Having left home at the age of 16, when her brothers were three, five, and seven, Kincaid did not return to Antigua for 20 years. Her relationship with her siblings is distant, based on almost no personal knowledge of them. As she puts it, “I think of my brothers as my mother’s children.”
Upon learning of Devon’s illness, Kincaid gathers a supply of AZT, a drug too expensive to be made available in Antigua, and makes a rare journey home:
“I felt myself being swallowed up in a large vapor of sadness…I became afraid that he would die before I saw him again…It surprised me that I loved him; I could see that was what I was feeling, love for him, and it surprised me because I did not know him at all.”
This, I think shows what many older children feel towards much younger siblings and vis versa. I myself was born when my next oldest sister was 16 and my oldest had just had her first child not six months before I was born. Because of this, I am closer to my cousins than to my sisters. The seperation she felt for her siblings is normal in its own my because of the age difference.
The fact that she also felt guilty about not caring more is also normal in a long distance relationship.
Here are three quotes that I feel help define the novel
Part I
“The paths were overgrown and a smell of dead flowers mixed with the fresh living smell. Underneath the tree ferns, tall as forest tree ferns, the light was green. Orchids flourished out of reach or for some reason not to be touched.”
Part II
How can one discover the truth, I thought, and that thought led me nowhere. No one would tell me the truth. Not my father nor Richard Mason, certainly not the girl I had married. I stood still, so sure I was being watched that I looked over my shoulder. Nothing but the trees and the green light under the trees. A track was just visible and I went on, glancing from side to side and sometimes quickly behind me. This was why I stubbed my foot on a stone and nearly fell. The stone I had tripped on was not a boulder but part of a paved road. There had been a paved road through this forest. The track led to a large clear space. Here were the ruins of a stone house and round the ruins rose trees that had grown to an incredible height. At the back of the ruins a wild orange tree covered with fruit, the leaves a dark green. A beautiful place.
Part III
There is no looking glass here and I don’t know what I am like now. I remember watching myself brush my hair and how my eyes looked back at me. The girl I saw was myself yet not quite myself. Long ago when I was a child and very lonely I tried to kiss her. But the glass was between us—hard, cold and misted over with my breath. Now they have taken everything away. What am I doing in this place and who am I
I found the movie to be etremly interesting and it corrorlated with the article we read on Fanaon quite well. I can see where he got his ideas about colonial rule and the effects colonial rule has on people becuase he himself lived it. I also see where he came up with his three phases of writing.
The movies gave great insight into the mind of Fanon and what drove him to do what he did and write what he wrote. The things he expeienced gave he a greater understanding of the boundries between black and white than most of us have. This insght is what allowed him to write about what he did in a manner that allows people from both black and white backgrounds to read his book and to understand what it is he is trying to ger accross.
“Hunger with diginity is perferable to bread eaten in slavery”
The article is very interesting and shows how colonialism can have an adverse effect on both the people in the colonial countries as well as the mother country. It also talks about how the colonial governments make promises but are slow to fullfil those promises if they keep them at all.
He also talks about how the research into ancient civilizations that predate the societies that live there today can both help and hinder today’s world. For as he said, knowing that the Aztec culture was once great won’t put food on the table.
I found this quote and I think that it explains the title nicley.
“Does the white man understand our custom about land?” “How can he when he does not even speak our tongue? But he says that our customs are bad; and our own brothers who have taken up his religion also say that our customs are bad. How do you think we can fight when our own brothers have turned against us? The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.”
pg. 176
The story is one that is full of omens and signs from the gods. Achebe’s use of word imagery and his use of proverbs gives the reader an insight into the complex language used by the native people.
Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.
pg. 7
I also liked the fact that the Achebe often shows how the cutoms of the Igbo are used to help difusses hostile situations such as the eating of a kola nut and the drinking of palm wine when disscussing a debt. This can also be used to show anger at a person by not eating the nut when it is offered.
Okonkwo is a complex character who is ruled by his fear of appearing weak before the village. Even though he feels great affection for his daughter and his foster son, he does not show this as kindness and affection are a woman’s qualites and therefore a weakness in his mind.
Okonkwo’s downfall is his own doing as all his action and the consequenses of those actions could have been avoided or worked out if he had been a little less warlike and more clam and willing to compromise with others.
He also feeling threatened by the white man’s religion as he sees it treaten to break the traditional bonds that holds the tribe together against outsiders. Mr. Brown seems to understand that as long as he does not go directly against what the tribe believes they will leave him and his church in peace. He goes to great lengths to ensure that the two groups get along together. Reverand Smith sees this coperation between the two groups as a sin and does his best to force the tribe to convert to Chirstanity. When one of his followers violates a sacred tradition, Smith does not understand what a grave act of sin has been committed and is angry and upset when the tribe burns his church in order to appease the spirits.
All in all this was a good book and gives a wonderful look at the inner works of the Igob tribe as well as showing what a rich oral tradition they have it shows that they had specific laws and punishments in order to perserve the integrdy of the tribe as a whole. A good book.
“What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river [Thames] into the mystery of an unknown earth! …The dreams of men, the seeds of commonwealth, the germs of empire.”
In Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad at the beginning we meet four men who are sailors or used to be sailors as they are sitting and looking at each other without speaking. The narrator has been thinking about the River Thames and all the great ships and sailors that have sailed its waters when one of the main characters of the story, and the narrator of the main story called Marlow suddenly breaks the silence as if he knows what the speaker is thinking about
“And this also has been one of the dark places on the earth.”
This book seems to be full of dark hints and omens that something is going to go wrong in the end.
Paper One for Love, Time & the Exotic Setting
v The question of race is one that has been explored and questioned in literature from the 17th and 18th Century. This idea of Race has both stayed the same and changed during the 17th century to the modern era.
v What is Race
o Race as defined by OED and Webster’s
o Modern view of Race
v Race as seen in The Tempest
o Caliban
v Race as seen in Richard Ligon’s and Aphra Behn’s novels
o The Black Mistress
o Difference between black and native to European eyes
v Race as seen in Black Mariner narratives
o Britton Hammon
o Olaudah Equiano
o John Marrant
o Venture Smith
v Conclusion about Race in 17th & 18th literature
What I also thought intersecting is the fact that when she describes the native girls she makes it a point to mention the fact that even though everyone in naked or almost naked there is no impropriate glances or touching going on. She declares that the natives flirt only with their eyes and it is through the eyes that their communication goes on. She also states “Religion would here but destroy that tranquillity they possess by ignorance; and laws would but teach ‘em to know offense, of which now they have no notion.” In this she is perhaps making a statement that it is religion’s fault that all we know is sin. She also gives a reason as too why the blacks were slaves but not the natives of the island. “So that they being on all occasions very useful to us, we find it absolutely necessary to caress ‘em as friends, and not to treat ‘em as slaves, nor dare we do other, their numbers so far surpassing ours in that continent.”
They story is both happy and sad. Happy because Oroonoko and Imoinda were reunited and sad because in the end they both died. The descriptions of the events leading to the deaths of the lovers are long and involved and Behn often goes off for long periods that have nothing to do with the story but in the end offer up a greater idea of both the country and the personalities of those who were part of the story.
One of the first things that struck me about Oroonoko is that Aphra Behn gives such detailed descriptions of Oroonoko and the impression that she finds him quite attractive even though he is a black. They way she describes him makes him seem almost just like a European who accidentally ended up in the wrong skin. “He had an extreme good and graceful mien, and all the civility of a well-bred great man. He had nothing of barbarity in his nature, but in all points addressed himself as if his education had been in some European court.”
This is also shown in the description given to the black mistress in Ligon’s book. He also talks about her in a way that is both foreign and familiar to his readers back in England. He talks about her clothing and gives her enough differences to intrigue and then something familiar to reassure his readers. This is also shown in how he talks about her teeth, her eyes and her language.
What I wonder is why both Ligon and Behn felt the need to make the exotic seem like the ordinary in their writings?
Exotic in my mind means something that is outside your normal experiance.
Like this Passion Flower
This Photo comes from D. LeRoy
Search
About
This is the about text
Latest
