Holly Ivey
¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 Holly Ivey
- ¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0
- Peer ENG 2850
¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0 11/18/16
¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0 Dear Reader,
¶ 5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 0 In this draft I tried to explain the bigger over arching metaphor of the River as a symbol for Africa as a whole and then unpack the metaphor within the metaphor of the swim in the river that takes place in the final scene. Explaining the multiple layers clearly was a laborious and long process as I, myself, am still trying to identify my thoughts and how to express them clearly.
¶ 6 Leave a comment on paragraph 6 0 Sadly, this is still an incomplete draft but I think I have successfully flushed out a few of the important ideas in response to the suggestions from my peers and professor. All grey text are passages or words that need rewording or development.
¶ 7 Leave a comment on paragraph 7 0 [TITLE]
¶ 8 Leave a comment on paragraph 8 1 Intro: The story of Season Of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih takes place during the early years of African independence from British and Belgian occupation and centers around our unnamed narrator, a young man, who has eagerly returned to his village in Sudan after 7 years away pursuing his education in England. Our Narrator is excited by the country’s (by proxy, his village’s) potential under the new politic climate as well as his personal potentialShortly after his return he befriends a man twice his age, Mustafa Sa’eed, who has joined this small intimate village while he was away. Like our Narrator hopes to do, Mustafa has become a vital and influential member of this small community that is trying to carve out its new existence in light of the new government. Eventually, one evening, Mustafa confesses to our narrator that he too had been educated in the north but that unlike our Narrator he had actually remained there for thirty years; he continues to tell him a long and troubling story about his struggle with cultural hybridity while he was abroad and the tragic results it brought in his life. Ultimately, Mustafa found his way back south, and has seemingly shed any and all ties to his life in Europe. Probably because our narrator is the only person in the village that knows of his secret European past, Mustafa bequeaths our narrator his estate upon his suspicious death and for several reasons, Mustafa’s story haunts our narrator throughout the years while he struggles with his own conflicted cultural identity. In the last scene of the novel we find our narrator at the height of his angst, swimming in The Nile, as a man very much changed by his experience in Europe and struggling to figure out where he fits in, if at all, into the village he identifies as home. Thesis Statement: In this passage of the book the river is symbolic of Africa as a whole, with it’s complex,powerful forces, that continuously affect it’s lands and people seemingly without end and our Narrator’s experience with in the river serves as a metaphor for the transformative moment in which he finally reconciles his conflicted cultural identity between the boy he was, represented the by the southern shore, the man he wanted to be, represented by the northern shore, and the man he is disappointed, desolate, and ineffectual somewhere in the middle.
¶ 9 Leave a comment on paragraph 9 0 River as a metaphor for Africa:
¶ 10 Leave a comment on paragraph 10 0 In order to discuss the intricacies of the narrator’s conflict, it is necessary to understand the grander metaphor that the author uses; namely, the river as symbolic of Africa as a whole.
¶ 11 Leave a comment on paragraph 11 1 The Nile is an important resource in this part of the world, and is definitely a life source for the narrator’s village. The river that fuels their industry, waters their crops, livestock and people also serves to connect them to the greater world. Most often it is their ally, but on occasion, when it floods, it becomes their oppressor. In much the same way, Africa is rich in resources and potential for its people, and yet sometimes, it can be the very thing that hurts them.
¶ 12 Leave a comment on paragraph 12 1 For example, the newly formed government in our story, is supposed to be a boon to all, by connecting it’s people to the outside world, and making decisions that spread industry and develop wealth and prosperity through out the continent. But, in the wake of newly achieved independence from colonial powers, it is revealed to us in the passage about the education conference in Khartoum, that Africa finds itself caught between conflicted ideals that would be sometimes considered northern (ie, western or European) influences and more traditional southern (ie eastern, or more specifically in this case, African) influences. In addition, the misplaced priorities of a centralized decision making body disconnected from its people has become, rather, an instrument of oppression.
¶ 13 Leave a comment on paragraph 13 0 Paragraph about the metaphor of the swim in the river:
¶ 14 Leave a comment on paragraph 14 4 Once the grander metaphor is understood, the narrator’s conflict can be examined within a similar context. At the beginning of this scene, Topic Sentence: The narrator feels burdened by his conflicted cultural identity. The conflict lies between the romanticized simplicity of his childhood village and the complicated reality of a village steeped in tradition amidst the transition to a modern, more globalized world. The narrator engages the river in a fit of rage that is seemingly a product of his disappointment with how the village handled the tragedy of Hosna Bit Mahmoud, his powerlessness to have prevented the tragedy, and an unreasonable amount of anger towards Mustafa Sa’aeed after revealing the vault of treasure collected from his former life in the north that he had supposedly forsaken upon his decision to reintegrate in the south. It is significant to note that this village lies on the southern shore of the Nile in a part of the river that runs east-west as opposed to it’s more typical north-south flow. This is important because it symbolizes the Eastern vs Western thought. He enters the river on the southern side “resolved to make the northern shore.”(138). He describes himself as entering “naked as when [his] mother bore [him]”(137), or as a child. This represents his childhood goal of going to Europe for his education. The ability to do so, in his mind, sets him apart as “the outstanding …man in the village.”(9) Soon, he finds himself in the middle, between both shores “unable to continue, and unable to return…[having] difficulty moving… as much as was needed to keep afloat.” (138) This imagery is in stark contrast to the way he felt many years ago, sitting on the bank of this same river upon returning from the north when he felt “a sense of stability…that [he] was important,…continuous and integral…not like a stone in the water but seed sown in the field”. (6) At that time he felt strong, rooted, and oriented. He was ready to be re-planted in his burgeoning society and become, he hoped, an important asset in its growth. By contrast, here in the middle of this river, after years mostly disconnected from the village, working at a meaningless job for a disappointingly ineffectual government, he is lacking the strength to stay afloat, unmoored, and feeling the river bottom pull him down like the stone.
¶ 15 Leave a comment on paragraph 15 0 Interestingly, as he swims between the opposing shores, he can hear only two distinct sounds: the “reverberation of the river with its old familiar voice, … and the puttering of the water pump .”(137) These reverberations serve as a symbol of his romanticized attachment to the village of his childhood. (possible describe what his romanticized version is). Whereas the water pump, an example of modernism brought to the village, symbolizes the influences of European concepts, that are at odds with the romanticized version of his beloved community, and further complicate his sense of belonging to it.
¶ 16 Leave a comment on paragraph 16 0 Finish here by discussing the significance the turning point and then his “ah-ha” moment.
¶ 17 Leave a comment on paragraph 17 1 Simultaneously fighting the “forces lying in the river bed [that are] pulling [him] down”(138) the struggle with the pull of the forces of the river symbolizes his perceived need to choose between them and his fear that if he doesn’t choose. arrives. the Narrator makes the conscious choice to stop “seeing with one eye, speaking with one tongue…(125) seeing things as black or white.. Like Sa’eed, until this point our narrator has felt pulled between a choice of two perspectives two worlds. But he finally realizes that instaed of being pulled between the two cultures, he is going to embrace his own cultural hybridity, his ability to see more of the “shades of grey” is an asset, to be effectual, play a role and contribute his perspective to his village and ultimately his country.
¶ 18 Leave a comment on paragraph 18 0 help his village and ultimately his country move into the future and erode away the old belief systems that no longer serve the community. (repression of womens rights…)
¶ 19 Leave a comment on paragraph 19 0 Conclusion: …
Thanx! your comments were super helpful and similar to the professor’s . i’ve been developing the draft over the last few days with them in mind.
The pieces of your argument seem to be much more substantial in this draft – but you’ve still got a lot of work left to do to make them fit together and to fill in all the gaps. Here are some suggestions.
1) center your introduction around your thesis; drop all the plot summary and focus on describing the river, the river metaphor, and your thesis about how it works in the book
2) develop your thoughts on “the grander metaphor” of the river in general, and how it might be connected to the political context; this section still seems inchoate
3) expand your investigation of the narrator’s personal conflict (or forget the grander metaphor and focus on that), by explaining the component parts of the metaphor and explicating at greater length the quotations you draw from the passage where he goes swimming
4) And finally, get some evidence from the text about his final resolution, particularly to support your assertion that he is accepting his “cultural hybridity”