The Kite Runner

Currently, we are reading/watching the novels "The Kite Runner," and "A Thousand Splendid Suns". Both films talk about the relationships between children and their parents. "The Kite Runner" discusses the relationship between fathers and sons and "A Thousand Spledid Suns" talks about the relationships between mothers and daugthers. All the while, both novels also intergrate the culture of Afghanistan and the government during this time. I think it is interesting that we have been reading stories that give us insight into how other cultures work and live and it really has given me a new understanding of these cultures. "The Kite Runner" focuses on a young boy named Amir, and his relationship with his father and with his childhood friend Hassan. Amir is a timid boy, who can be seen as weak and delicate, like the way that one might describe a young girl. His father hates this because his father is a strong business man and wants his son to follow in his footsteps and be a strong-willed, competive young man. However, whenever Amir finds himself in a situtation like older boys coming up to him and threatening him or picking on him he remains quiet and doesn't stick up for himself doesn't try to fight the boys or scare them off. In contrast, Hassan always has Amir's back, and is always protecting the both of them and sticking up for Amir in these situations. For example after him and Amir won the kite race, Hassan when to go catch the kite as a souvoneir for Amir. A group of older boys corner him and attack him in a corner and threaten him in order to try to get him to hand over the kite, but he refuses out of loyalty to Amir. Consequentially, The olders boys rape young Hassan, which impacts him harshly, but he never says a word about it to Amir. However, Amir witnessed the whole thing but acted like he never did and from that day on he started treating Hassan like an enemy. Up until this point I had thought they were friends.

The Namesake

"The Namesake" by Jumpa Lahiri was by far my favorite text that we have read for the class. The novel is about an Indian couple Ashoke and Ashima leaving their native country of India to come to America for a better life full of opportunities. The couple has two children, Gogol and Sonia. Gogol is the first born, a son who his father decides to name after an author of a book he was reading the night of a train accident that changed his life forever and kept him alive. Throughout his life Gogol has a hard time dealing with his name even when he decides to go by his "good name" as Nikil. Gogol first loses his public name in grade school because he prefers to be called Gogol, but throughout the years of kids teasing him and people asking him what his name means he decides to go by his good name, Nikil and legally changes it. I don't think he ever really lost his pet name even at the end of the story when his mother decided to leave for India and he realized none of his relatives would be around to call him Gogol. I think in his heart he always knew he would be Gogol. In relation to this story we also read a short story called "The Overcoat" by Nikolai Gogol. This story ties in with "The Namesake" because it is the story that Gogol's father was reading the night of his train accident. If it wasn't for the fact that his father had been reading, he would've probably been asleep and lost his life. "The Overcoat" also ties in with this story because both stories deal with the meaning behind a name. I think a name is like an overcoat because we all have one, our name is specific to us, it defines who we are and there is a story behind every name. Everyone may have an overcoat but how each person wears it is different. Not all overcoats are the same; some are styled differently and made out of different materials. Names are similar in the fact that not everyone has the same name and people who do have the same names are derived or inherited differently. “We all came out of Gogol’s overcoat” (Lahiri 78). I think this means that by our names, we all have a story to tell, something that makes every individual unique.

Che Guevera's Motorcycle Diaries

I really enjoyed the film the "Motorcycle Diaries" and learning about the history of Che Guevera. Before watching the film in class, I had never heard of him so I found the class discussions and the film to be very insightful. Watching the film and seeing Guevera and his friend Granado embark on this journey of traveling from country to country was interesting to see how Guevera developed as person after visiting each place. In class we learned that some people see this novel as a bildungsroman. A bildungsroman is referred to as a "coming of age" kind of story. In my opinion I definitely saw this text as a bildungsroman as well. This trip that he and his friend Alberto Granado embark on started off as something exciting and just for fun. However, as they began their travels and met different people in different areas, they came to realize that the world was so much more than what they were used to. Both men came from upper middle class families, Guevera was a medical student and Granado was a biochemist. They decided to take some time off from their studies and go on this trip, not really knowing what they would find. As they come to different countries and towns they meet several people that are not of their class, these people are poor. Coming from a class of the “haves” or otherwise known as the people to be and suddenly meeting a bunch of people that don’t look like you or live the way you do, the “have-nots” or the outcasts, was shocking to these men. As their travel continued and time carried on and they were interacting with more poor and sickly people, they decided to use their knowledge and background to help them and treat their illnesses the best they could. One example of this is when the men were traveling and came across an old man and his wife. The old man had a big lump protruding out of his neck that looked like a cancerous tumor. Guevera proceeded to tell the man that he was seriously sick and had a tumor but Granado was trying to tell him that it was not necessary to tell the old man this. From this scene I think it was one of the first times where we began to see Guevera maturing and really thinking about others and the bigger picture, rather than the world he came from. At the end of the film I think we see Guevera's his development come full circle when he is in the Leper Colony and chooses to live amongst the poor rather than stay on the island with doctors and nurses. He also makes a speech about how much he has learned from the course of his journey and from the people he has met in the Leper Colony and that he wanted everyone to be united. He realized that they were all the same people, regardless of lighter skin/darker skin, poor/rich and when he realized this and made that speech at the end of the film I think he had came out a more mature person than he was when he first went into it.

Native and Latin American texts: "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings" and "Yellow Woman"

After reading this text by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I found it very confusing so I had to go back and read it a second time. I think it is interesting that the title of this short story is very literal of the main character in the story. It makes me wonder was this character really an angel, or was he just some abnormal figure, literally an old man with enormous wings? This story is centered around a family. One day when getting rid of crabs, a man named Pelayo discovers a dirty and ravaged old man lying on the ground, covered in mud. Pelayo notices that this man has something unsual protruding out of his back that looks like wings. Not sure of what to do, Pelayo and his wife, Elisenda seek help in an old neighborhood woman who informs them that this man is an angel who had come for their sick child. The news about this mysterious creature quickly spread throughout the town as people come to their house and are eager to see it. People are constantly poking at it, asking it questions and trying to get it to do tricks, all the while the man with enormous wings just sits there, trying to ignore them and not to be bothered and with people coming to see this attraction Pelayo and Elisenda profit from it, making money. Luckily for him a new attraction comes into town and draws the people's attention. This creature is known as "Spider Girl" and everyone started to leave the old man alone because spider girl was attentive to them and entertaining them with the story of how she ended up that way. Slowly but surely, the old man starts to regain his strength and he begins to realize there is no longer a reason for him to stay. So, one day he begins to try to use his wings to fly off and is successful. All the while Elisenda is watching him and from the story, we gathered that she is relieved. I think one of the possible themes for this story could be how human life reacts to life's miracles. Often times people take things for granted and have a tendency to move on to something else once they become bored with something. "Be careful when you entertain strangers as you may be entertaining angels unawawares." This quote from the movie made about this story definitely contributes to what I think about the story. Many people in the story just thought of the old man as an odd looking creature not really knowing or thinking of him as an angel. I think this can be applied to real life because every day we meet new people and interact with different people and think nothing of it but their can be a part of God or an angel in many people that we interact with we just don't know it.

"Yellow Woman" by Leslie Marmon Silko is a story about the Laguna Pueblo culture and an old folk tale told about someone known as a "yellow woman". In this story and culture, a yellow woman is known as a female fantasy. She is seen as a heroic and sexual figure that protects her people with heroism and sexuality. This character is also known to have both femal and male traits being aggressive as well as desirable. In this story the narrator tells a tale of her encounter with a spirit known as a ka'tsina and how she leaves her domestic life at home with her husband and family and embarks on a passionate love affair with this ka'tsina whose name is Silva. Throughout the text Silva refers to her a "yellow woman" and the continue to have one passionate encounter after another, not really getting to know each other. After reading this story I felt as though none of it was real, the narrator was not really a yellow woman and that the whole story was a fantasy made up in her head. The narrator is irresponsible and lives in a fantasy world and has been told the story of the "Yellow Woman" by her late grandfather so I think this was just based off of one of her fantasies conjured up in her head. In the end of the story she returns to her family telling them that she had been kidnapped by a Navajo.

Post Colonialism

"Things Fall Apart," by Chinua Achebe was an insightful text about the rise and fall of a man and his tribe, as well as the whole culture. From history we have learned that the British cam to African colonies and started a mass reform over the people. Some British leaders tried reform in a "nice" way be trying to befriend the Africans at first, but for the most part British colonization was harsh on the Africans. They didn't understand who these strage people were, coming into their lives speaking a different language and looking the complete opposite from them. It didn't make sense to them as to why they should follow what the British were telling them. These people (the Igbo Culture) had a strong sense of community and way of doing things that they were accustomed to. However religion is  a powerful thing and when the white settlers came into their land and started preaching to them about their religion called Christianity, slowly but surely many of the Africans started converting and the rest started to convert as a means of survival. I think the term "Survival of the Fittest" fits well into this novel because during the colonialization, the Africans basically had to assimilate from their way of life into what the British were teaching them or else they would have to suffer the consequences, many times meaning death. The main character in this story was a man by the name of Okonkwo. Just as his culture had began to rise and fall, he himself suffered through the same process. In the beginning of the story we as readers see Okonkwo as this big, strong leader of his tribe that people would never dare to go against. He was a respected man throughout his culture and had fought many fights to earn the respect that had been given to him. When the white settlers began to come in and start the colonial reform process Okonkwo was not one to back down. He had a hard time seeing what was being done to his people and hearing the stories of other tribes that had been massacred by the white settlers. When everyone else was starting to either convert or decided that they weren't going to fight back against the British men, Okonkwo was the only one that still had it in him to fight for what he believed in. We see this towards the end in a scene where Okonkwo shoots one of the white men in a crowded seen and realizes that none of his peers are going to help him, so after shooting the man he retreats back and ends up hanging himself on a tree behind his house. I think in this final scene, in my opinion I felt as though Okonkwo had felt defeated which led to his decision to kill himself. In the begining of the story I didn't like Okonkwo because he was always so angry and brutal, it was hard to empathize with a charcter who didn't seem to have much of a heart. However towards the end of the story when it became clear that Okonkwo wasn't really understanding what was happening, the colonial reform that was taking place was much bigger of a force than he could ever be and people didn't have as much respect for him or feared him as they once did I started to feel slightly sorry for him. The ending was definitely surprising for me I did not think he was going to kill himself, but I do thing his suicide symbolized the strength one group of people can have over another.

WWII Texts

This past week, we were assigned to read three texts over the WWII era and the Holocaust. "I Never Saw Another Butterfly" is a poem written by a child out of a series of collections from Volavoka. "The Shawl," by Cynthia Ozick is a short story that is about one mother's struggle to keep her child alive. Lastly, "Ladies and Gentlemen, To the Gas Chamber" by Taduesz Borowski is a story from a worker's point of view.

In Ozick's "The Shawl," the shawl is considered a magical shawl because it is the only source of nourishment Rosa's baby, Magda receives. Rosa is the main character in the story along with a girl named Stella and baby Magda. The story takes place during WWII and they are Jews at a concentration camp, under Nazi rule. They are trying to survive day in and day out, however due to the treatment they are under their bodies have become weak and Rosa can no longer breast feed Magda. Magda is constantly wrapped up in a shawl by Rosa and is constantly sucking on it like it is milk and it gives her a sense of contempt. Ironically, the shawl has a scent of cinnamon and almonds.

I think the most signifcant way to celebrate the human life and the strength of humans in Ozick's story is highlighted at the end when Rosa is reacting to Magda's death. "She only stood, because if she ran they would shoot, and if she let the wolf’s screech ascending now through the ladder of her skeleton break out, they would shoot; so she took Magda’s shawl and filled her mouth with it, stuffed it in, until she was swallowing up, the wolf’s screech and tasting the cinnamon and almond depth of Magda’s saliva; and Rosa drank Magda’s shawl until it dried." I think by Rosa drinking Magda's shawl until it died was her way of celebrating Magda's life and as much as she wanted to run to the electric fence where Magda was thrown, she held herself back because she knew if she did, she would die. I think that represents her strength.

In "I Never Saw Another Butterfly," the imagery and the symbolism of the yellow butterfly described is so significant because it was something so simple, a part of nature that most people got to see everyday. However, when you are in a concentration camp, you lose sense of the simple, beautiful things in life because they are no longer there.

"The last, the very last,

So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow."

 I think the fact that the poems were written by the young children of the Holocaust is heartbreaking and makes the reading more somber to read, knowing that these children's lives were stolen from them.

"The Fly"

Mansfield's short story "The Fly" is about a man who is referred to as "the boss" and the impact of his son's death on how it has affected him as a person. An old man by the name of Mr. Woodfield who works with "the boss" stops by on a Tuesday, which is noted because it is the only day he is allowed to go out in town since his wife and daughters try to keep him at home since he suffered a stroke. He goes to visit "the boss" and as they get to conversing, Mr. Woodfield tells him about how his daughters saw his son's grave the other day. This brings up old wounds in "the boss" as it has been 6 years since his son's death from fighting in the war, (WWI) perhaps. Not really knowing how to cope with remembering this memory, he has become a bitter, numb man and is unable to cry even though the thought of his son makes him want to. He had big dreams for his son one day, he was hoping his son would be able to take over the business for him. But since that dream was cut short, he was forced to move on and represses those memories he had of his son. After Mr. Woodfield changes the subject briefly, "the boss" says his farewells and ushers him out of his office. He starts to reminisce about his son and how he used to be before he went off to war and is flabbergasted that is has been 6 long years since he received the news of his death. All of a sudden he spots a fly, and begins dropping ink droplets on it. He does the four times and after each time encourages the little guy to make his way through the ink and get up again to try to survive. By the fourth and final droplet, the fly had sucumbed to death and the old man could not remember of what he was thinking of before his thoughts surrounded this fly.

Here is a lists of details from the story that I think reference to WWI:
- His son's grave was in Belgium, Germany which was a country that was involved in WWI
- When thinking about his son, he thinks of him being unharmed in his uniform
- The picture he had of his son was one in which his son had a cold, stern look in his face ( an expression he didn't have before the war)
- When receiving the news of his son's death, he recieved a telegram that read "we deeply regret to inform you..." ( that's how people found out about their loved one's death back then)