Red Tent
... In The Red Tent, Anita Diamant accurately displays the lives of men and women, as well as the roles they play in Egyptian society from childhood to adulthood. ... In The Red Tent, Diamant gives an accurate description of the life of children when compared to the historical point of view. ... As a prince of Egypt “Re-mose spent more time inside the house, observing Nakht-re at work, practicing his letter, eating the evening meal with his grandmother” (Red Tent 231). ... Re-mose loves “playing rough-and-tumble with Nakht-re”, which sounds like an informal type of wrestling (Red Tent 231). He also enjoyed “going on duck hunts” and could “swim like a fish” (Red Tent 231). ... Nakht-re teaches Re-mose, who swiftly masters them at a young age, how to play “senet and even twenty squares, elaborate board games that required strategy and logic to win” (Red Tent 231) Re-mose’s grandmother, Re-nefer, spoils her grandson and loves to bring him many toys. One of his favorites is a “wooden cat whose mouth opened and closed by working a string” (Red Tent 230). ... His mother did this by “showing my [Benia] hands to stonecutters … took me on as an apprentice” (Red Tent 274). ... Re-mose is training from the “time he could hold a stick, first as a game, then as a teacher” (Red Tent 231). ... This is shown accurately in The Red Tent when contrasted to historical reference to marriage in that day and time. ... An example would be, after Benia and Dinah have lived together for a few months, her friend Meryt “prepared a small banquet for me and Benia” which friends attend joyfully with laughter and song for the happy couple (Red Tent 273). Another brief mention of Egyptian marriage occurs when Re-nefer briefly mentions the elaborate preparations for her marriage, namely the gathering of a “great dowry” (Red Tent 217). ... Benia also serves as an example in the Red Tent of the non-elite working force. ... According to scribal skills and capabilities to handle the office, Re-mose should have been appointed vizier since he had been “the best of Kar’s students […] [Joseph’s] right hand” (Red Tent 281). ... Her husband does not interfere in her decisions and Dinah joyfully proclaims, “‘my house was a world of my possession, a country in which I was ruler and citizen, where I chose and where I serve’” (Red Tent 273).