Marquez refers to the visitor as a "very old man with enormous wings" because it create a more real image of the man instead of a magical or mystical angel. This helps the reader view the angel as a little less angelic and more of a real human.
Different people's reactions reflect human nature as narrow-minded and untrusting. Since they cannot communicate it creates a barrier. They take the benefit that he allows them (money) but give him nothing in return.
Spidergirl caused the people to stop paying attention to the man with enormous wings because she has an explanation and intriguing story. This is also an example of a new shiny thing that the people can play and interact with. (similar to a zoo, things that move around catch the eye of the audience, while sleeping animals are boring and cause people to continue walking)
- She also tells a different story then the truth.
Truth: snuck out of her house and her parents turned her into a spider as a punishment
Story: She tells people that lightning struck her from the heavens, "god thing" gets peoples attention.
Elisenda was glad to have the man fly away finally because he was a constant agitator in her life.
Elisenda and Pelayo didn't end up sending the man out to sea because they ended up turning him into a sort of prophet and profit.
Father Gonzaga is hesitant about the old man, not sure if he believes him to be an angel.
The old neighbor woman claims the angel has come to "take" the sick child, therefore they should kill him.
The couple didn't really ever have compassion for the man because they were mean and locked him in a chicken coop.
Themes
- Different/Unique from Society - you are picked on
- Human Nature and Initial Reactions/Judgements
- People's tendencies to obsess over something until it's boring and leave it to move on to something new
Symbolism of the Wings = Freedom
- As an angel, freeing the town of their problems
- Freeing him from the chicken coop when he eventually flies away
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Silko's "Yellow woman"
It is easy for the narrator to be away from her family because she constantly struggles between reality and her fantasized experience. There is a constant need for the story to justify her running off and cheating on her husband, and using the importance of this spiritual story to justify her actions.
The narrator continually brings up her Grandfather because he always told her the story of the Yellow Woman and she feels that he was the one that would always take care of her, unlike her family who is still there with her.
The narrator continues to obey Silba because it is part of her fantasy.
The narrator tells her family she was kidnapped because she is so sucked up in her alternate fantasy of reality.
Themes
Desire - to be something more
The narrator continually brings up her Grandfather because he always told her the story of the Yellow Woman and she feels that he was the one that would always take care of her, unlike her family who is still there with her.
The narrator continues to obey Silba because it is part of her fantasy.
The narrator tells her family she was kidnapped because she is so sucked up in her alternate fantasy of reality.
Themes
Desire - to be something more
More Terms
Bildungsroman is a coming of age novel that arose during the German Enlightenment
- author presents psychological, moral and social shaping of the character's personality (usually the
protagonist)
Identity Plot is when the protagonist comes to learn who they are - their identity
Elements of Identity Plot
1. Narrative revolves around the question of hot to define and understand a character's identity
2. Character must be a minority within a larger society
3. Character is at odds with the minority group that he/she is apart of
4. Character needs to be conflicted about his difference from the majority and about his difference from the minority
5. Authenticity and origin are always at stake in a character's quest for personal identity. Even when these are absent, their absence alone signifies something crucial to the character's identity.
Variations
1. Character may seem to be a member of the majority group
2. Character is not conflicted about membership to a minority group (will or won't betray the group)
3. Characters resist having an identity that is stable
4. May be multiple people whose identities are at stake
5. Variations of fiction based on fact
6. Identity is not based on race of ethnicity
- personal differences
- author presents psychological, moral and social shaping of the character's personality (usually the
protagonist)
Identity Plot is when the protagonist comes to learn who they are - their identity
Elements of Identity Plot
1. Narrative revolves around the question of hot to define and understand a character's identity
2. Character must be a minority within a larger society
3. Character is at odds with the minority group that he/she is apart of
4. Character needs to be conflicted about his difference from the majority and about his difference from the minority
5. Authenticity and origin are always at stake in a character's quest for personal identity. Even when these are absent, their absence alone signifies something crucial to the character's identity.
Variations
1. Character may seem to be a member of the majority group
2. Character is not conflicted about membership to a minority group (will or won't betray the group)
3. Characters resist having an identity that is stable
4. May be multiple people whose identities are at stake
5. Variations of fiction based on fact
6. Identity is not based on race of ethnicity
- personal differences
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Things Fall Apart - Part 3
Struggle between Change and Tradition
Mr. Brown
- Makes a lot of mistakes due to lack of cultural knowledge
- Tries to understand the Igbos, their religion and traditions
- Takes time in discussions with the people in order to learn more
Reverend Smith
- Condemned openly Mr. Brown's policy of compromise and accommodation
- Saw things as black and white; black being evil
*Brown and Smith are symbols of different kinds of Christian mission
Okonkwo
Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. His fame rested on solid personal achievements. As a young man of eighteen he had brought honor to his village by through Amalinze the Cat. BEGINNING
-Starts to fall apart as a person, starting with his seven years in exile
-Starts to lose his personality; lost the future he thought he was going to create for himself
Okonkwo was deeply grieved. And it was not just a personal grief. He mourned for the clan, which he saw breaking and falling apart, and he mourned for the warlike men of Umofia, who had so unaccountably become soft like women
- when he's back from exile and the tribe has changed
Seven years was a long time to be away from one's clan. A man's place was not always there, waiting for him. As soon as he left, someone else rose and filled it. The clan was like a lizard; if it lost its tail it soon grew another.
- white missionaries took over the authority
Why did O wish Enzima was a boy?
She was strong willed compared to her brothers and understood everything O was thinking and trying to say. They really understood each other.
Why do you think after his exile O had hopes to return to U and gain authority over the people of his tribe?
He assumed upon his return that everything would be the same.
Differences between Mr. Brown and Mr. Smith.
Mr. Brown compromises and understands
- gradual process that helped the clan get used to the idea
- subtle and gradual takeover
Mr. Smith is forceful and sly (not trustworthy) and aggressive
*different leaderships effect U: understanding approach made real followers
Who was more deceptive?
English government will enter the triodes either way. The nice missionaries will distract the tribes and get them used to the idea of Christianity so that when the powerful enforcers come they are already briefed with the idea and don't try and automatically kill them since they already have supporters from within the tribe.
Enoch's crime of unmasking an egwuwu
- Damaged the foundations of their beliefs taking the magic away from their religion
- No one expected it - "in your face" type of action
O didn't say anything to the white men while imprisoned because he has a lot of pride and didn't want to be like his father. Wanted to stay strong as the face of the tribe.
O was so determined to fight the white men back (even alone) because he felt so strongly about their traditions.
O's hanging
- he knew where the tribe was headed under the white missionaries and couldn't live with it
- ultimate sacrifice vs. cop out - big taboo in the Igbo culture
- Couldn't fight alone
- Same bad reputation as his father (what he has been trying to avoid the whole time)
Igbo Downfall caused by their own people! The converts inside the society began to break down the culture and beliefs from the inside! NO longer united -> things fall apart
Things Fall Apart can refer to the tribe and Okonkwo himself.
... They were just a paragraph in the book about the Pacification of Africa
Mr. Brown
- Makes a lot of mistakes due to lack of cultural knowledge
- Tries to understand the Igbos, their religion and traditions
- Takes time in discussions with the people in order to learn more
Reverend Smith
- Condemned openly Mr. Brown's policy of compromise and accommodation
- Saw things as black and white; black being evil
*Brown and Smith are symbols of different kinds of Christian mission
Okonkwo
Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. His fame rested on solid personal achievements. As a young man of eighteen he had brought honor to his village by through Amalinze the Cat. BEGINNING
-Starts to fall apart as a person, starting with his seven years in exile
-Starts to lose his personality; lost the future he thought he was going to create for himself
Okonkwo was deeply grieved. And it was not just a personal grief. He mourned for the clan, which he saw breaking and falling apart, and he mourned for the warlike men of Umofia, who had so unaccountably become soft like women
- when he's back from exile and the tribe has changed
Seven years was a long time to be away from one's clan. A man's place was not always there, waiting for him. As soon as he left, someone else rose and filled it. The clan was like a lizard; if it lost its tail it soon grew another.
- white missionaries took over the authority
Why did O wish Enzima was a boy?
She was strong willed compared to her brothers and understood everything O was thinking and trying to say. They really understood each other.
Why do you think after his exile O had hopes to return to U and gain authority over the people of his tribe?
He assumed upon his return that everything would be the same.
Differences between Mr. Brown and Mr. Smith.
Mr. Brown compromises and understands
- gradual process that helped the clan get used to the idea
- subtle and gradual takeover
Mr. Smith is forceful and sly (not trustworthy) and aggressive
*different leaderships effect U: understanding approach made real followers
Who was more deceptive?
English government will enter the triodes either way. The nice missionaries will distract the tribes and get them used to the idea of Christianity so that when the powerful enforcers come they are already briefed with the idea and don't try and automatically kill them since they already have supporters from within the tribe.
Enoch's crime of unmasking an egwuwu
- Damaged the foundations of their beliefs taking the magic away from their religion
- No one expected it - "in your face" type of action
O didn't say anything to the white men while imprisoned because he has a lot of pride and didn't want to be like his father. Wanted to stay strong as the face of the tribe.
O was so determined to fight the white men back (even alone) because he felt so strongly about their traditions.
O's hanging
- he knew where the tribe was headed under the white missionaries and couldn't live with it
- ultimate sacrifice vs. cop out - big taboo in the Igbo culture
- Couldn't fight alone
- Same bad reputation as his father (what he has been trying to avoid the whole time)
Igbo Downfall caused by their own people! The converts inside the society began to break down the culture and beliefs from the inside! NO longer united -> things fall apart
Things Fall Apart can refer to the tribe and Okonkwo himself.
... They were just a paragraph in the book about the Pacification of Africa
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
William Butler Yeats "The Second Coming" & TFA Part 2
- Yeat's response to the destruction that he witnessed in the aftermath of WW1
- WW1 = war to end all ways but the aftermath ended up leading into WW2 (gyre)
- Gyre's represented two-thousand year cycles - all endings have a beginning - when one door closes another door opens etc etc
"The blood dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned..."
- Killing of Ikemefuna and his innocent blood being shed (ceremonial killing)
- Naivety of the clan as to what the white men were really up to
- Christianity that spread killed the culture, losing all innocence (not enough knowledge to understand) -> don't fight
"The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart the centre cannot hold...:
- Clansmen=falcon, white men=falconer and the attempted integration
Gyres
- end of culture in Achebe's mind and beginning of the mashed up Christianity and African traditional religions
- images of the past resurface in different contexts
"A shape with lion body and the head of a man' A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun..."
- Colonists view of the Africans (animalistic/unintelligent)
- Lion = powerful and destructive - white men look powerful and human but they really aren't...
- Blank stare - Africans not understanding the consequences
- WW1 = war to end all ways but the aftermath ended up leading into WW2 (gyre)
- Gyre's represented two-thousand year cycles - all endings have a beginning - when one door closes another door opens etc etc
"The blood dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned..."
- Killing of Ikemefuna and his innocent blood being shed (ceremonial killing)
- Naivety of the clan as to what the white men were really up to
- Christianity that spread killed the culture, losing all innocence (not enough knowledge to understand) -> don't fight
"The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart the centre cannot hold...:
- Clansmen=falcon, white men=falconer and the attempted integration
Gyres
- end of culture in Achebe's mind and beginning of the mashed up Christianity and African traditional religions
- images of the past resurface in different contexts
"A shape with lion body and the head of a man' A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun..."
- Colonists view of the Africans (animalistic/unintelligent)
- Lion = powerful and destructive - white men look powerful and human but they really aren't...
- Blank stare - Africans not understanding the consequences
______________________________
Things Fall Apart - Part 2
- Cultural Traditions become an issue upon the arrival o the white men who introduce a "better and safer" religion
- Achebe may have written his story in response to this poem because it reflects the loss of cultural identities and a western perspective may help readers draw a parallel between WW1 and African colonization
- Many parallels between the two - focusing on the negativity of each of the events
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" PART 1
Background
- Industrial Revolution in Europe
- British Imperialism, balance of power and the view of imperialism as a means of enhancing national prestige
- Scramble for Africa - Europeans race to colonize Africa and obtain their resources
- Movement of Christian missionaries, exploitation and violence.
- Igbo's made decisions including the entire tribe
-Umuofia avoids war with Mbaino by taking a virgin and a young boy as a negotiation
Main Characters
Okonkwo
- very masculine
- support traditions no matter what
- tries very hard to be nothing like his father
- very concerned with what others think of him (narcissistic?) - almost obsession
- Achievements = 5 heads, best yam farmer, 3 wives plus a wife who ran away from her previous husband to be with him
Unoka - Ok.'s dad
Nwoye - Ok.'s oldest son (from his 1st wife)
Ikefuna - Ok.'s adopted son
Ekwefi - Ok.'s 2nd and favorite wife
Ezinma - daughter of Ekwefi
Nwakibie - elder who gives Ok. his 1st yam seeds
- Ok. plants these seeds to early (same time as every one else) and his crops are wiped out by a great rain
- Ok. vows he will only follow his own advice for when to plant
Obierika - Ok.'s best friend, and polar opposite
Uchendu - Ok.'s Uncle
Mr. Brown - British missionary
Rev. Mr. Smith - British missionary
Direct Commissioner - British government official and judge
Discussion
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...
-William Butler Yeats Poem "The Second Coming"
-Hints at chaos of systems collapsing
-"the center cannot hold" = the African tribes cannot stand to the imperialistic Europe
- Falcon & Falconer - Government sends of the colonizers but does little to control them once they are
off, not dealing with the consequences of the horror they commit
And at last the locusts did descend. They settled one very tree and on every blade of grass; they settled on the roods and covered the bare ground. Mighty tree branches broke away under them, and the whole country became the brown-earth bicolor of the vast, hungry swarm."
- Arrival and Settling of the colonizers
- Collapse of traditions and culture that won't allow the Igbo tribe to survive
- Animal imagery dehumanizes the tribe to justify the crime!
Perhaps down in hiss heart, Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and weakness"
- Achebe referring to the struggles of being a black man in this colonized whorld where the white man makes them feel inferior in their own homes
- Stereotyping
- Fighting past images of his lazy father
*Similar to Nobu....
"I cannot understand why you refused to come with us to kill that boy," he asked Obierika. "Because I did not want to," Obierka replied sharply. "I had something better to do." "You sound as if you question the authority and the decision of the Oracle who said he should die."
- Okonkwo is speaking with Obierka about the killing of Ikemefuna that was ordered by the Oracle.
- Whatever the Oracle says, goes
Significane of the tortoise shell story is when things fall apart you can still piece them back together. You must look out for others.
- Similar to Ok.'s father who took from everyone and never felt the need to pay anyone back.
Significance of Ok. killing the son of Ezeudu and Ezeudu's "Warrior Funeral" lead to his banishment from the village for 7 years (instead of forever since it was a female aka unintentional crime)
- Crime against the Earth - highest crime, highest God
Exile limits his leadership because he is not a high authoritative figure in his motherland, his uncle is his superior who knows more than him and therefore has more power. His banishment was also a blow to his status, a sort of degradation, allowing people to not see him as the same mighty leader.
If Ok. hadn't been exiled, how would he have responded to the white missionaries? Ok. is too concerned with the status of the Igbo culture and traditions to allow a white group of men to compromise what they believe in and have followed for so long, he probably would've attempted to start a rebellion.
Week of Peace and the Feast of the New Yam
- Week of Peace shows values of the tribe in regards to the importance of the blessings on their crops
- peace = prosperity
- Female God! shows culture's respect for women (Mother Earth?) unlike Okonkwo when he beats his
wife during this week...
Places
Part 1. Umuofia - Things in Place with Okonkwo as representative of his culture
Part 2. Mbanta - Thing out of place, Okonkwo in exile
Part 3. Umuofia - Things fall apart...
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Camus's "The Guest"
Setting
- Algeria, mid-October on the eve of the Algerian war
- Published during the war
- Colonizing Text **
- Characterization - how the characters are marginalized in order to justify takeover
Theories
1. Cultural Differences allow each character to perceive the crime differently
- different moral codes and honor
- Daru can't take the man all the way to prison because his own moral compass and he has gotten to
know the man
- The Arab has a moral obligation to and chooses the path of punishment to face what he has done
2. Arab never makes the run for freedom
- Because of Daru's hospitality
Geography "vast landscape" implies isolation from society and specifically people on his level
- detached and introverted
- put up on a hill (French side) - elevated level looks down on the Algerian culture
- has all of the food, knowledge etc.
- revaluing the white man's role and it's importance
Daru's Moral Conflict
- He's gotten to know the Arab and doesn't want to be responsible for his fate
- Not his right/job to punish him or lead him to his death
- The Arab must decide what he wants his life to mean
- Daru doesn't know all the details so he cannot decide such a huge punishment
Message written on the Blackboard
"Beastly" way of describing the prisoner's features - unlike European looks
- otherized, animal look that's not like "us"
- Algeria, mid-October on the eve of the Algerian war
- Published during the war
- Colonizing Text **
- Characterization - how the characters are marginalized in order to justify takeover
Theories
1. Cultural Differences allow each character to perceive the crime differently
- different moral codes and honor
- Daru can't take the man all the way to prison because his own moral compass and he has gotten to
know the man
- The Arab has a moral obligation to and chooses the path of punishment to face what he has done
2. Arab never makes the run for freedom
- Because of Daru's hospitality
Geography "vast landscape" implies isolation from society and specifically people on his level
- detached and introverted
- put up on a hill (French side) - elevated level looks down on the Algerian culture
- has all of the food, knowledge etc.
- revaluing the white man's role and it's importance
Daru's Moral Conflict
- He's gotten to know the Arab and doesn't want to be responsible for his fate
- Not his right/job to punish him or lead him to his death
- The Arab must decide what he wants his life to mean
- Daru doesn't know all the details so he cannot decide such a huge punishment
Message written on the Blackboard
You handed over our brother. You will pay for this.
- The Arab Tribespeople - know the land, snuck in during the night to threaten him
- Threat to Morality - should've taken initiative
**Who's colonizing who??
What is Daru contemplating as he looks out the window?
- His morals, if he made the right decision
- What decision the Arab made
- What might happen to him -> threatened by society
- Upset both sides! didn't take the prisoner there and didn't take him to freedom (indecisive=2 enemies=ALONE)
** GUEST in his own home
No Name Arab
- Emphasize insignificance - not an equal and a criminal no less
- entity of people, not use one person
Themes
Power/Powerlessness
Humanity and Brotherhood
Colonized and the Colonizer
Image of "The Guest"
- The French are the guests in Algeria
- The Arab becomes Daru's guest instead of his prisoner
- In the Arab culture, prisoners are becoming guests (Daru) so they believe prison will treat them the same
"Beastly" way of describing the prisoner's features - unlike European looks
- otherized, animal look that's not like "us"
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