Great Works II

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qu20STvR1tQ

After reading Chike’s School days and Old Chief Mshlanga, I felt obligated to search for some African music that relates to the texts. Perhaps those who would want to read the stories again, here’s something you can listen to travel to the setting of the readings!

This short novel by Clarice Lispector is little different from most of the book that I have read so far. First of all, it does not flow smoothly. In the novel, narrator named Rodrigo S.M is writing about a northeasterner girl name Macabea. In the reading, most of the first few chapters are about him trying and warming up to writing the story about Macabea. He explains that he is not only writing the story of Macabea but also the story of many other girls like Macabea, struggling to survive in this world. He thinks that he needs courage to write the story so; he keeps going back and forth. When, he finally starts his story, he keeps interrupting the flow of the story by adding his own comments.

The story finally starts up slowly with a introduction of this nineteen years old girl named Macabea which we will find later in the story. Rodrigo tells about her background of Macabea, who born in the backwoods of Alagoas, a North-east of Brazil and her parent died of a disease when she was two years old. Her early childhood is deprived of her parents love. She never gets a chance to know her parents at all. After, her parent’s death, her aunt takes her in. But, poor unfortunate child get abused and mistreated by her aunt. She takes a great pleasure in beating her. Slowly the beating changing to nothing as it faded away after something. But, she felt more hurt when she did not receive her daily dessert: guava preserved with cheese. So, after her aunt find out, not giving her favorite dessert become her new method of punishment. Macabea takes life too simply. She thinks living is all she had to do. She is happy because everybody is required to be happy. When she is punished by her aunt, she never questions herself why “I am being punished”? I believe that she thinks, she “doesn’t need to know everything and not knowing was an important part of her life” (p-20). She does seem to have her own identity, no ability to question and she assumes “that there is no answer” (p-18) to her question.

In the first part, Macabea’s life does not sound much promising. But I hope, later in the other half of the story, she will be able to find her true identity and meaning of living a life.

After reading “Chike’s School Days” by Achebe and “Old Chief Mshlanga” by Lessing , I learned about double identities. “Chike’s School Days” features a little African boy, given the names John, Chike, and Obaijulu, being taught the English language, and he finds it fascinating. His first name, “John”, represents the fact that he was born with the upbringing of a white culture, and implies that his parents might want him to assimilate to that culture, even though they have the social status of an Osu, which is this lowest caste in Igbo. His last name, Obaijulu, means “the mind at last is at rest”, which represents not worrying about other cultures and instead wanting to stick to your own. Chike represents the path between a different culture and the culture that he is born with. When he is in school, he becomes fascinated with the English language, striving to learn more of it. He loves to learn new words, even without any context. He ends up fascinated with a sentence about a wizard traveling to China from Africa to get a lamp, even making a song out of it, despite it having no real meaning. This shows that Chike is developing his own identity.

“Old Chief Mshlanga” takes a similar, yet different approach. Instead of an African boy being exposed to European culture, it’s about a European girl being exposed to African culture. The girl is shown to have met many native Africans. Her family employed many of them, with the girl considering them lucky if they were employed. She also took dogs with her whenever she walked around to protect her from the natives that approached her. She also notes that she, along with other white children, makes fun of the natives, sending dogs after them to attack them for fun and treating a black child like a dog. When she noted that, I was immediately reminded of Christopher Columbus, who reportedly sent dogs to kill Native Americans after he captured and enslaved them. It made me think of her as a sociopath for doing such a thing. However, since she is telling this story in flashback, she mentions that she is now aware that she was clearly in the wrong for doing things like that, looking back on it with disgust and regret.

Both stories are similar in that both stories have a character of one culture experiencing another culture, and their perspectives on these. It shows that not everyone adapts the same and everyone has a different experience.

While reading Achebe’s “Chike’s School Days,” I found it shocking that Chike’s father, Amos, was heavily criticized for marrying an Osu. Even though Chike’s family behaves correspondingly to an upper class society, many neighbors condemned them mainly due to the fact that Amos is partially an Osu for marrying Sarah. An example that demonstrates how the family performs upper class rituals is when Chike is given three names when he is born: John, Chike, and Obaijulu. One of the names Chike is given, “John” represents a frequent name of a white man. This signifies the importance of a son in the family, which also symbolizes the patriarchal society in predominantly upper class societies. As a result, Amos and Sarah were very happy when their first and only son was born after five daughters. As the story progresses, there is a sense that Chike’s family and Chike, for the most part, is living with a double identity. Chike grows up with a “white” first name (John) and an African last name Obaijulu. Therefore, we feel as if Chike is trying to forgo his African heritage and adapt to the lifestyle of the upper class since an Osu is looked down upon. For instance, Achebe mentions, “His right hand could now reach across his head to his left ear, which proved that he was old enough to tackle the mysteries of the white man’s learning.” This suggests that Chike followed the path of the elite, not necessarily that of his previous ancestors. Thus, Chike has two uniquely different identities in his life.

Towards the end of Achebe’s text, as readers, we get a feeling that Chike completely made up his mind and put learning English as his first priority. Since Primary School, Chike loved learning and pronouncing long words. As a result, his true character developed and we begin to see Chike’s true state of being. In addition, I found the last paragraph of “Chike’s School Days” to be the most vital part of the whole text. In the story, Chike constantly reads his “New Method Reader” at home mainly because it relates to his life. The wizard travels to China from Africa to obtain a lamp and Chike tries to obtain knowledge in the English language. Thus, we can see a mixture of two different cultures. Finally, the last sentence of the whole story stated, “It was like a window through which he saw in the distance a strange, magical new world.” This line basically refers to the fact that Chike’s experience with new vocabulary demonstrates his connection with different cultures.

Never knew there was a movie!
Here’s the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXHciaNaMuc
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1NvHraFPvM

In the story ”Barn Burning”, Faulkner tells about the life and people in the years after the American Civil War. Readers are introduced to the theme of loyalty, conflict, power, control, authority and justice. The story is narrated in the third person and from the beginning of the story readers can observe that author is exploring the theme of loyalty and conflict.
The story concentrated on the two main characters, the father, Abner and his son, Sartoris. The story represents the world of adults and forces the reader to look through the eyes of a child or adolescent.
The story represents conflict of Sarty’s loyalty to his father that cause a conflict within Sarty. This internal conflict within Sarty is important as it suggests that Sarty is torn between loyalty to his father and doing the right thing. Father teaches him that he has to stick to his own blood and that is the right choice. But by the end of the story readers observe change in Sarty’s loyalty to his father .When Sarty discovers that his father plans on burning de Spain’s barn he wants to warn de Spain. This is significant as it suggests that Sarty wants to do the right thing instead of what his father taught him. But resisting to his father he decides to do the right thing from moral and lawful side. At the end of the story we can observe that Sarty is no longer under the blind influence of his father and he dares to make his own decision according to what he believes in.

Found this on Youtube, it is a very interesting visual story

In “Barn Burning” by William Faulkner, we are introduced to two main characters, the father named Abner and his son,  Sartoris. It is evident that the two are very different from each other regarding their views, beliefs, and morals. The father is very aggressive, cold, immoral, cruel, vicious and acts as if he doesn’t have a conscience. The son named Sartoris, on the other hand, is someone who is empathetic, cares for others, has good intentions, is very loyal and has morals. From the beginning of the story it is already clear that the father has gotten himself into trouble. Unfortunately, the father happened to get away with burning down Mr. Harris’s barn without severe consequences.  The court had ordered for him to leave the country and never return. Though the father was guilty and was lucky enough to not have much of a punishment considering  the crime he had committed, he still decided to respond in a very harsh manner. Throughout the story, Sartoris is somewhat a prisoner to his abusive and manipulative father. It seems to me that because Sartoris is of such good nature, it makes him even more vulnerable to be victim to his father’s abuse and mistreatment. Though Sartoris has proved that he was very loyal and committed to his family, nothing he did was ever enough for his father. His father was quite ungrateful and didn’t appreciate all that his son did for him. When someone insulted Abner, Sartoris stood up for him because of the fact that he disrespected his father. Regardless of that incident and Satoris’s efforts to make his father happy, he ends up getting hit by his father for not being loyal enough to his family, which is absolutely absurd. By the end, Sartoris gains the courage and strength to break free from his father’s control. Sartoris faced an inner struggle where he had to choose between obeying his father to prove his loyalty (despite the fact that his father’s line of thinking was immoral) OR he would have to go against everything his father expects of him and do what the right thing is to do. It is shown here that sometimes  one’s parents may not always have the best intentions and interests at heart and know what’s “best.” The father’s constant intimidation and belittling of his son is no way a father should treat his own son. When the father has a horrific plan in mind to burn de Spain’s barn, as soon as the son realizes this he had to make the life-changing decision. In the climax, Sartoris followed his own heart and did what he thought was the moral thing to do, even if it meant getting his dad caught. Sartoris knew that it was his duty to do anything in his power to warn de Spain. This shows that though he had such a cruel father, he was able to express his individuality by having his own beliefs and ideologies while having to endure and live with such a bad influence in his life. It is truly remarkable how strong the son had to have been to break free from his father’s wrath and not be brainwashed into his pattern of thinking. By sticking to his morals while being loyal to his family, he was able to discover his true roots and feelings without letting his father control and have an influence on his behavior and beliefs.

In Barn Burning, William Faulkner tells a story of a ten-years-old boy Sartoris who goes through serious inner conflict: he needs to decide what is more important, family loyalty or loyalty to the law. In the beginning of the story, Sartoris chooses family and lies to save his father, Abner Snopes, from charges in barn burning. Even though the boy seems to be completely overpowered by his father, the sense of justice infuses him. Sartoris has to deal with serious moral issues that would be hard even for a grown up person.

In his family, violence is one of the key elements of life, of becoming a man. From his father and his brothers’ behavior, he should have gotten the belief that to become a real man, he has to be cruel, rude, and oppressive. But in fact, Sartoris feels that he doesn’t want be such person. He experiences feelings of guilt and shame when he sits at the court. But since he is still a ten-years-old boy who gets constantly influenced by his cruel father, Sartoris defends his father and chooses to be loyal to his family. But as the story goes by, we can see that the boy gets more and more doubts, and finally gets to a point when he can’t stand his father’s disobedience to the law and his immorality. Sartoris he runs to de Spain and warns him about the coming burning.

The boy’s act can be seen from different perspectives; from the one point it can be seen as family betrayal, but from another point, it shows that his goodness and morality couldn’t hide inside him anymore. Actually, it is hard to believe that this boy was raised by a man with such low moral standards, cruelty, and disrespect to others. It is also hard to understand how such kind, caring, and emotional woman as Sartoris’s mother, Lennie, could marry such man as Abner Snopes. Unfortunately, Lennie is too weak and she can’t protect Sartoris from the destructive impulses of the rest of the family. Both Lennie and her son are overpowered by Abner Snopes. I believe that it is really hard to be a good person in a family of violent men. Especially it is hard for a ten-years-old boy and a fragile woman. But Sartoris finds the way to break through Snopes influence when he warns de Spain. I can make a conclusion that Sartoris, in fact, not only honest, but also brave and ready to protect his moral. He just was too young before.