanics matter. Supporting textual evidence is welcome. en-us 2019-04-16 17:26:30 UTC 2025-09-25 16:48:07 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet.com/vannahscarborough/fx5k73bzieox/wish/352075880 Firdaus meant that her life was centered around what she thought was important. She associated money with power and power with men, and she realized that she could not "[hate] men" (120) and love money while associating them together, because she could not both love and hate something at the same time. She tore up the three thousand piastres to say that she didn't care about men or about money. Her freedom came from disassociating herself with what she hated, but in my opinion this furthered her enigma because she was still letting men decide what she could love and hate, value and consider worthless, and do or not do. When her friend told her she was not respectable, she contradicted her claim of being independent because she let someone else (regardless of gender) define her. I don't think she ever really uncovered the true enigma of her life because she, to the end of her life, let others define her. She did choose her own path, but she often picked an option layed out for her by someone else instead of striking out on her own and thinking outside of others' opinions and directions. For example, when she was coerced into servitude to a pimp, she never considered leaving her life as a prostitute altogether before it was too late. She waited weeks until the only option was to kill the pimp. ]]> 2019-04-16 18:10:35 UTC https://padlet.com/vannahscarborough/fx5k73bzieox/wish/352075880 https://padlet.com/vannahscarborough/fx5k73bzieox/wish/352076142 What Firdaus means is that her life is going nowhere. Her life is not like most normal people. Her entire life is full of suffering. Also her pimp was the one who made her money yet she killed him. Also no one seems to understand her so her life is seen as an enigma to everyone else. Also she doesn't understand her purpose in life as much of the pleasurable things in her life have been wrongfully taken from her and she doesn't fully understand why.]]> 2019-04-16 18:11:15 UTC https://padlet.com/vannahscarborough/fx5k73bzieox/wish/352076142 https://padlet.com/vannahscarborough/fx5k73bzieox/wish/352076465 The enigma of Firdaus's life can be found in her relationship with men. She came face to face with the truth of her life and her profession, how no matter what she did she would forever be oppressed by men, unable to  surpass them in any way. Her actions afterwards display an acceptance and defiance of this truth, when she surrenders herself to the authorities, but on her own terms. She tells her pimp that "the word impossible does not exist for [her]" (129), but later comes to realize that as long as she is alive she will be constrained by the society around her. ]]> 2019-04-16 18:12:08 UTC https://padlet.com/vannahscarborough/fx5k73bzieox/wish/352076465 https://padlet.com/vannahscarborough/fx5k73bzieox/wish/352076522 Firdaus tore away the veil clouding her vision and saw the true nature of her existence. Or how she describes it, "the true enigma of my life." (134) She rejects the money and lies she fed to the pimp and tells him that she did not feel pleasure. This moment Firdaus truly realizes how all her relationships with men have fallen apart and she wants to separate these memories from her life. She feels the need to disassociate the men and the money from her identity as they are not part of her. Firdaus realizes that these men do not define who she is. ]]> 2019-04-16 18:12:17 UTC https://padlet.com/vannahscarborough/fx5k73bzieox/wish/352076522 gentrymillerr https://padlet.com/vannahscarborough/fx5k73bzieox/wish/352077191 The enigma of Firdaus' life is her perpetual desire for compensation. Her entire life she has been working to receive something in return. In school she worked for grades, and in life she worked for money. She has been sacrificing her dignity and honor and body for slips of paper that she needs to survive and stick it to all the men who oppress women. However, she has really been doing exactly what she is expected and wanted to do. She has been trading sexual satisfaction for money that is necessary to survive and buy the things that she needs to be successful in acquiring more money, she is trapped in a system that keeps her down, and makes it almost impossible to get back up.]]> 2019-04-16 18:13:52 UTC https://padlet.com/vannahscarborough/fx5k73bzieox/wish/352077191 wallacejohnson1109 https://padlet.com/vannahscarborough/fx5k73bzieox/wish/352077421 She is finally able to see what the true problem in her life is. She has run completely out of options in her life. She tried working at a regular job, and was given no promotions even though she was one of the best employees the company had. When she is a prostitute, she is not seen as respectable, and has no real control over her body. She sees no real way out of her issues.]]> 2019-04-16 18:14:25 UTC https://padlet.com/vannahscarborough/fx5k73bzieox/wish/352077421 https://padlet.com/vannahscarborough/fx5k73bzieox/wish/352079170 The enigma in Firdaus' life refers to her confusion around why things never quite went right for her. She has a strained relationship with almost everyone she encounters. Her parents die. She is circumcised. The one time she allows herself to be vulnerable, it goes awfully. She struggles to find true happiness in anything. Not her profession, not even in the money she makes anymore. Nothing seems to work out for her and non only does it dishearten her, it confuses her. She has things that she thinks is important and then they turn out to be nothing. The ]]> 2019-04-16 18:18:38 UTC https://padlet.com/vannahscarborough/fx5k73bzieox/wish/352079170