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In The Sun and Her Flowers, poet and visual artist Rupi Kaur explores her inner emotional self, her relationships, her experiences with trauma and insecurity, and its effect on her relationships. Through her style of minimalist drawings and poems, she connects things in her personal life to larger social issues: Kaur’s relationship with her mother connects to the struggles of immigrants, refugees, and women of color living in misogynistic societies. A new healthy romantic partnership connects to the joy and difficulty of healing and learning self-love.

In our guide, we’ll explore the main themes of Kaur’s poetry and how they express both her own biography and broader social themes. Through our commentary, we’ll show how others have experienced similar traumas to Kaur, the deeper sociocultural roots of such traumas, and theories on how society might address them.

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Kaur recognizes that these aren’t objective standards of beauty and that they’re created by her society, but she still can’t help but judge herself by them. Kaur positions her negative body image—and her subsequent need to feel attractive—as one of the root causes of her anxiety, depression, and feelings of emptiness.

(Shortform note: Some psychologists suggest that to address negative body image (and the negative feelings it often inspires), people can think about their body in terms of action rather than appearance. Instead of judging their body by how beautiful or ugly it is, they can appreciate everything that their body does for them—feeling gratitude for their physical abilities, talents, or simply the fact that their body is crucial for getting through daily life. Proponents of this strategy suggest that if someone tries to see their body as beautiful, they’re still focusing on what’s good or bad about their appearance—but by focusing on action, they can break that cycle of thinking.)

Sexual Trauma

Another major source of Kaur’s empty feelings is a sexually traumatic experience in her past. Kaur’s uncle raped her when she was a child; a traumatic experience that made sex and intimacy extremely difficult for her for a long time. Kaur talks about this experience from three different perspectives.

Perspective #1: Social and Cultural Causes

Kaur links the rape back to both personal and deeper sociocultural roots. In her own home, Kaur describes the effect of strict misogyny—how men tried to make her meek and submissive and didn’t respect her right to say “no.” Kaur suggests that this mentality empowered and enabled her rapist uncle at home and that the same misogyny continues to enable many more rapists in society at large. In particular, Kaur claims that cultural norms of shaming women for being sexual or praising them for their virginity contribute to a culture that enables rapists. These ideals, she expresses, give men the sense that they have the right to control women’s bodies and sexuality—and rape is an expression of that control.

(Shortform note: Kaur explicitly says that shaming women for sex or praising their virginity contributes to “rape culture”: a culture that enables, excuses, and empowers rapists. The idea of rape culture originally comes from second-wave feminist works written in the 1970s. Books like Susan Brownmiller’s Against Our Will redefined rape not as a passionate crime committed for sexual purposes, but rather as a violent crime committed to control and intimidate women. From this perspective, rape, shaming women’s sexuality, and praising women’s virginity are all means to the same end of controlling women—therefore, sex-shaming or virgin-praising passively endorses or even actively promotes rape.)

Perspective #2: Emotional Impact

Kaur also talks about the long-lasting emotional impact of her uncle raping her. At the time, she was so young that she couldn’t fully grasp the scope of what had happened—she felt violated and broken but didn’t know how to address or cope with these feelings. For years afterward, Kaur was intensely uncomfortable with any kind of sex or intimacy. At that point, she still connected any sexual contact—even from kind and caring partners—to her traumatic experience. For a time, she felt like she’d never recover, or like she was fundamentally broken inside.

(Shortform note: Kaur’s emotional reaction to her sexual trauma shows why many children don’t tell others that someone raped them. In the short term, children often experience shock or shut out emotions as a coping mechanism—what’s happened to them is so traumatic that they have to block it out. In the longer term, children can feel like the abuse was their fault or that there’s something fundamentally wrong with them. These natural emotional responses to trauma often make children close themselves off or keep secrets.)

Perspective #3: Recovery

However, Kaur did eventually recover from her sexual trauma and find some measure of peace. She decided that she couldn’t let her rapist define who she was or how she experienced love and intimacy. From there, she began a slow process of healing to try and reclaim her body and sexuality. Kaur’s poems suggest that this process is ongoing, but that she has made a great deal of progress—some days are worse than others, but she feels like she can live a life that isn’t defined by her sexual trauma.

(Shortform note: Johann Hari (Lost Connections) goes into more depth on how people can recover from childhood trauma. He suggests that people heal from trauma when they can talk about it with a doctor or mental health professional. Hari explains that “bottling up” and hiding emotions or experiences can commonly lead to both mental and physical illness. By talking about a traumatic event or its impacts, a victim can avoid the negative impact of “bottling up” and potentially find some relief or healing in the process.)

Part 3: Feeling Belonging

Despite the challenges she faced and the pain and emptiness they brought her, Kaur ends The Sun and Her Flowers on a positive, hopeful note. In the last three sections of the book (“Rooting”, “Rising”, and “Blooming”), she describes feeling a sense of belonging in her family and romantic life. Though challenges remain, Kaur knows she has the strength to face them and that the people she loves will help her along the way.

In particular, Kaur talks about two places where she finds meaning, hope, and a sense of belonging:

  1. Her familial and cultural background
  2. Her new relationship

Familial and Cultural Background

Kaur talks about finding a new sense of belonging through family and cultural background. In the “Rooting” section of the book, Kaur shows newfound appreciation for her Indian heritage and her family’s experience emigrating from India to Canada. While she appreciates many aspects of her cultural background, Kaur also criticizes certain aspects of South Asian culture as misogynistic.

Appreciating the Positive

Kaur expresses newfound gratitude and appreciation in her poems that discuss her family and culture. She’s come to recognize all of the remarkable challenges her parents faced. Arriving as poor immigrants, Kaur’s parents were able to successfully provide for their family and adapt to their new country and lives. Kaur is grateful to her mother in particular, who gave up pursuing her own goals and dreams so she could raise her family—going through constant work and stress all the while.

(Shortform note: Reflecting on their own experiences, some first-generation immigrants suggest that gratitude and family bonds can overcome some of the significant differences in values that might exist between immigrant parents and their children born in a new country. From this perspective, families can develop appreciation by acknowledging each other’s past hardships and recognizing where they share common ground—despite clashes that might appear between the cultural values of their current and former homes.)

In addition to appreciating the positivity of the past, Kaur also looks forward to the future. She expresses her desire to empower and help women around her—particularly women of color and women who have undergone many of the same hardships as her. Kaur phrases this process as carrying on the legacy of the women who came before her, both by recognizing their hardships and by helping future generations of women love and appreciate themselves.

(Shortform note: Some critics of Kaur claim that rather than inspiring young women of color, Kaur is actually holding them back—they say that Kaur speaks over other women of color and overgeneralizes their experiences. These critics often point to an accusation of plagiarism from poet Nayyriah Waheed. In response to these criticisms, Kaur says that both she and Waheed were speaking about similar experiences at similar times, but that she didn’t commit any plagiarism. In addition, she wishes more women of color poets could find the same success that she has.)

Criticizing the Negative

While Kaur finds a new appreciation for her background, she also recognizes some negative aspects of her heritage and culture. Through her poems, she explains how some elements of South Asian culture are misogynistic and how this misogyny informs the lives of South Asian girls and women. She often connects this back to the experiences of her mother—Kaur describes how her mother was taught to be submissive and obedient to the men in her life, and how she, in turn, helped teach Kaur those same lessons herself.

(Shortform note: Rosjke Hasseldine (The Mother-Daughter Puzzle) further discusses the complicated relationship between misogyny and mother-daughter relationships. She warns that women shouldn’t place too much blame on their mothers for teaching or enforcing misogynistic views—while they aren’t entirely innocent, they are themselves victims of the same beliefs. Instead, Hasseldine suggests that mothers and daughters approach their relationship as equals in similar circumstances. This dynamic allows them to empathize with each other and challenge misogynistic beliefs together instead of resenting each other or getting defensive.)

In addition, Kaur addresses the subject of female infanticide in Indian communities. She describes how, for centuries, families would kill their baby girls because they saw them as a burden on the family and valued boys more highly. Kaur also shows how this practice continues today both in India and in South Asian immigrant communities like the one she grew up in. This practice, Kaur expresses, shows how misogyny devalues and even ends the lives of women and girls.

(Shortform note: While Kaur suggests violence against women results in female infanticide, some scholars suggest that female infanticide also causes further instability and violence—both against women with increased rates of rape or kidnapping; and in general, with increased rates of murder and violent crime. Anthropological research argues that India’s skewed sex ratio—currently 108.1 males per 100 females—creates a surplus of men (often lower-class men from rural areas where female infanticide is more common) who are unable to find wives or create families. These men are more likely to join violent gangs or militias for respect or financial stability.)

Falling in Love

Kaur’s sense of belonging extends beyond her family and into her romantic life as well. In the “Rising” and “Blooming” sections of the book, she describes falling in love and entering a new and positive relationship. She often describes how novel or unusual this feels—it’s her first time in a healthy relationship, and she’s not used to positive romantic and sexual experiences.

Despite her unease, Kaur feels hopeful about the future and appreciates her partner’s kindness and love. Most of all, though, Kaur is able to push past her insecurities and recognize that this is the kind of relationship that she deserves. Kaur learns how to love and appreciate herself—a challenging and often inconsistent process that helps her truly feel like she belongs in her own skin.

(Shortform note: Experts suggest that after experiencing abuse, survivors can help improve their future relationships by taking things slowly and working to communicate clearly with their partners. This is often a matter of recognizing when a feeling or behavior comes from an experience with abuse—for example, if a certain action triggers an intense emotional response, or reminds the victim of their abuser. Through these methods, survivors can heal and love again—their abuser doesn’t have to define their entire romantic life.)

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