American Literature II

In The Sympathizer, a key attribute of the main character is his ability to view and understand something from various different perspectives of a given situation. I would like to expand on such ability and extend it to the historical time period of which the story surrounds, the Vietnam War. Upon reading about this historical time period, I discovered a book: A People’s History Of the Vietnam War.

One of the reasons that this book stood out to me is because it presented a perspective of the war, which differed from most historical textbooks that I’ve read. This was especially true in this book’s explanation of why the United States got involved in the Vietnam War. Most historical textbooks justify U.S. involvement by focusing primarily on what was going on in Vietnam. However, this book provided an alternative perspective, explaining that some of the reasons why United States got involved in the war were due to reasons that came from outside of Vietnam.

The book began by stating that at the time of the war in Vietnam, the United States was already heavily committed to anti-communist regimes in many other parts of the world, and a win for communist in one country can lead to a potential domino theory effect on the rest. Thus, when it looked like the communist were going to win the war in Vietnam, the U.S. became directly involved in attempt to stop that from happening. Also, the United States was facing a major domestic battle of socialism and the rise of labor unions within businesses. The government found anti-communism to be essential in weakening unions and socialism domestically. If the United States would stand by at allow for a communist victory in Vietnam, it would lead to weakened anti-communism  domestically, which is something that the United States wanted to avoid from happening.

As I write this, I am watching the Netflix show Dear White People(F.Y.I). And it makes me wonder, what is genuine sympathy. In the episode I am watching, the white students are constantly telling a black student how they are sorry that he was held at gunpoint. On top of this, the white students are always hinting that they stand with the black students by liking rap and making cultural references and more importantly that they are not racist. So the question I find myself asking: does this ambiguous narrator have genuine sympathy or is he a cultural appropriator who sees the hardships and sees the culture but is not in it. He immediately tells us that he has two faces and two minds. But he never tells us who he identifies with more, he just tells us that both groups do not accept him. But since the narrator is constantly referencing American culture( supermarkets, Elvis, and Twain) and not telling us about any Vietnamese culture, is he just like the white students in this show that solely pities a culture from the outside? He sees the hardships that the South Vietnamese face, he is even experiencing a fraction of it with the death of Linh and Duc, but is this as far as his genuine sympathies go? 

Reading the sympathizer I see that he has taking a new approach in writing by not adding ” ” to indicate that some one is talking . Which had confused me for a while because I was not quick on noticing it and thought it was just a book with no talking. The narrator of the book begins to where he is an aid to the General, but he is not just an aid in the Generals inner circle but a SPY!! DUNDUNDUNNNNNN!!!!! I thought it was going to be another boring school book but it turns out to have a lot more life to it compared to all the others (sorry).

Honestly I personally think it would be better as a comic book.

(click the gifs.. they work…)

As a confessional poet whose writing style is straightforward and easy to understand, I found myself enjoying Ada Limón’s work. To say I was elated with having to analyze her poems is an understatement because picking apart poetry and analyzing it is usually a daunting task as majority of the time it is hard to read and leaves me feeling confused, but that was not the case this time around. So, when reading the poem above several times, the first thing I noticed was how her choice of words played a significant role in making the reader feel a part of the conversation. You see her inclusion of the reader when she says, “Don’t you believe it?” because it is here where she captivates the reader and leaves them thinking of how to answer her question. This type of writing style plays in her favor because it makes her poetry more relatable especially in this instance, as she is conveying hope through this poem. The way in which she successfully depicts strength and fierceness is through female horses as they naturally hold those traits and can be looked upon as symbols of female empowerment. When Limón says, “they make it all look easy, / like running 40  miles per hour / is as fun as taking a nap, or grass” when referring to the female horses, she is shedding light on how they are capable of making the most difficult things look easy. Thus, bringing up how human females should learn from female horses because we need to learn how to push forward and take on the the animalistic strength and fierceness that these horses posses in order to push forward and ignite the fire to bettering ourselves. Therefore, Limón is bringing forth the hope needed to empower females by making both animal and human relatable in the sense that if a female horse is capable of doing such amazing things, then why can’t a female human do it too.

The narrator of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel calls himself a “sympathizer,” but what does he mean exactly?  What are the multiple meanings of “sympathize” that the text invites us to consider?  How does his role as a sympathizer complicate his identity, his ability to know himself?  How does it relate to his claim that he is a “man of two faces” (1)?  Choose a passage from the first three chapters that demonstrates the way in which the narrator’s sympathies work, and analyze it in order to explain what it means, in Viet’s view, to be a sympathizer.

1-2 pages, double-spaced. Due May 8.

You may also use the generic response paper prompt:

Response Paper Guidelines

After completing the novel, I am still unsure about who Beloved really is.  I’m pretty certain that she is not simply a woman who escaped slavery and coincidentally has the same name as the baby that Sethe killed.  From what  I can tell through Morrison’s writing, Beloved is more of a materialized otherworldly character.  However, I am on the fence about Beloved’s true identity.  Is she the manifestation of Beloved’s ghost or a sort of reincarnation of Sethe’s mother?  There is evidence that Beloved is Sethe’s dead baby, such as Sethe’s urge to urinate as soon as Beloved first appears at 124, and the scar under her chin in the place where the baby was killed. Yet there is evidence that Beloved could instead be representative of Sethe’s mother.  In chapter twenty two Beloved has knowledge of the passage from Africa to America that only Sethe’s mother would have, and then in chapter twenty six Beloved switches places with Sethe and takes on a motherly role.  Either way, if she supposed to be Sethe’s baby or her mother, Morrison uses Beloved to portray that the people can never escape their past, especially Sethe who has constant “rememories” of hers.

Excerpt from “Why is Beloved So Universally Beloved?”

While reading Beloved, I often find myself angry at the characters who cannot forgive or even sympathize with Sethe and her situation at 124. People who have also been through slavery and escaping it, ostracize Sethe for killing her daughter when Schoolteacher comes to bring her back to Sweet Home—but why are they so quick to judge her actions? Shouldn’t we praise her for pushing back against the institution that so readily enslaved her? Characters like Paul D. say that it wasn’t her only option, but wasn’t it? Could she have gone willingly with Schoolteacher and her children back to Sweet Home and then try to run again, yes, but would that experience and added trauma that she and the children would go through be worth it? There’s no telling what ottrocites would have happened at Sweet Home. Perhaps all of her children would have died or they would have become so traumatized by the incident that they ended up like Halle. Killing Beloved was a sacrifice for the family, a sacrifice for their freedom, a sacrifice for no more pain. By doing the most painful thing, Sethe finally frees herself and her family from slavery—it no longer can touch them. This moment reminds me of Medea by Euripides, a Greek tragedy, where Medea goes and kills her children as a last resort. These two moments are acts which are so unthinkable and so taboo to readers, but make perfect sense to the mothers, in fact they finally seem to have a sense of agency over their children. This may seem like a twisted way of thinking about it, but within the context of these two stories, the women’s children are not even legally theirs. According to society, they have no sense of ownership or motherhood over their children because of their status and background, but by killing their children, they can have the last word and do what is right by their motherhood. For women to judge and condemn their actions seems insensitive and shows a lack of understanding. I feel this inherent sense to defend Sethe and Medea because there is no one else who is willing to put themselves in that unthinkable situation. Of course they both live with immense guilt and pain after the fact, but their rash actions were done in a moment of complete instinct and survival, so it’s just as hard for them to process as it is us. It’s hard to picture what they went through, but we get no where closer to their thoughts by simply critizing them.

“Beloved” by Toni Morrison depicts the long-lasting and devastating effects that slavery has on African-Americans, physically as well as emotionally. The story takes place after the Civil War during the so-called period of Reconstruction. The story skips between a time when slavery was still existent in the South, and a time when former slaves were struggling to get used to their newfound freedom.

One thing that immediately stood out to me is the author’s habitual use of magical realism. Despite the numerous descriptions of supernatural events, the story never comes across as unrealistic or unauthentic. Fiction and reality merge seamlessly as all characters believe in ghosts, and their beliefs are a reflection of Afro-Caribbean spiritual beliefs and practices which were common amongst slaves at that time. Nevertheless, I think it is somewhat paradoxical that the character of Sethe would believe in ghosts as she is otherwise portrayed as a tough as nails and cynical woman. The ghost is not the only thing in the novel that show’s how the past is connected to the present. Sethe is constantly moving back and forth between the past and the present through her rememories that it seems like she is stuck in an endless loop of the same events.

An aspect that is very interesting is the impact that Beloved’s ghost has on the family’s life. To me it seems that the ghost itself is a representation of slavery. It wreaks havoc on the family’s life, and even led Sethe’s two sons to leave the family home. Thus, the ghost is responsible for the separation of the family just like slavery broke up countless families. In general, the character of Beloved is one that keeps me guessing. When she later appears as a physical form, she is suffering from health problems and has a hard time breathing. I think this is connected to the part in which Sethe describes holding her baby after its throat had been cut. While I can’t help but wonder how a ghost can experience health problems, I think it is another beautiful example of the author connecting the past with the present as well as her having an eye for detail.

Another detail that stood out is the author’s use of oxymorons such as “the old baby” which I think are intentionally used to confuse readers (Morrison 5). By ascribing unconventional adjectives to nouns, the author conveys to the reader the feeling of confusion and uncertainty which slaves must have experienced every day of their lives. Being treated like property they were unable to decide over their own body or fate. They could be sold any day and whole families were ripped apart. Morrison uses strong adjectives and sensory imagery throughout her novel which draws the reader into the story and makes him go through what the characters are going through.

Personally, I always have to like the characters and be able to relate to them in order to enjoy reading a novel. Even though Morrison’s characters come with a plethora of flaws, they are likable enough to make the novel an engaging read. I like Sethe’s inner strength and bluntness. I also appreciate Morrison’s bluntness, and that she’s not trying to sugarcoat the descriptions of slave practices. Of course, the tone is oftentimes very dark and depressing but in my opinion it is necessary if you approach a heavy topic like that of slavery.

Morrison is the first, and so far the only, African-American woman to win the literature’s most coveted award- the Nobel Prize. And Morrison is not like one of those writers that only devoted English professors know about. Morrison is a national treasure and as the Professor pointed out today- arguably the most important living American writer. And with her literature, you either love it or hate- there is very seldom in between. I have been a big fan of her ever since I have first encountered her short story “Recitatif”, before reading The Bluest Eye and Sula. But I didn’t want to read Beloved. Unfortunately I have seen the film, so I know the plot and the ending. But that is not the reason why Beloved was something that I wanted to hold on to. Morrison’s language, with it’s complicated syntax, picturesque lexicon and suspenseful rhythm, is not an easy read. I thought that in order to read a novel of such caliber, I needed to reach a certain literary maturity. The context of what she writes, no matter how brutal it is, is actually not the biggest challenge.

What makes Morrison’s writing so genius is her unique ability to place the reader into the mindset and the atmosphere of her stories without explicitly detailing every single experience. Her works make people feel the same emotions as the characters. Every time she recollects how the character was raped, or beaten, or punished, the readers are exposed to the character’s psychological open wounds, resulting in an extrasensory translation of emotions from page to mind. Morrison’s characters come to life not because of their overly meticulous descriptions, but of their energy that the writer pushes onto those who read her works. So far, we have read only a few pages, but we already have a very clear understanding of who Sethe and Paul D and Denver are, and their stories were not even fully developed yet. And the fact, that the title of the book is a sympathetic term that is usually used towards dead people helps to convey Morrison’s central focus- to bombard the reader with depression and misery, as her readers have a choice in not to read her book, but her characters, already written, have no choice in their lives and all of the generations of African-american ruined and traumatized by slavery have no escape from their circumstances.