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Long Live the Roots

A great work of literature is one that insightfully challenges contemporary conflicts in a creative and artistic style. Tayeb Salih’s short story, “The Doum Tree of Wad Hamid,” translated from the Arabic by Denys Johnson-Davies, deserves recognition as a ‘Great Work’ of literature. The short story is simple, yet complex, in its welcoming, yet abrasive, design.  The use of the narrator, a well-aged village native, speaking to a visitor, you, establishes a relationship between text and reader. The personal relationship between the wise speaker who speaks on behalf of the village is like the wise author speaking on behalf of his work and protecting his culture; and the uneducated tourist who is foreign to the land, who is only visiting for one night, is literally you, the reader.  The narrator uses a sort of reverse psychology to invite you to stay. He does not believe you can handle the hardships of residing in the village. He does this by telling tales of previous tourists who could not bear the harsh reality of just one night in the village.  Telling stories of previous visitors is a brilliant trick to entice the listener as well as teach. The narrator also does a precise job of identifying you, my son, and your tendencies. The text states,  “No doubt, my son, you read the papers daily, listen to the radio, and go to the cinema once or twice a week. Should you become ill you have the right to be treated in the hospital, and if you have a son he is entitled to receive education at a school.”  Although these interests may seem like necessities of modern life, it is more practical to identify them as, in a few sentences,  the demands of an individual in an industrial society. I believe it is ‘great’ that the old-aged narrator has the ability to, still, identify a tourist sixty years later. It is ‘great’  because, since publication in 1960, the description of the tourist has not changed and yet still remains accurate. 

Recitatif Group Presentation link: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/128vTUs2BMg8BjinRXrh4HOFTHHG0wpsJTaJLUbZMiKw/edit#slide=id.p

“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.

The Doum Tree of Wad Hamid by Tayeb Salih in my opinion is great work. The narrator of the story is an old man from Wad Hamid who is speaking to a stranger who happens to be visiting this village and the old man talks to him about this village. He tells the stranger that this village is not a place people would like to stay, and it’s uncomfortable but this uncomfortableness is what the people from this village are willing to accept and endure. They don’t want to be comfortable because this difficult place they lived in is natural and it’s what gives them strength. This reminds me of the idea of living in New York City, where the saying goes, “if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.” This is something that I truly believe because as I have lived in New York City for all my life, although it is a city and it’s not necessarily natural, it toughens one skin.  You experience everything in New York City, from the good, the bad, and the ugly. Just think about it, living in NYC you have all walks of life, you experience all behaviors, crisis, anything you can think of, and one’s experience of life is multiplied and amplified because of the diversity, the culture, and interactions on a day to day basis. I remember this one comedian’s joke who said, New Yorkers are so proud, and when someone new comes into this city they are not really considered a New Yorker, but if a homeless man happens to cough in their mouth in the subway they should be allowed to call themselves a New Yorker, that is at least five years of experience right there. That is something that I would have to agree with if one experience traumas like those and survive you get a pass. From the story the narrator stated to the man, Tomorrow you will depart from our village, of this I am sure, and you will be right to do so. What have you had to do with such hardship? We are thick-skinned people and in this we differ from others.”(p.817) That is something I can relate with as a New Yorker, in which the city creates our thick skin and many people from other states and around the world misinterpret or misunderstand us as to say stereotyping New Yorkers for being mean, angry, or rude but in reality, you have to be this way in order to survive the concrete jungle. New Yorkers are compassionate to those who deserve it, are tough through difficult situations and it’s really hard to fool a New Yorkers because we know when someone is trying to swindle us or take us for fools. That is why if you have lived in New York and survived, you can survive and live anywhere or make it anywhere because here you will experience the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, that will at least give an additional twenty more years of wisdom and experience on top of your age. 

I also enjoy that this story talked about the theme of modernity and naturalness, similar to new age vs tradition. In which the man asked the old man does he think that one day the doum tree will be cut down? This is a possibility because there’s been such a ruckus over this tree for cutting it down and allowing it to be a stopping place for the steamer. The old man replied, “There will not be the least necessity for cutting down the doum tree. There is not the slightest reason for the tomb to be removed. What all these people have overlooked is that there’s plenty of room for all these things: the doum tree, the tomb, the water-pump, and the steamer’s stopping-place.” This reminds me of the idea some people have sometimes about life being a zero-sum game. As to say that we all share from this pie when it comes to income inequality, where one percent owns the majority of the pie. My concern isn’t with the big piece of the pie that the rich owns and everyone else gets scraps, that’s to say I’m not interested in the rich’s money, but that it is possible to create more pies, that we all do not have to share from one pie, and these days, almost everyone and anyone have the capability to accumulate wealth and satisfy their needs.

The Doum Tree of Wad Hamid was honestly my favorite text in this whole course as well as a true great work in literature. I have always had interest in Middle Eastern studies , even though not being Middle Eastern myself. The reason is because of all the rich history and culture the Middle East and North Africa have. But reading the ‘The Doum Tree of Wad Hamid’ it is clear that many of these countries had the foreign influence through colonization and was being stripped of it’s culture and way of life which I stated in our class. It is similar to how America, England and other treat the Middle East now when we go in to start wars we don’t even have apart in. As well as, inserting leaders that cause destruction for these countries and just implementing different heads of power as if these peoples lives are just chess pieces. These countries are losing their people daily look at Palestine, Syria, Libya and many other countries. Those countries are having these wars and their homes are being destroyed because of our governments. They are not just chess pieces that are people. When the narrator in ‘The Doum Tree of Wad Hamid ‘ said “When my son’s son passes out of school and the number of young men with souls foreign to our own increases, then perhaps the water -pump will be set ip and the agricultural scheme pit into being- maybe the the steamer will stop at our village under the doum tree of Wad Hamid”.  What the narrator means in my perspective is that if his town is to change , he wishes that is changes once the generation that has lived there at the current time has passed on so that they do not have to go through their home having a total reformation and change all in one shot. Once the foreigners over lap to number of people native to that town. When their lives are completely different to the way the town used to be before the English came, before the innovation before there way of life was turned upside down.

Text-to-World connection –  Individual Assignment by Jeremy R.

Recitatif by Toni Morrison tackles the topic of racial identity in which from the beginning of the story it is clear that the color of one’s skin is apparent to one’s self-awareness through the narrator Twyla, with her experience staying at an orphanage. It is surprising that from a young age when Twyla stayed at the orphanage because her mother was busy dancing all night, she was fully aware that St. Bonny housed all these other kids coming from different backgrounds and she could distinguish their race or ethnicity, such as the Puerto Ricans, the Upstate Indians, Koreans, blacks, and whites. Twyla’s awareness reminds me of The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B Du Bois when he talks about double consciousness, of being aware that he’s American but also aware and constantly reminded by other people especially white people, that he is black. Twyla is reminded who she is because she’s ignored by the other group of kids because she was different not only because her mother was not dead, but because of the way she looked. The only person who seemed to not ask questions or maybe not those kinds of questions of “race” was her new roommate, Roberta. When Roberta first met Twyla she didn’t seem to care that Twyla was different from her and they both bonded even if they looked like salt & pepper together as Twyla pointed out because that’s what the other kids called them. Du Bois famously said, “The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.” This was to say that the color line is the divide between races and this was instituted and solidified by slavery. After slavery was abolished after the American Civil War, it took into different forms that still divided blacks and whites such as Jim Crow laws. For example, bans on interracial marriage and separation between races in public and places of business were also common parts of Jim Crow. This divide is what causes a lot of conflicts throughout the 20th century especially between the African Americans and the White Americans who have to share the nation but the many white Americans would not fully accept blacks into their lives or let them fully integrate into society. The irony is that the African Americans did not ask to come to America yet they were forced into labor and accepted as slaves but once slavery was over their lives were still miserable and how could millions of blacks leave the country? So the solution to this problem was to legalize the divide. As the divide was being perpetrated by the law, after the violence and the injustices were becoming more visible from this invisible divide, the outcry started, the blacks were fed up and stood up for themselves just as they rose to end slavery. This was the continuation of the African American experience with their struggle for freedom as we have read previously from the autobiography of Frederick Douglass. This was the conversation for many years after Douglass, as to what many Americans were starting to realize as Abraham Lincoln believed, that slavery was morally wrong. The battle for freedom wasn’t over because blacks and other minority groups were not being treated equally in society as to the white Americans who were superior. It took marches and protests, and it took strong leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. to organize people, convincing the public to share his dream to make an end of racism. 

“When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every city and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last, Free at last, Great God almighty, We are free at last.” -Martin Luther King Jr. 

Please respond to the following two questions about Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif.”  Your responses should be posted to the blog by Wednesday, May 13th.

1.  Choose a moment in “Recitatif” in which you see the issue of race enter into Twyla and Roberta’s story.  Describe the moment, and explain what you think seems to be going on.  What issues seem to divide the two characters?  Can you identify their racial identities? How?
2. Toni Morrison’s story explores the challenges of navigating racial/cultural/and socio-economic differences in our personal relationships.  Reflect upon an experience in your own life when you have had to navigate differences of this sort.   Describe the experience. What issues or complications arose?  How were they resolved?

Among all the great works that we have read this semester and, in my opinion, even among all the modernist texts that we have read so far, I feel that Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis is indeed a great work and is one of the best thus far. Not only does it check points off the guidelines for being a great work since it delivers a message that is both relevant then and now, which reflects the burden of responsibility and sacrifice, but it also uncannily matches the weird situation we are in now.

While it doesn’t contain significant arguments for debate as compared to Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich and ageless “At least it wasn’t me!” sentiment, Kafka’s novella still packs a punch with Gregor and his transformation into a giant bug. His and his family transformations and the way the people around him reacted, are some of the ways in which the text puts itself on top as a great work as they are analogous to the current COVID-19 pandemic.

In that case, I feel that Gregor’s giant bug metamorphosis predicament could be the same as China’s struggle. Even in the early onslaught of the coronavirus, people are quick to judge and shun Asian people, specifically the Chinese, for simply because their appearance added by the burden of carrying the blame for the spread of the virus, the same way the characters in The Metamorphosis felt disgust against Gregor. As a domino effect, people are quick to reject the Chinese and their establishments, such as their restaurants, because of the fear that the food prepared might be carrying the virus. It is in this way, I believe, that Gregor’s metaphorical death could be said the same for them. It led us to enforce a stay-at-home order and keep a good distance from others, which we feel are for the better, the same way Gregor’s family believed that his death was for the betterment of their lives.

On the other hand, I feel that Grete’s caring nature is what also makes this text a Great Work as it evokes a feeling of reassurance. Throughout the story, despite other people’s rejection against him, Gregor always had his sister by his side. As an analogy to the present time, I feel that Grete is comparable to our healthcare workers who struggle to do their best in taking care of the infected people while also looking out for themselves. Like the people who have had to suffer losses due to the virus, I think that it would have been easy for Gregor to feel the need to kill himself due to the prejudice he experienced, but fortunately, his sister Grete was always there for him.

In the end, in these trying times, I believe that we should all be Grete and extend a helping hand.

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

The woman understands the harsh reality the narrator must go through, even though his situation is far off better than hers. The woman acknowledges the dehumanization of being forced to unload the prisoners and send them to gas chambers and then scrape off the corpses off the train. She leaves the context of war and sees him as just a young boy instead.

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

The narrator is conflicted. He knows he has no choice but to proceed with what the Nazis has ordered him to do. He is aware that the situation is out of his control. However, the guilty conscience still creeps upon him. He cannot deny the fact that he got blood on his hands just like the Nazis. Though he has expressed that he does not feel bad for the Jews at all, he eventually starts to question his morality. In my opinion, a person should not be held against things they have done while their personal wills and freedom are at stakes.

Explain the significance of the story’s title, “This Way to the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen.”  What seems strange about it?

The title plays with irony to convey how automatic the procedure of unloading the prisoners and sending them off to death is. It is strange because one would assume there will be at least some type of resistance from the prisoners if they know they are on their ways to die. However, all the narrator sees is conformity.

Upon the conclusion of my first semester at Baruch we have came across some exciting texts as well as many great works. Although this course wasn’t completely what I imagined in distant learning and literally being trapped in my house, I have made the most of it and gotten as much as I could from these texts, and also have gained knowledge I hadn’t previously had and can incorporate it in my future learning days at Baruch, but also my everyday life. We have read many great works throughout course, but the great work which I will discuss is, “The Metamorphosis.” I do feel this is a great work and let me tell you why. Metamorphosis deals with several factors such as a sudden change in life, but dealing with these circumstances and adjusting to them. As weird as relating to a large roach may sound, we ourselves can relate and we don’t even know. One day we woke up and found out our daily lives have been changed and completely on pause. We are told we can’t go to school, go outside, see our friends, and worst of all we can’t even get a haircut. This relates to Gregor and his new change in life as he wakes up one morning and is a whole large bug. However, although life doesn’t seem to be the fullest as his family could even bare to look at him he makes adjustments. He learns to live the live as a roach such as sticking to walls, enjoying eating garbage, and hiding in dark places which make him comfortable. This is just like us as we have adjusted to distant learning, and I feel we all have definitely learned more about ourselves and others and the things we enjoy. We  all go through times tough times such as Gregor, but it is in human nature to adjust to circumstances given even if you just so happen so turn in to a bug one day. The text also shows me how people can help one another in times of need, and you can always have that one person we can always fall back and lean on. We have doctors and nurses doing their best to help moderate and heal the virus working countless hours to ensure that our country can get back to what we used to be. For Gregor once he turned in a roach his sister instantly was there for him. She learned to understand him and his tendencies and learn more about him. She fed him and rearranged his room to his comfort. She understood that her brother was going through a pretty tough time in this bug life, but she hadn’t fainted and ran away. She cared for him and was there for him understanding that in reality the true form of that bug was her brother. The bond between really made me feel happy about humanity and showed me that there will always be someone therefore you no matter how drastically life changes for you. We should all look at this text and relate it to our current world situation. Nowadays all you repeatedly here is, “Times are tough, but people are tougher” but honestly it couldn’t be more true.