ENG 375: Richard’s Blog

I didn’t like Wide Sargasso Sea the first time I read it and I was not expecting to like it the second time.  I was not surprised when my prediction came out true.  The book is actually written quite well, and has a lot to say about racism, but I just can’t ever get into it because of the frustration.

My frustration lies in the fact that people treat Antoinette’s family so badly and there is no retribution.  While I am not a vengeful person, I do feel that the way they treated her family was in any way warranted.

It is said my many critics and “experts” that non-whites cannot be racists due to colonial influence and the very concept of the “other.”  While I have never believed this even slightly, I wonder what Achebe’s assessment of Wide Sargasso Sea would be.  We see a blatant abuse, racism, and hatred from a colonized people towards the colonizer that makes us take a different approach than the previous texts.
Also, why does he start calling her Berta? This is never explained in the book.  It seems as though this could have been an independent story itself but wanted to link to Jane Eyre in order to get notoriety.

First let me say, that I really liked the way the film was done, the juxtaposition of narrative from people who knew Fannon, with the photos, old film and acted narrative worked to paint a compelling picture of Fannon.

From what I saw, Fannon’s view re-inforces the idea of the other we are talking about, especially when he talked about the reaction to him when he came to France to try to practice medicine.  Interestingly enough, he managed to pass on a lot of his beliefs to those around him in a very short time.  Even more amazing is that he died in his 30’s and managed to pass it on.

Although I do not agree with the defense of Fannon’s advocacy for the Muslim garb, I can understand that he thought it was fundamental in re-establishing a national identity.

I had never considered before this article that African nations would have to revert to a history before colonization.  We often assume that because a person has never left their country that they have stuck to the old customs.  But when traditions are interrupted by colonization, there must be a formula to get back to it.  What happens if the knowlege has dissapeared?

I had mentioned in class that every country is in disarray once the colonists leave, and it holds true over time.  Why is it that the colonizers always feel that the country they are coming to is “less civilized?”  It could go down to plain white superiority or even European superiority.

Another question this brings up is, is this the reason for the unrest in so many African countries?  The colonizers changed them, and then abandoned them to do things on their own with a culture that does not belong to them.  Because of this, a national culture has been so difficult to define.  But is it necessary to have a national culture?  Our country sure as hell doesn’t have one.  Must countries define themselves based on the color of skin or on motives and issues?

I think something we have to question at the ending of Things Fall Apart is whether Okonkwo’s suicide is a victory or defeat.  In a way, I look at it as a victory.  He was the last one not to compromise his morals and customs so that he could stick to what he was raised by and not adopt the white man’s culture, but he died at his own hand, which can be viewed as somewhat cowardly.  All that he had built with his own hands ‘fell apart’ in the end, so what other recourse did he have.

Even though I am against suicide, I am reminded of a story from Two-Fisted Tales I read when I was a kid, where two explorers are going through the Amazon and are accosted by natives.  The Natives torture the main characters friend to death, as he must listen knowing that the same fate will meet him in the morning.  So when it is his time to die he tells the chief of the village that he is immortal and can take any sort of pain or blow.  The chief calls his bluff, so he challenges the chief to get his sharpest axe and strike the back of his neck with it as hard as he can.  Sensing a challenge, the chief has one of his tribesman grab an axe and to the task.  Naturally, the main characters head is lopped right off killing him, but he wins, because there is no satisfaction of torture for the tribe.  He dies, but he cheats them their victory.  In the end we see a shrunken white head with a smiling face on it.

I think of Okonkwo in this same way.  He cheated the death at the hands of the white men and went out on his own terms, a final victory in the long defeat.

While many will read this novel and condemn Okonkwo, I see in his character many qualities that make us realize how much our society has fallen and how much it has improved.  We are always taken back when Okonkwo beats his wives, for this is something that we can never see a justification for.  He resorts to drinking when he needs to get over something and often his temper takes too much control.  On the other hand, is deft at keeping in touch with customs, even if he does violate peace week.

The death of Ikemefuna is by far the saddest part of the first half of the book.  It shows Okonkwo’s more passionate side that he struggles so much with the death of his adopted son.  It makes you wonder why they took three years to decide to kill him.  It also shows the stupidity of the customs they practiced, where trivial events come up out of nowhere.  It could be said this is a cultural misunderstanding, but in our Western society, thinking of killing someone out of thin air is considered insanity and not religious practice.

I still maintain that I do not get this novel.  Why does he say “the horror, the horror” before he dies.  What I do find interesting is the concept of someone being infected by a location as if the existence so far from civilization could have killed him.

The death of the driver of the boat seems a little sudden and pointless.  I definitely like the changes Coppola used when the Chief dies in the movie.

Also, for the first time today I edited a stub on Wikipedia, adding what I believed to be accurate things to a stub about the town of Kin in Okinawa. Here is a link to the stub if anyone is interested in reading it.  Hopefully they do not ban me from it as the information I wrote was all correct.  Kin, Okinawa

To be honest, I was rather confused by the first part of Heart of Darkness. Marlowe seems to be very vague about what is going on, and perhaps it is due to his character not divulging all the facts yet.  We hear contrasting things about Kurtz and don’t really have much of a clue what is going on.

I found the part about the one companion who keeps passing out quite funny, as well as the natives complaining about having to carry him.  One thing usually abandoned when writing about tropical climates is the adjustments that must take place.

Interestingly, we see the words “nigger” and “negro” both used and neither used in a derogatory manner.  I couldn’t tell any difference in situation when either was used.

The thing that stood out in this text was how many people do Venture wrong.  People seem to steal from him, cheat him, and disrespect him and he has no way of being able to deal with it within the realm of the lawl.  It shows how disenfranchised blacks were at the time.  He has to pay a fine because the person he is taking on in court has more money than him and can affored to pay lawyers untill the fee is paid.  He resigns himself to know that he will never recieve justice.  But through all this he never give up, which says a lot about the human will.

Since I am leading discussion tomorrow I will just post some things that people want to think about and that I will talk about during my discussion.

Is this a captivity narrative?  Explain why or why not?

How does Marrant compare to Hammon?  Does he identify himself similarly?  How do their narratives differ from those of other narratives we have read in the past week?

Are there any traces of the exotic?  How might the Indians fill this role?

Even if this is a captivity narrative, doesn’t religion play a larger role?  Did anyone sense a connection to biblical stories within this text?

The word “Negro” is never mentioned in the text other than the title.  We saw this in Hammon’s text also.  What might this indicate about Marrant’s self-identification?

Once again we see a black person in the North, just as in the Hammond text. And once again, we see him suffering less than most blacks in the north.  What might this say about northerners’ treatment of blacks at the time?

John Marrant never says he was or was not a slave.  In my reading it looks as if he was always free, even when they DID move south.  Did anyone else find it odd that white families (or I assume they were white) housed him even though he was a black man in Indian garb?

Although he is not a slave literally, he is figuratively as on page two he calls himself a slave to every vice suited to his nature and to his years.  We should discuss this.

What does the playing of the horn represent to you?  What biblical connotations could this have?  Is it a metaphor for the horn of the devil?  Is this why it causes Marrant to be struck down when he is in the church?

How difficult is it to believe Marrant’s accounts of conversion?  Is there a possibility that he was so charismatic as to actually be able to convert people?

This is one of the few texts we have read where no one is enslaved, yet were they enslave before Marrant found them? Would he have seen their former non-Christian lives as enslavement?

The narrative is by far the most adventurous of the ones we have read, with Equiano going from a native to a slave to a sailor in three chapters.  In the beginning, he mentions the slaves of Africa almost as if they were a different social class, but it reminds us that the Africans were just as guilty of enslavement as the rest of us, but they did not seem close to as cruel about it, as slaves in many of the tribes were almost like extended families. And some slaves had slaves of their own but this also points out to the civilization that existed in Africa.  He mentions the markets they would shop at.  His people marketed their goods and purchased others.

An important part of the story is when Equiano points out the Spaniards who had African characteristics and how hypocritical it was for them to call Africans inferior when they had people who were basically African decent living in their own country. On a side note, much of southern Europe gains their olive skin color from intermingling with Africans, especially during the invasions of the moors.

When Equiano goes to the coast he sees the Africans who are more thoroughly affected by colonization, who have forgotten their roots.  It reminds me of how the colonies of the English fair after they leave them.  Even today, former English colonies have a hard time being something other than third world.

The most compelling thing about this story was Equiano’s fear of the unknown.  It seems that through most of the story he is not able to communicate with those around him or is being bought or sold to someone else.  It is difficult to imagine the fear that he must have gone through as a child with his parents so far away from him and his going at it alone.  It puts things into a good perspective, because most people aboard the ships must have been as terrified as he was and it is evident by the fact that many of them would rather die than go to the destination.