P. 97~100
I was really taken by these pages. It occurred to me that maybe, she is using the language to create a poetic feeling to this sad story. It is almost like the Greek tragedy. The hero causes his own downfall. Even though her brother was not neccessarily a hero, per se, he did live through a horrendous experiecne as a baby. Only to grow up to abuse his second chance with drugs and sex. And like a Greek tragedies, there always has to be a song or a chorus. What if she is using the repetition as her own chorus. It is just a theory, but there is some meaning behind the language.
The second thing that struck me, was the fact that she would later write a story about her brother’s death, but wouldn’t tell the interviewer, who was there in the moment, about it. Kind of strange.
I think it is a powerful part of the book, and it should be taken into account.
I was really suprised by this book. Although she seems to repeat herself, I think it really brings home the story. I felt that the whole description of her brothers illness was quite graphic, but on the other hand, it is the most real description of AIDS, that I have ever heard. I can still recall the sex ed videos I was forced to watch in high school. Even though the people on the videos had the virus, it was never really real to me. But her description of her brother was vivid and alive.
One question that I have for the first half; Where is the father? I mean we hear about him in the beginning but then he disappears.
I would like to hear more about her other brothers and more about why she doesn’t speak to her mother. I think it would help me to understand why she gets so mad.
I found it really interesting that for the first few pages of the book, the narrator’s skin color was made know several times. But I didn’t realizes she was a girl until later on. The qoute, “it is better to be a black nigger than a white nigger,” also stands out. In most of what we have read so far, it was not a bad thing to be black, but it wasn’t always the best thing. In this novel, being white is like being a leaper. She get made fun of by the black people. It is almost a warped version of what most people think.
I felt really bad for her when she lost her dress and then was made fun of by the new neighbors. The other thing that suprised me was that her step-dad was more attentive to her than her mother and then she goes off to say that she wasn’t going to like him. Maybe I misunderstood that, though.
First off I found this movie to have the same level of depth as did his article. There shots, colors, and readings; all got me thinking on a whole other level. I was particularly struck by the therapy sessions with the colonizers. In the end, it seems like they were feeling sorry for the things that they did to the people, but I don’t know if it was more of remorse than just of distaste. The one man, who was talking about how the people who resisted were given harsher punishments, said that it wasn’t his fault they made it harder for themselves. It was like he was justifying why he tortured these people, not like he was sorry for torturing them. At least, not to say that any of this was right, the one man thought about his mother dying to help cope with killing the lady. It was really stranger that also, the colonized were helping the colonizers to feel better. Can we say irony? When it came to the story of Fanon himself, and feeling like he was a part of a world that didn’t really feel the same way, was almost eerie. He was so willing to believe that he was just like these other people, till his world came crashing down. What if everyone had the same initial feeling of belonging, despite the color of a person’s skin? This somewhat reminds me of Hammond. He didn’t see himself, the way others did. Then there is the veiling issue. I really like the analogy that he was trying to make. The woman, because she is veiled is not to be messed with. Thus she is the least obvious to commit such a crime. But this is where a woman’s power goes underestimated. It is almost a timeless tale. The woman is seen as powerless till she kicks butt. But in the image of being powerless, she is able to go about kicking butt without being noticed or suspected. I really liked that scene. I think it holds a lot of truth.
Yesterday we had a discussion about the roles of women in the book. After reading the second part, I wonder if what we assumed was completely correct. Take the character of Ekwefi. First, she diobeys the Gods by running after her daughter, then we find out that she ran away from her first husband to be with another man. If I am no mistaken, those action usually result in severe punishment. At least that is how it went in societies where women were supressed. Another thing, is that more than half of the women in the tribe, including the wives of Okonkwo remain unamed (for the most part). Why is she different? I am not saying that all of the woman are allowed to walk around burning their bras, but it might be possible that they are given more freedom than it appears. The other reason could be that Ekwefi might be something important in this novel. Who knows.
Upon reading the first chapter, I was quite confused by some of the words. It wasn’t until the fourth chapter that I realized that there was a glossary for those words in the back. I really like the book so far. The detail is really strong and the stories are quite interesting. I do have one question though; what is a hattarin(sp)? I don’t know if anyone has seen the HBO series, Big Love, but this book kind of reminds me of it. Also, the drinking wine out of heads, is kind of unsanitary.
Smith
I am sure you are all waiting for me to bash the f/s situation again, but I don’t feel that it is an issue anymore. Plus, if anyone has seen Team America, the whole thing kind of reminds me of the Kim guy. I found this narrative to be contradicting of all the other narratives we have read. There is always a tale of hardship or something the slaves are running away from. In this narrative, the guy seems to know his stuff and used it to have a pretty decent life. Beside the people who constantly owe him, or his son dying, he was able to buy his freedom, his family’s freedom, and some of his fellow slave’s freedom. I also found it very nice of his to let the slaves go. He had been in their position and was giving them all that he was able to give himself.
Marrant
I found this one to be interesting but hard to follow.
Britton Hammond
At first I found him somewhat hard to read because every first s in each word was an f. Then it there was more than one s it would be written as an s. The first thing I noticed about the reading was the lack of description and details. The only thing I know about the Indians is that they had twenty canoes and they ate corn. Unlike Aphra or Ligon, I was left wondering what they looked like or any little detail to help imagine what they were looked like or even how they acted. The second thing was his writing was somewhat choppy. It was like he covered a year in a page. It almost reminded me of Lit of Resist, where we would cover a country’s history in five minutes. Lastly, I felt like it lacked a plot. It wasn’t really until the end that I understood why he was going on and on about all of his captures and escapes.
Also, I thought he got hit in the head with a bullet, not in the arm. Why then did he say he was disabled in the arm?
Olaudah
Although the intro was kind of slow, it did have a little more detail than Hammond. But the details were not as rich and deep as Aphra. I really liked how he stated that I didn’t care if anyone liked his memoir or if they enjoyed reading it. It was like he accepted that the memoir wasn’t going to excite everyone and he was okay with that. It made him easier to like. One thing I really liked was how it was divided into chapters with definitive intro so that I know what was next. We talked in class about how Oroonoko was slit up into chapters, but it left it up to the reader, where to draw the lines on where one chapter ended and the other began. There was no guessing in the memoir, which to me seemed a lot easier. The passage I like the most was the whole thing about poison and snakes. They would play with snakes that could deliver deadly poison in one bite, but made a seller kisses a product to make sure it wasn’t poisoned. I think they might have their priorities a little messed up. Kind of like the timeless idea of men being able to cheat on their wives but it she does it, then it’s off with her head.
This could be totally off, but it seems that the relationship that he has with the black mistress could somewhat parallel the relationship between the new world and the old. All of the beautiful things that she is wearing could be a symbol for all of the great things the new world has to offer. The black mistress could be the ships that bring back these great and amazing new things and Ligon himself is the people who see all these new wonderful things. But like most of the people who never get to have things such as jewels and lace, he never gets to talk to the black mistress. It is like they, in their lifetime, will never be able to touch or have these great things.
When I read the description of the black mistress, I felt like he was describing a Goddess. Everything sounded either lavish or “exotic.” She wore silk, purple, leather, and lace. I don’t know much of the fashion world of the 1600’s, but these clothes had to have cost a decent amount of money.
Then when Aphra was describing Oroonoko, she didn’t describe him insomuch of his clothes or dress, but more in the physical attributes. She seemed to fall in love with every little attribute she described.
In both readings, each character has this idea of what a black person is suppose to look like. The characters they describe are more beautiful than a typical black. Both use the example of the teeth. Ligon and Aphra thought that it was accustomed for the teeth to be yellow, but the mistress and Oroonoko, had beautiful white teeth. Also both never had anything negative to say.
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