Language, Identity, and Culture: Analysis of Shafana & Aunt Sarrinah

This essay analyzes the cultural values and entities presented in Alana Valentine's play, 'Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah,' focusing on the complex cultural relationships and issues within personal and social dynamics. The play explores themes of faith, love, identity, and acceptance through the dialogues between a Muslim aunt and niece. It addresses religious issues, including the significance of wearing the Hijab, and highlights cultural challenges faced by Muslim women in Australian society, such as racism and cultural assumptions. The contrasting beliefs of Shafana and Sarrinah regarding faith and cultural assimilation are examined, revealing the tensions between traditional values and Western societal norms. The essay also discusses the impact of social changes, particularly post-9/11, on Muslim communities and the personal conflicts arising from these transformations, emphasizing the role of language in portraying these complex dynamics. Ultimately, the play effectively brings to light the challenges faced by the Muslim community in Western countries, challenging stereotypical presentations and advocating for a deeper understanding of cultural identity.

Running head: ENGLISH ESSAY
English Essay
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1ENGLISH ESSAY
The purpose of the following essay is to discuss about the cultural values and entities in
the play Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah, by Alana Valentine published in the year 2010. This book is
known for complicated cultural relationships and issues in personal and social relationships.
These things have been regarded as highly crucial for the plot development of that play. The use
of language has been quite important to describe about this factor.
This play Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah is a very nice play with dialogues between aunt and
niece. Both of them are Muslim women in a devoted manner. Some of central themes of this play
were regarding faith, love, identity and acceptance of human beingsb (Peters, 2015). The
religious issues have been discussed widely in those dialogues between aunt and niece including
the relevance of wearing Hijab as well (Hebbani & Wills, 2012). The cultural values arise when
Sarrinah is not able to adjust with other women or girls in her factory where she works. This
creates a problem for her when she states “I want to fit in, not to be too unusual”. In one of the
scenes, the role of education in society has been taken as a very crucial thing leaving apart the
religious concerns. Racism has been a common cultural issue that has been discussed in this
play. Thus cultural assumptions and judgmental decisions are very apparent in this play. The
cultural assumptions in this play concerns with the depiction of Muslim people, especially the
Muslim women and their faith in the Australian society (Peters, 2015). Alana Valentine had been
commissioned to compose Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah by Alex Buzo Company. The primary
concern surrounds with the ignorant attitudes and misunderstandings regarding traditional head
scarf for Muslim women called ‘Hijab’ (Eid, 2014). It has been taken as a challenge by Aunt
Sarrinah that she will not wear hijab however crucial it is in her society. On the other hand her
niece Shafana thinks she is awakened by spiritual beliefs when she wears that hijab. Thus there
are cultural factors and contrasting values and beliefs regarding the position of Muslim women in

2ENGLISH ESSAY
Australian society and significant role education played in their society. The promising fact is
both Shafana and Sarrinah are highly educated and immensely experienced in their professional
field. Though, Shafana has faith in these religious factors, Sarrinah is free of these beliefs. Thus
cultural clashes are seen in this play (Maxwell et al., 2013).
The cultural and social values have also been displayed in this play based on the social
changes coming in the Western world. The main issue lying in this paper is regarding the
changing condition of Muslim women in Western countries like United States, United Kingdom,
Australia and others (Akbarzadeh, 2016). Many debates have been shown in this play between
two women in this play. Two of the main characters in this play are engaged in conflicts about
the changed things after the terrorist activities on 9/11. Shafana claimed that she did not believe
in this concept of using terrorism for destroying the lives of common people. It is seen through
her statement “But I don’t believe it is a holy war”. Personal conflicts have gone on further
through their discussion regarding the relevance of faith and academia. The use of language has
played a very big role in it as well (Akbarzadeh, 2016). Sarrinah confessed to Shafana that “I
have told them bald faced lies” when she was applying for jobs in different organizations. She
told lies about her skills so she could try to adjust to working environments of Australia. These
things proved to be a great challenge for her as she belonged to Muslim community (Maxwell et
al., 2013). Social transformations have been noticed in this play as well Sarrinah criticizes the
taste of food in Australia. She says that Muslim persons should not expect Afghan food in
Australia since taste of food was completely Australian (Roose & Harris, 2015). Thus they were
not able to find their homely atmosphere in that region. The cultural assimilations have been in
question regarding position of Muslim females in society. Sarrinah also questioned Shafana if
she had a real faith in the teachings of Islam or she followed the faith only through her external

3ENGLISH ESSAY
appearance. Thus the personal conflicts between these people had become quite problematic for
their relationship (Roose & Harris, 2015). The stereotypical presentation of Muslim community
has been challenged by Sarrinah as she asks Shafana to have a discussion over it. In reply
Shafana stated “Things are changing. Really changing….”
In the concluding section, it has to be said that play Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah has
brought out several challenges in the society regarding Muslim community in the Western
countries. The Western countries do not possess a positive image about Muslims and the
language of the play has played a major role in depicting this through the use of quotations from
the play.

4ENGLISH ESSAY
Reference List
Akbarzadeh, S. (2016). The Muslim Question in Australia: Islamophobia and Muslim
Alienation. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 36(3), 323-333.
Eid, M. (2014). Perceptions about Muslims in Western societies. In Re-Imagining the Other (pp.
99-119). Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
Hebbani, A., & Wills, C. R. (2012). How Muslim women in Australia navigate through media
(mis) representations of hijab/burqa. Australian Journal of Communication, 39(1), 87.
Maxwell, H., Foley, C., Taylor, T., & Burton, C. (2013). Social inclusion in community sport: A
case study of Muslim women in Australia. Journal of Sport Management, 27(6), 467-481.
Peters, S. (2015). Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah: Soft revolution [Book Review]. Australasian
Drama Studies, (66), 283.
Roose, J. M., & Harris, A. (2015). Muslim citizenship in everyday Australian civic
spaces. Journal of intercultural studies, 36(4), 468-486.