Author Archives: ABDULLA AL SUDMAN

I feel like the best way that I could connect this situation in the story with our current life is that when I saw that people in Wuhan were dying, and saw the number increasing I had no meaning of those numbers because I was so far away. I randomly saw the numbers going up and sadly or surprisingly, I couldn’t connect that to the amount of lives or being lost. It felt like something that was for and then I didn’t know how it would or could impact my life. Yes, I do believe that being able to see something from far away can build a connection but it can easily create a distance as well. The narrator does her best to help the girl, she goes out of her way to assist in every way she can because she feels at that moment it’s significant for both of them. She wants to do her best to help the people that seemingly need it but she’s not emotionally invested, as much as Carle. She’s just seeing it from the perspective of the TV so she sees something that isn’t really real to her, but he on the other hand is experiencing everything as it happens. In front of his eyes he’s seeing a person slowly pass away. He’s able to empathize and connect with her in ways that nobody else can. And this is exactly what happened with us in the coronavirus. We understood that something bad was out there and that people were dying from it, but it was a distant problem so we didn’t know the importance of it. We only found out the potential of the pain and misery that it could cause after it got close enough to affect us. After we were able to see the pain first-hand. We were able to see the island in which the mass graves were dug, we saw the potential for our parks to become graveyards. That’s what gave it an actual meaning to us but before it was a distant phenomenon.

1. There are other moments that could be pointed out but I feel like the one that most clearly relates to race has to be the encounter in front of the school about busing. Twyla son’s is going to a school where they’re allowing buses with different race kids in the same bus. Roberta was protesting against this racial integration when Twyla drove up and confronted her. As the confrontation became heated Roberta accused Twyla of being the girl that hit Maggie, also the fact that Maggie was black. She’s trying to showcase the fact that Twyla was abusive towards your own people and the fact that she doesn’t have a right to be for integration if she doesn’t like her own people. From this confrontation you could tell that Roberta is white and Twyla is black. Although it initially seems like the races will be the thing that divides them, after Twyla makes a sign that states “IS YOUR MOTHER WELL?” The entire confrontation ends. This goes to show that it’s very easy to hate someone or despise their way of life when you don’t know who they are. When you are able to disassociate yourself from a certain person or race, you don’t have to share the burden of guilt when attacking them. But since Twyla and Roberta have known each other since they were child, it’s hard for Roberta to create distance between them. She probably felt guilty that she was showcasing her hate towards someone who is just asking how her mother is, it’s humanized Twyla in her eyes instead of being just another black person.
2. I feel like if you’re an immigrant especially at a young age to a completely modern country, you live two different lives inside and outside of your house. The cultures are so different that one way or another you have to be a version of yourself that you aren’t to reside within it. Especially since I’m from a small isolated country like Bangladesh that’s very conservative and religious, you have to act according to the strictures of society or potentially face being ousted from it all together. When your child your mind isn’t really formed about anything so when you live and was raised in a country like America with its liberal values and more open-minded thinking, but your parents are born and raised in Bangladesh where that is not the case, you become completely different people compared to your parents. You just can’t fathom the manner in which they think and it’s no fault of their own, those are the things that they valued and were taught to value. Whether those things hold racial connotations or any other ancient from thinking, you begin to feel really disconnected from them. In regards to race, the people in my country haven’t interacted with anyone that’s not Bangladeshi so they think they know something about someone when it is actually just a racist stereotype. Like when I was in Bangladesh recently, there was a guy off the street that asked me if black people were more aggressive and was I wary of them? When I first heard it I didn’t know what to say because I just couldn’t understand where he was coming from but then I just decided to say that they’re just people like us. I couldn’t be upset at them for being ignorant, for not knowing. That was a real question that they had and as a person that has interacted with black people, I was an ambassador for them for this person. And so the best things that we could do in regards to dealing with racial or cultural issues if you just understand everyone that’s around us. There’s no way to move forward with a closed mind. Life gets very lonely and painful if we choose to close ourselves off to anybody that doesn’t look like us or behave like us. Especially since we’re so privileged to be in a city that’s so diverse, the best thing that we could do is to embrace our surroundings and do our best not to contribute to the hate that would exist in this world.

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” by T. S. Eliot, is a great work because it comments in a person’s thoughts versus their actions. we as human beings tend to believe that we could do so much in our lives, that our abilities are endless and we have free will and whatever we do. But this poem showcases that’s not true at all. Prufrock has wishes of romanticizing and loving this woman that he has in his mind, to spend the rest of his life with her. This is the only thing that will make him content with life. He imagines every single location in which they could spend their time together. He probably has an idea of every single stage of their life together but he locks the ability to start it in the first place. He thinks of his inadequacies and stops himself from acting, that’s an upsetting aspect and also an honest aspect of the story. There’s so many people romanticizing so many ideas but unless we take the steps to get there, all those thoughts and all those ideas are completely irrelevant and worthless. We’re just procrastinating life without even realizing that it’s the case. This is a poem that is beyond time or era because it speaks to all generations. It’s human to feel weak, to feel inadequate so when you get a poem that showcases this inadequacy it’s so beautiful, it should be considered a great work then. It’s realistic, not everyone in the world thinks of something and acts accordingly every single day of their life. Who knows what kind of will that be if that was the case but it definitely isn’t the world that we live in. This is why I feel like this poem should be used as a form of motivation to control our own lives and see where we say we’re going to do something but in reality we’re just lying to results. Procrastinating on your job or your school work or any other thing is okay, most of the time, but procrastinating on serious life decisions that shouldn’t be okay. The main reason this poem is so impactful is because not only do we feel bad for the narrator but we get a sense that we could relate to them equally as much. We could replace ourselves with the narrator and they wouldn’t change the thing because we have all been in that same spot. This is why it’s so important and why it’s a great work.

What did you learn from this story that you did not previously know about life in Nazi concentration camps?

I knew that the Nazi concentration camps were horrendous but imagining them leaving their kids so they could potentially live a little bit longer seems like a decision that would break a person. It really makes you question if the people that existed during this time, had an ability to completely detach themselves from the situation. Humanity wasn’t an option, you just acted and didn’t question it at all. On top of that, I knew that there were a lot of people involved in this but the idea of kids or babies that were stomped to death somehow makes a horrible situation, even worse. This was one of the times in history in which humanity fell apart. When enough people do the same thing, we convince herself it’s okay or it’s normal. Even reporters who study hate groups for an extended amount of time, struggle to not normalize these ideas that these groups preach as time goes on.

A tall, grey-haired woman who has just arrived on the “transport” whispers, “My poor boy,” to our narrator.  What does she mean?

The gray-haired woman saying “my poor boy” is her way of sympathizing or at least attempting to understand the position that he’s in. She has lived long enough to understand when a person is a product of the environment. She doesn’t blame him for anything, she doesn’t see him as the center of all evil, she just sees him as a young boy taking orders. Any action that he has taken so far wasn’t his choice, and in a general sense I don’t think she blames most of the people that are there. She understands that this is how society works. Whether she likes it or not, the people that are in charge were doing the things they were doing because of the environment they were a part of. They were the product of the environment. Just this small moment showcased that she was one of the wisest people in the story, she blamed no one because everybody was doing the same thing.

“Are we good people?” asks our narrator.  What is this exchange about? What do you think?

Right after asking this question, our narrator goes on to say that how he only feels anger for the Jews and nothing else. I think this was a way of him trying to solidify the significance of the actions he took instead of questioning it. This is because if you question it, he will feel completely out of place and wrong. There would be no way for him to explain this to himself, so he just only adds to the negativity. And in my opinion, I don’t think the majority of the people involved in this are good people or bad people, they were just weak people. They saw something happening and that they were happy that it wasn’t happening to them. They were able to diffuse the responsibility and just take orders. Nothing seemed entirely wrong because everybody was doing it. It’s easy to let society take control of you, just to follow the path, especially if you went against it it would mean putting your life on the line. This is why I think there were no good or bad people in this, they’re just people.

Do you think that Gregor is more powerful BEFORE or AFTER his metamorphosis?  Explain your response.

I think Gregor is more powerful after his metamorphosis because he knows the truth about his family. He was a person that believed the best thing they could do was support his family. He was proud of being able to take care of them and being a provider. That ability genuinely made him happy. Although after turning to cockroach, he realized that his family did not hold the same level of support and loyalty as he did. Even though initially it seemed like they cared for him and loved him, that all faded away as time went on. They were okay with the fact that he had all the responsibilities and took care of them, but when the situation was vice versa that wasn’t true anymore. They only complained and felt sorrow for themselves because they have to do work. He was a burden, nothing more nothing less. So knowing the truth behind his family, knowing who they really are, made him more powerful. His life was miserable before the metamorphosis and after the metamorphosis. He had all the information needed to decide what way he wanted to go, sadly that was death.

Ultimately, what do you think Gregor’s metamorphosis means?  What does it mean to be transformed into a giant bug?

I think Gregor’s metamorphosis comments on how his family truly feels about him. Like if somebody does a lot of things for you, and one day he becomes something or someone that needs a lot of help would you do the same thing in return. Gregor was the sole supporter of the family, everybody relied on him. So when the time came for him to rely on everyone else, that was a true test for his family. The father was disgusted by him or disapproved of him throughout most of the story, the sister initially wanted to help him but then that fell apart as well, and the mother wanted to take care of her son but didn’t know how to. When the time came for them to stand up and take care of the family and Gregor, they failed. This led to Gregor thinking that whatever he did and was willing to do, would have never been done in return. So everything he was doing for a family that he loved and believed they felt the same way about him, fell short.

The story’s narrator is revisiting a place he once lived.  Explain the significance that this “revisiting” has in relation to the themes of the story.

The idea of this “revisiting” is important because it showcases the narrator’s surprise at what the place he once lived in has become. Near the beginning he stated “… from the landlord down to the waiter there was not a single person I knew—in ‘One Barrel House’ too I had become a complete stranger. Still I walked up the familiar flight of stairs in the corner of the room to the little upper storey.” Even though a lot was different from the people to the way the area looked, what remained the same was the old wine shop. So from this point of familiarity he tells the stories of how his old friend has changed as a person.  He used to be a person filled with activism and wanting to change but now he is just like everyone else. He just follows the commonly held beliefs like everyone else, and has lost all his spirit.

Explain the significance of the story about reburying Weifu’s little brother?

The story about reburying Weifu’s little brother is significant because it showcases the change that Weifu went through over the course of his life. At a young age, he was all about creating a revolution and moving away from the old ways. That was his sense of pride but that seemed entirely diminished when the narrator and Weifu was speaking, He seemed saddened by the world and following the paths of others instead of being the outlier that he used to be. In regards to the body of his brother, when he discovered that the casket was empty, he still continued and buried an empty casket again. He didn’t say anything or question why he was doing it, he just practiced filial piety. He just listened to his elder and did what he was told.

“Do I dare

 Disturbed the universe?

 In a minute there is time

 For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse”

(Line # 45-49 )

The way that I perceive the meaning of this passage, from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot, is that do I decide to do something if it potentially could be reversed. In other words, is there any point in doing anything at all if the outcome isn’t anything new. Is the risk of this action even worth anything? This is something that I admittedly have asked myself more times than I could count. And it has definitely worked in convincing me to not do something. This is why I find it so interesting, we never know what an outcome will be until we take it but taking that risk is the hardest part. You could run an entire simulation in your head that analyzes every single potential risk and every single potential outcome but they’ll never truly tell you what will really happen. And since I’m a pretty analytical person, questions like this is what has helped me back in the past. And this could be with anything, in this case it’s about love and passion but it could apply to anything that’s out of our comfort zones. But if we could tell the future then there would be nothing interesting to experience. And this is obviously a rhyme that speaks on why to disturb the universe, if the action taken could be reversed. Furthermore, this idea of questioning a potential action is the foundation of the entire poem. Prufrock is constantly questioning his own capabilities and likability just to even let a girl know that he’s interested in her. In his head, he’s making this the most important action he has taken in the entirety of his life. And this is something that most likely everyone in the world has done. In addition, getting nervous to talk to a girl is part of the foundation of growing up. Maybe the luckiest people in the world or the most confident person ever has never felt the feeling that he’s going through in this poem.

Eliot, T.S. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” 1922. The Norton Anthology of World Literature: Volume F, W.W. Norton & Company, 2012, p. 542.

Individual Analysis- Abdulla Al Sudman

In The Wine Shop, by Lu Xun, is the text that I can relate to because when you’re born in a different country and then you move to another one as a child, going back you see everything in a different light. As a child, you think the place you were in is perfect and ideal, in every single way but once you go back that’s when you realize nowhere is perfect. You begin to see that the social norms have aged poorly and a certain style of thinking can be taken in an offensive manner. They may hold beliefs that you disagree with immensely and completely dumbfounded by, but that what comes with a traditional society. That’s their way of doing things and it has been done that way for a very long time, so change comes very slowly. Of course, you like to go back to that place because you love it and it’s a part of you so you could never let it go entirely, not that you would even want to. Although, you get a new perspective of where you came from. So when Lu Xun goes back and is completely surprised by how things have stayed the same but some things are bad, I completely get it. It’s your home so of course you care for it but doesn’t mean that you don’t expect more from it. Certain things need to change and so you would hope that would happen sooner than later. Furthermore, when a culture is blocked off from the rest of the countries, it stays the way it is much longer and consequentially, doesn’t grow as fast. It’s easy to judge another country for living their life in a reckless and uncivilized fashion but it’s hard to admit that the way that you live your own life could be seen in the exact same manner. This type of surprise about your own culture only comes up when you go far enough away from it to understand these flaws. The people that came from it don’t understand how they may seem to the outside world, but when you become the outside world, you get a great understanding of the potential of the place you came from. And that’s what Lu Xun wanted to express.

Individual Analysis- Yanyan Chen

Reading Lu Xun is compulsory for me even I was only in the first grade of middle school. Lu Xun is hard to understand since his meaning is always beyond the text, requiring lots of knowledge in history, imagination and empathy. I remember that my middle school teacher spent a whole week in teaching us to analyze his single text Kong Yiji. I also remember that I only got 30% of the total points in a test about Lu Xun.

So, come back to the connection between In the Wine Shop and the world, I really appreciate Lu Xun’s attitude towards the life. Late nineteenth century and early twentieth century was undoubtedly the darkest period for China, but it was also a time full of hope, revolution, changes and great literatures. In fact, teenagers took on the responsibility of saving the country in old days by writing and spreading new ideas. It’s a prosperous time of novel ideas compared to China today. Arrogant people and governors in the Qing dynasty finally finds out that China has already been behind the development of the world for a long time and the country is too weak to defend itself from invasions. Thus, criticizing the government and generating suggestions is pretty popular at then. Lu Xun says, “May the Chinese youth don’t care about the cold look and just go up, not listening to the words from depressive people. If you can do things, then do things; if you can speak out, then speak out. Generate a little heat, emit a little light, like a firefly flickering in the dark. There is no need to wait for the torch. If there is no torch, then I am the only light.” (I just translate this part myself, because I didn’t find the English version on Google. I apologize for that if I have made any mistakes in translation.) Yes, of course, Lu Xun is not an optimistic person, rather, he is a pessimistic writer. But pessimistic doesn’t mean passive. Pessimistic is the highest status of positive from my understanding. He is pessimistic about China’s future because he knows how lagging we were, how corrupt we are. But he activity participates in the revolution and writing criticizing essays. Even there is no torch, he is willing to be “the only light” in the darkness. Perhaps that’s why he can write such great works.

Individual Analysis- Kevin Chen

Lu Xun’s “In the Wineshop”, reminds me of my early youth and the unattainable dreams that I once had. We all had a dream in our youth, only to realize how ludicrous they’re as we grew older. In Lu Xun’s “In the Wineshop”, the character Weifu shared a dream with the narrator of revolutionizing China when they’re still young and naïve, only realizing how unattainable it is growing up. The narrator’s encounter with Weifu in the wine shop is very significant because it marks both the beginning and the end of their dreams.

At early youth, my parents had always been preoccupied by work, my sole companion is the TV set I have lying in the corner of my bed. I was so fascinated by the world it introduced, that I tend to fantasize about myself as the protagonist of the show. As a child, I was very immature and resorted to violence when I failed to get my ways. I still recall having my mother come and pick me up often from school because I injured someone from my class again. I was very egocentric at that time, and I didn’t experience any remorse for my actions.

It wasn’t until I gained a broader scope of this world did the fire inside me eventually died down. I became the person I despise the most and developed a case of introvertism. I was very socially active in the past and now I get anxious just thinking about interacting with others. My past reminds me of the character Weifu, who is now “willing to let things slide and to compromise”. Perhaps it’s the realization of how insignificant we’re compared to the entire world that our blood runs cold. I am much like Weifu, we’re similar, yet different. I am still young, the fire inside me had diminished but not fully exhausted.

Life is full of surprises like Weifu once said “Has any single thing turned out as we hoped of all we planned in the past?” We cannot guarantee our success, but we can guarantee our failure. We cannot succeed without trying, at least there is hope if we do.

In the Wineshop Presentation Link

“Punishment,” by Rabindranath Tagore, and “Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass” both have the foundational sense of imprisonment in common. They both showcase a class that is disadvantaged and considered insignificant by the rest of the society. In “Punishment,” the two brothers Dukhiram and Chidam Rui are both part of a lower cast which is why they’re treated poorly compared to others. “…They were not paid normal labourers’ wages; indeed, they were paid mainly in insults and sneers.” Due to the fact that they were born into a specific group, they weren’t considered significant enough to be paid at all. The work that they did was considered worthless and the choice of payment was given to the people that are higher up in the system. This correlates immensely with the experiences of Frederick Douglass during the slavery era in America. During this time certain white Americans place themselves on a pedestal and imprisoned African Americans and black Americans for simply being who they are. It had nothing to do with what they did or for any other reason but it was simply because they were born into a system that was disadvantageous for them. Frederick Douglass stated that “were the slaveholders at once to abandon this practice, I have not the slightest doubt they would lead to an immediate insurrection among the slaves.” And in this, he is talking about the slave holders allowing the slaves to have fun and let loose during the Christmas holiday. The idea was that if you give them something good then they would not be as poorly affected by all the bad. For them it was a party, for the individuals in “Punishment,” it was the potential to earn some money. Both of these were heavily disadvantaged because society told them it was going to be that way at birth. And internally they knew that it was going to be like this until the day that they died.

I feel like this story, The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy, is very relatable especially due to our current circumstances. It speaks on how human beings naturally follow a specific path and for the longest time they believe that that’s the only path that should be taken. And this routine isn’t interrupted until a certain significant event occurs that makes them rethink everything that they did and the way that they did it. This event for Ivan Ilyich was his profound illness, which presented itself after his fall from the ladder. This illness is what led to him questioning the entire way that he lived his life. Ilyich thought about the way that he acted with his kids, he thought about the things that he desired, he questioned what he believed was important in the past. He was a person that held material gains very highly. He wanted to be one of those people that look like they had wealth. He did his best to present himself as a man of higher stature, but that held little importance when he was near his death. He realized that the things that he should have been paying attention to the most were right in front of them, it was his family. And seeing them cry in front of him, due to the idea that he was going to pass, made him feel that he probably did something right. This is something that I can relate to especially during this immensely disruptive and uncertain time. I’m the type person that stays home a lot and doesn’t like to go out that much. It’s not that I don’t want to have fun when I’m out, it’s just that I’m too lazy to leave the house in the first place. But after this long in captivity I’m generally beginning to question the way that I used to live my life. If you stay in one place and do nothing, you don’t have any genuine or important memories. Everyday feels the same and that’s not a good way to live life. Yes getting good grades and staying in shape are important things but they’re not what makes life worth living. If you allow it there’s a lot more to experience, which is why this text is so crucial during this time. It makes you question the way that you live your own life and see if there’s any real way to improve it. It makes you appreciate things that you would’ve never thought about in the past, the basic things are so much more valuable.