The Great Injustice and The Merry Maid

How would you like to talk about abortion and pre-marital sex issue? In your opinion, how does society reacts to both issue and what are the consequences that usually occur from both situation?

If we care and we really put our concern to both issue, then 'The Great Injustice' and 'The Merry Maid' are the perfect match for us to open our mind to both is

sues that seem critical among our teenagers nowadays.

“The Merry Maid” by Dr. Jayakaran Mukundan is a story about Lakshmi, a young mother who is forced to leave her daughter to other people’s care because of hardship. In the story, Lakshmi is involved in pre-marital sex with Shanmugam. She leaves school because of love and at last Sakinah is born. Shanmugam is caught by the police and Laksh

mi cannot give a good care to the unwanted child.She is still a teenager at that time obviously it is hard for her to handle a baby. However, she has her own family, her f

riends and the people in the society. Why did not they make it easier for Lakshmi? Why did not they make it possible for Lakshmi to take care of her own daughter? Typical society's respond to such issue of pre-marital sex are devastating. We can imagine that Lakshmi’s family throws her away, wherever she goes people are staring with wild eyes and friends never come to aid. The baby should be with her real mother and ‘can’ be with her real mother if the society looks deeper in the issue of pre-marital sex.

The same situation happens to Ah Nya in “The Great Injustice” by Heah Chwee Sian but the end of the pre-marital sex case is different. Ah Nya is pregnant because of pre-marital sex with Steve. She brings shame to the family and the society is giving an extra atte

ntion to her in a very bad way. Steve completely left her without anything to hang on. The society puts all the blame on her while Steve is left free happily ever after. Ah Nya is very unfortunate. Having blamed alone and carries the world

on her shoulder, no one is there for her (except for her mother but not of any use somehow) until the end; she has to abort her baby.

In both stories, the writers try to picture that how strong the society will effect one's life. As a collective society, we are very rigid about our stand and belief. We do not accept the wrong doers in our life. We sometimes do not realize that our action and misj

udgment kills and hurts somebody's life.

We can make actually make Lakshmi lives happily with her daugh

ter and we can save Ah Nya’s baby. Let us ask ourselves; why don’t we?