Terrible Creatures

Some thoughts on writing a paper

2010-04-28T01:02:00.000-07:00

I still have not got going in earnest on my term paper which is concerning but I can really write quite fast. A problem I am having is that in popular 20th century literature I often feel like there isn't a lot going on worth discussing. In the case of this course it is really difficult to find an overwhelming theme that I care about. It almost seems like the historic cultural exchange between Asia and the Middle East would in some way be better since that is covered in Peony, In an Antique Land, and Midnight's Children.

It seems like if I make the thesis of the paper about the role of home in these novels it should not be that hard, since the characters are struggling to know what home is. I've been reading Daughter of Fortune really quickly and can easily finish it tomorrow but it will not be useful in the way that I thought it would. It is probably going to be significantly easier if I just write it in sections about each book and kind of put the essays together then I can at least maintain a coherent order without getting bogged down in what I am doing.

Well ok, here's what I'm thinking now. If I frame this in the sense of exile, i.e. "Can you find a home in exile?" Then Peony, Wide Sargasso Sea, Things Fall Apart. and Midnight's Children can all work together being as all of those themes deal with that pretty heavily. Depending on where Daughter of Fortune goes in the next 100 pages the Chinese character would be useful for this also.

Something like "Exiled: Social and Physical Displacement." This would really work for these books being as in Peony the Jews are arguably at home but are displaced from their ancestral lands, in Things Fall Apart and Wide Sargasso Sea the power structures change, and in Midnights Children they primarily move for religious reasons not unlike Jews.

I'm just concerned cause I feel like I don't have a lot to say about this. I can easily pull something out but I'm trying to think of what a worthwhile thing to write about would actually be.

This could also be arranged as like types of displacement. For example, an intro then sections titled things like

Social Displacement
Political Displacement
Physical Displacement
Emotional Displacement

that might actually work because it would bring everything together and then I could prewrite by categorizing quotes. Most of those come up in most of the texts and can be compared in interesting ways, for example the Mom in Peony longing to go to Israel vs Antoinette in Wide Sargasso Sea just needing to be where she feels at home.

Muslims and Hindus in Antique Lands

2010-04-27T00:21:00.000-07:00

When Amitav Ghosh visited Egypt he received surprising and ostensibly offensive questions about Hindus and India. Ghosh receives this well being as he is visiting for anthropological purposes, is not a practicing Hindu, and knows the rural Egyptians had not been exposed to Hinduism. Where in Midnight's Children it seems that Muslims and Hindus should have had at least some cultural understanding in India living so close together, the antagonism seems natural being as they are competing groups in the Indian subcontinent. The experience of a Hindu in rural Egypt provides an example of two religions meeting for the first time with an easily understandable power structure.

Since the people of rural Egypt had never met a Hindu before they only had what they thought must be myths about Hindus. With Egypt being an equally ancient land which had transitioned from polytheism to monotheism almost two millenia before, the lack of progress must have been astonishing. For example, the Egyptians are obsessed with the idea that in India cows are worshiped, though Ghosh tries to explained they are revered for the way they improve human life. He once trips in front of a cow and it becacomes the news of the town that he is actively worshiping cows (170-171). For Ghosh, not being religious or nationalistic, this is primarily interesting as a social study.

Another obsessive question that Ghosh is asked by Egyptians is related to the burning of the dead. There is apparently no word for "cremate" in Arabic which differentiates it from simply being burned. The Muslims, unfamiliar with these customs, believe that the intention is to mutilate the body to avoid judgment day. After this conversation Ghosh is giving a piece of advice which would have great upset a practicing Hindu or Indian nationalist, "You should try to civilize your people. You tell them to stop praying to cows and burning their dead" (126). Something interesting in these scenes is that the Muslims don't seem to think Hinduism is something a thinking person would embrace, and Ghosh does nothing to change this.

When looking at initial reactions from Muslims upon meeting a Hindu it is easy to understand why the two groups would struggle to get along. With such divergent religions existing side by side the claim that Muslims worship the one true God could cause any number of problems. Further, to Muslims Hindus are pagans who they would not want to live next to. While Muslims and Hindus appear to have lived peacefull together in Mangalore and Ghosh gets along with the Egyptians. It seems that as long as one community is clearly in the minority and is not creating a challenge for the other community they will generally live by side without a problem.

A Land Older Than Time: Narrative Pace in Midnight's Children

2010-04-19T01:33:00.000-07:00

In the British sitcom "Peep Show" the main character, Mark, says to his girlfriend over the phone, "And don't worry about Midnight's Children Sophie, no one has ever actually read it." While this comment is amusing it also exposes a serious issue with the aesthetics and narrative pace of the novel. While it is pleasant and interesting to read, Rushdie is careful to place the story's action as not starting until about half way through the book. Indeed, a harsh editor could have cut incredible amounts from the book without it being complete. This begs the question of why Rushdie chose to include so much background information. The reason seems to be that he is showing the reader that India is a land where history means everything and must be understood to move into the future; a land where things have always moved slowly and area really just starting.

The protagonist and narrator begins the novel by giving detailed issues of his Grandpa's life, as if his grandpa were the main character in the novel. This in depth explanation allows the author to demonstrate the differences between traditional culture and the modern world in India, specifically as it relates to doctors returning from Europe. This same theme is later brought up when Saleem goes to school with European girls. Since the novel is primarily about issues facing India upon new independence this is used to guage the social temperature of the Indian subcontinent and show the ancient culture mixing with the modern.

This narrative structure mirrors the presumed course of India. The idea being that in India there is so much history, a land where things move slow, and all of the sudden changes will be coming at a rapid pace. This is best explained in the lead up to independence, "Because a nation which had never previously existed was about to win its freedom, catapulting us into a world which, although it had five thousand years of history...was nevertheless quite imaginary; a into a mythical land...India, the new myth--a collective fiction in with anything is possible" (129-130). In the story, while India is seen as being a land of mystery and mysticism, the fantastical elements of the book do not begin until independence. When the Midnight's Children are born they possess unheard of powers: the new India is a land where anything is possible.

Saleem's development is supposed to mirror the development of this new India even before his powers are realized. A politician writes a letter to Saleem's family at the time of his birth saying, "You are the newest bearer of that ancient face of India which is also eternally young. We shall be watching over your life with the closest attention; it will be, in a sense, the mirror of our own" (143). By saying this the politician is demonstrating the hope that a new breed of modern and self-sufficient Indians will arise in the independent country to speed up the success and progress of the world. As Saleem grows in all of the wrong places and finds life confusing and difficult in his childhood the ancient land of India does the same thing as a new nation.

Saleem's story in the novel is the story of India. While this is made explicit, it is also amazing the subtle ways which Rushdie has interwoven this into his novel. His lack of concern for accessibility can be understood as commentary on the difficulty of becoming part of a culture as ancient and complex as India. Instead of trying to make the reader understand India he tries to make the reader understand one boy and his family and in doing so understand what they were going through as a newly independent people.

End Days: A Post-Modern Production

2010-04-11T19:49:00.000-07:00

Note: This wasn't a planned part of the course but I happened to see this play and it is unbelievably post-modern so seems relevant.

WSU's theater department recently put on a performance of Deborah Laufer's play "End Days." The play takes place one year after September 11th, featuring a family which has been torn apart by the trauma of the attacks. The family used to live in New York where the dad worked in the Twin Towers, and was the only survivor of the attack. Following this, the dad is depressed to the point of disability, the formerly atheist Jew mother finds Jesus, and the daughter is a detached goth who has been emotionally tortured by her parents. Essentially, the family is struggling to find meaning in a world which has been torn apart by violent trauma which the mother has done by believing that the rapture is coming on Wednesday.

One of the most interesting aspects of this play were the aesthetics of the set design. The set was inexplicably raised at an angle (it looked quite unsafe) and is made up of circular platforms. Behind the circular platforms are mechanical glass platforms which are normally obscured from the audience but which can be turned to expose the scene to the audience. The play used no curtain and made any changes of scene with the mechanical platforms. It is difficult to determine how specific the set instructions for the play were, but the aesthetics have a sort of amazing feel being as the family's entire life is off balance and they literally do not have a stable floor beneath their feet. This set design deconstructs traditional notions of set design by not attempting to suspend the audience's disbelief; that is to say, the set makes no attempt at appearing realistic and instead amuses the audience by looking like a piece of installation art.

The family's search for meaning in their literally slanted home mirrors the nation's quest to find meaning in the face of extraordinary violence. By putting the audience in the position of a family that personally experienced the attacks the play is able to give the audience an insight into trauma. Americans seem unable or unwilling to understand the effects that large scale violence can have on a society- at least on another society. What was not brought up in mainstream dialogue surrounding the attacks was the idea that people in country's under attack go through this all the time. It is easy to criticize a nation's people for an inability to put a society back together, but it is difficult to know what the dad in "End Days" would have done if he was forced to go back to work prematurely.

As the family waits for the rapture they are forced to examine their beliefs. No one believes the mother, but she is so persistent that they stay with her just to calm her down. The nerdy and strange neighbor is also waiting for them, and has introduced the daughter to the work of Stephen Hawking. As the daughter is excited by the possibility of fully explaining the nature of the universe, the mother is trying to force repentance out of her family. The dad meanwhile, is a secular Jew who is being forced to accept not only religion but a different one from his own.

"End Days" has a very straightforward message despite the enormous issues being faced by the characters. While waiting for the rapture the family ultimately realizes that they enjoyed spending the whole day together and that meaning can be derived from family and personal relationship and that everything does not have to be explained. The father says directly that he is someone who needs concrete facts in front of him and that he is not that worried with the unknown. The mother struggles the most when coming to grips with the fact that she is a false prophet, but her relationship with her husband improves through the experience and he is willing to work to make her life more fulfilling in the real world so she does not have to resort to conversations with apparitions of Jesus.

This play is very successful at questioning traditional notions of family, religion, and coping with trauma. Instead of telling viewers how to live, it encourages them to live and simply try to enjoy it. This is much different from other artistic movements, which tend to espouse specific and tangible beliefs. The family learns something about how to live, but they are left with no new knowledge about nature of life and the universe.

The BBC's Wide Sargasso Sea (2006) A Brief Review

2010-04-05T10:44:00.000-07:00

The BBC's 2006 version of Jean Rhys' novel Wide Sargasso Sea bring impressive accuracy both in plot and mood to the screen. Though the movie does not cover the first part of the book where Antoinette is growing up, but instead focuses on the arrival of Rochester to the West Indies but tell story of Antoinette and Rochester so accurately it is frequently line-for-line with the novel. The movie is also clearly framed with an insane Antoinette leaving the viewer curious about the cause of her insanity.

The most striking feature of the film version of Wide Sargasso Sea is the success with which the director captured the mood of the novel by filming a claustrophobic tropical environment. Since the novel plays with the idea that the hum of insects, heat, humidity, and think vegetation of the tropics can create a sort of claustrophobia which is bad for a person's mental state. This is originally developed with Rochester who forms an immediately negative impression of the tropics after being taken ill and spending time bedridden.

The film is successful at making Antoinette seem particularly sympathetic while bringing Jean Rhys' novel to life in an accurate way. The difficulty of classifying the writing of Jean Rhys has sometimes hinged on the extent to which an understanding of the Caribbean is necessary in order to appreciate her novels. While it is not entirely necessary, the film version demonstrates that the tropical environment is a crucial part of Rhys' prose in the novel which may be pissed by readers unfamiliar with the landscape. It is one thing to complain about the incessant buzzing of insects, but another thing to hear it is a consistent background noise which isn't regularly mentioned.

Two Modern Wars

2010-03-31T22:58:00.000-07:00

20th Century civilization was torn apart repeatedly by ferocious wars which were fought with dangerous new weapons and ideologies. When Stephen Crane live through and reported on the Spanish American War, fought- among other things- to build up the nation's masculinity, he saw a war frenzied nation ready to prove itself with a complete disregard for the human cost. While during World War 2 there was a stronger case to be made for a clear and present danger, proponents of war still ignored the cost and destruction of war while fixating on the profit and power that war can bring. By comparing Stephen Crane's "War Is Kind" to George Oppen's "Survival: Infantry" it is possible to look at two very different wars and the difficulty which two poets had viewing a world of carnage and bloodshed.

Stephen Crane begins his poem "War Is Kind" with his usual biting irony and general cynicism for the world around him. When he writes, "Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind. / Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky / And the affrighted steed ran on alone, / Do not weep. / War is kind" (Crane ln 1-5) he is reacting against the contemporary political dialogue praising war as a masculine activity which would keep the men of the country in shape. While women were taught to be proud of their husbands' noble struggle, this sought to remove women's fears about their husbands safety. While people in high positions in the government and media were able to discuss abstract values of war, the rank and file of the country were forced into a meaningless conflict over colonial possessions.

Crane continues his cynicism by demonstrating the regard soldiers were actually held in. He writes, "These men were born to drill and die. / The unexplained glory flies above them, / Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom -- / A field where a thousand corpses lie" (Crane ln 8-11). To Crane, instead of these men moving to a place of glory through their time in combat, they are simply pawns to powerful men who see them as useful for no more than to "drill and die." While the casualty rate in the Spanish-American war was nowhere near as great as wars which would soon follow, soldiers were still being sent to their doom for dubious imperial gains while being told they would receive glory.

The poet George Oppen personally served in combat in World War 2, giving him the ability to accurately position his poetry within the trauma of the war. He opens his poem "Survival: Infantry" with the lines, "And the world changed. / There had been trees and people, / sidewalks and roads" (Oppen ln 1-3). Oppen is viewing the world as having been destroyed by the Second World War, and he would have seen all too much of this carnage up close in the 1940s. After this line there are many about how the world has been destroyed, and then he ends with a poignant call to those who lost loved ones, "And the letters came. People who addressed us thru our lives / They left us gasping. And in tears / In the same mud in the terrible ground" (Opper 10-12). By using the title "Survival: Infantry" but not using specific language relating to combat, Opper is able to bring out the readers existing ideas about the glory of combat and the excitement of survival, only to surprise the reader when there is no glory and nothing survives. This technique allows him to frame his poem without using language which explicitly shows (and thus would have a tendency to accidentally glorify) war.

While Stephen Crane and George Oppen may seem like somewhat strange poems to compare, their cynical take on two different wars lets the reader know something about portrayals of war in the 20th Century. While Crane uses relatively explicit irony within the words of his poem (which formally lacks a title) Oppen takes a different course and uses the irony to attach negative thoughts relating to war to a title which one would imagine glorified martial activities. Both of these men saw the world falling to pieces within a country that was enthusiastically endorsing the move into carnage and mayhem. Both men understood what so many are yet to learn: war is never kind.

Crane, Stephen. "War Is Kind." Poet's Corner. Web. 31 Mar. 2010.
Oppen, George. "Survival: IInfantry." The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. Ed. Jahan Ramazani, Richard Ellmann, and Robert O'Clair. New York: W.W. Norton, 2003. 835. Print.

The Modern Indian in Midnight's Children

2010-03-23T23:05:00.000-07:00

Following the collapse of European empires there was no chance of returning to the pre-European status quo. Newly independent states had been transformed by European culture, technology, and government, leaving new states in a position to enter a modern world shaped by Europe instead of returning to pre-European traditions. While the betel-nut chewers, who represent a chorus in the novel, represent continuity in the Indian subcontinent, they are not representatives of the new India. The idea of creating a coherent Indian identity required an abandonment of traditional tribal culture and strict Muslim ethics. While these changes are welcomed by the European-educated, they represent an uncertain future for traditionalists.

From the very beginning of Midnight's Children the conflict between Aadam Aziz's European education and traditional Kashmiri culture is a central feature of the novel. His emotions are tied to the landscape even before he knows how society will react to his return, "He also felt--inexplicably--as though the old place resented this educated, stethoscoped return" (Rushdie 5). Where Aadam Azis is curious about his place as a modern man in a timeless and ancient valley, the ferryman Tai is hostile to everything representing modernity. The narrator describes that, "to the ferryman, the bag represents Abroad; it is the alien thing, the invader, progress" (16). To the traditional peasantry modernity represented in a threat because they lacked the skills or resources to take advantage of it. While paying someone to manually push a raft across a lake is not efficient in the modern world, it is the only skill which Tai has and he does not want to see that traditional culture leave.

Aadam's foreign notions also complicate his relationship with his very traditional Muslim wife. Aadam ponders the change that traveling abroad has created in many Indians, "the Indians have fought for the British; so many of them have seen the world by now, and been tained by Abroad. They will not easily go back to the old world" (32). This would become one of the defining features of newly independent states forced to make a decision between modernity and tradition. To Naseem these trips abroad create a serious moral problem in the men, "I know you Europe-returned men. You find terrible women and then you try to make us girls be like them" (32). However, her dramatics are put into context by the fact that a large part of her anger is directed at the fact that her husband simply requested her to move during sex. Aadam gives a directive to his wife when he can no longer stand her traditionalism, "Forget about being a good Kashmiri girl. Start thinking about being a modern Indian woman" (33). The problem is that Naseem does not desire to be a "modern Indian woman," were it even possible to define such a thing.

While these changes seem more like personal issues for the characters in the novel, the scale is greatly increased when they are applied to conditions of the entire nation. The very fabric of India was falling around them, such as "the untouchables being touched" (84). While this seems like an obvious step in favor of progress to the modern reader, to traditional Hindus this would have been shocking. Further, there were great difficulties apportioning land previously nationalized by the British, particularly in a society where there had traditionally been such a strong caste system and in a time when Socialism was very fashionable. Joseph D'Costa is skeptical of independence at all, stating, "This independence is for the rich only; the poor are being made to kill each other like flies" (120). It is difficult to know how the average Indian fared under British rule in India; the statistic has been given that in 1900 the life expectancy in India was 20, which is appallingly low. However, one has to imagine that given starvation, disease, and violence that Indians had never enjoyed a particularly long life expectancy.

Midnight's Children is full of characters traveling through an ambivalent new world free of British rule. The problems with this are shown repeatedly, such as illiteracy, ignorance, a resistance to change, and tribal loyalties. Have the characters in the novel advanced to such a point that home rule is desirable? Further, is it even desirable for an area as large as India, full of varying ethnicities and religion, to be a single state? While Indians by-and-large embraced independence it can be difficult to handle something one has nothing had before.

Rushdie, Salman. Midnight's Children. New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: Penguin, 1991. Print.

Home in Wide Sargasso Sea

2010-03-16T23:51:00.000-07:00

The house was burning, the yellow-red sky was like sunset and I knew that I would never see Coulibri again (Rhys 27).

While Post-Colonial literature frequently deals with issues of occupation, violence, and displacement, it is uncommon that the genre shows concerned for the displaced colonists who were no longer welcome in the lands of their birth and had never called Europe home. Jean Rhys fits this description, having came from a slave-owning family in Dominica who left due to social tension. Similarly, her character Antoinette Cosway is driven out of her home by violence from black Jamaicans due to circumstances wholly unrelated to Antoinette. Wide Sargasso Sea is a useful novel for discussing the sense of belonging which white Creoles were unable to find as the classic system of colonialism was being deconstructed.

The first section of the novel functions to give the character background of Antoinette's family before she meets Mr. Rochester. A defining feature of this background is the outcast place that white Creole's fill in West Indian society following the emancipation of the slaves. In the essay "Modernist Crosscurrents" the author Mary Emery mentions a line in one of Rhys' novels which has been used in collections of West Caribbean literature, the narrator in Good Morning, Midnight states, "I have no pride - no name, no face, no country. I don't belong anywhere" (qtd Emery 167). This lack of face and country is caused by the nature of the West Indies, being a society where the natives were decimated which was repopulated by European immigrants and African slaves. As such, these nations represented a full fledged fusion of African traditions and Europe laws and technology creating a brand new society. As Emery describes the situation, "Rhys' novels portray an absence rather than loss of identity and the homelessness of one who never had a home" (Emery 167). These quotations perfectly describe the situation of Antoinette, who grew up as a hated but powerful minority in a land still controlled by the English but primarily populated with former slaves.

The violent expulsion of the Cosways from their ancestral plantation is shown early in the novel as a traumatic event which marks the symbolic end of the Cosway family. Antoinette wakes up at night to find a mob of black West Indians outside of her family home yelling out the phrase "white nigger" and proceeding to set the house on fire. The trauma of this event is describe in detail, especially the death of her younger brother, "there was another smell, of burned hair, and I looked and my mother was in the room carrying Pierre...I thought, Pierre is dead. He looked dead" (Rhys 23). It is Mr. Mason's decision that it would be safe to stay in Coulibri, leading to the death of Pierre which ultimately led his wife to hate him. Antoinette tries to explain to Mr. Rochester the sheer cruelty which caused her mother to go insane, including the poisoning of her horse (79). Like her daughter, Mrs. Mason does not know what to do when expelled from her home which was previously a sort of island paradise.

The worst part of the trauma for Antoinette, apart from losing her home, is the realization that she will never be accepted in West Indian society. During the riot outside of her home Antoinette sees her best friend Tia, and imagines, "I will live with Tia and I will be like her" (27). As she is thinking this Tia throws a stone at her face, which causes her a serious injury. After waking up from this traumatic injury Antoinette is homeless literally and figuratively, with her house having been burnt down and herself being violently rejected by West Indian society.

European colonizers have recently been looked at as historical victimizers. In reality, many colonizers began poor and went to the New World seeking a fortune. By the time of decolonization, many of these families had been in the far reaches of European empires for generations, and many (such as Antoinette or Rhys before moving to England) had never been to Europe. Like Afro-Caribs, Creoles did not have a home besides the West Indies; unlike Afro-Caribs, society following decolonization was not a society which Creoles were welcome in. Instead, colonists in areas which were not primarily white ultimately fled their homelands and spent the rest of their lives in exile. Unfortunately for these exiles, there are not many places like the West Indies.

Emery, Mary L. "Modernist Crosscurrents." Wide Sargasso Sea. By Jean Rhys, Judith L.

Raiskin, and Charlotte Brontë. New York: W.W. Norton, 1999. 161-73. Print.
Rhys, Jean, Judith L. Raiskin, and Charlotte Brontë. Wide Sargasso Sea. New York: W.W. Norton, 1999. Print.

Things Fall Apart as Landmark 20th Century Literature?

2010-03-04T20:28:00.000-08:00

I'm finding it particularly difficult to think of an conceivable reason why Things Fall Apart should be considered one of the great novels of the 20th century. While it is entertaining, it is also simplistic and undeveloped. Indeed, other than providing a certain amount of cultural knowledge it does not do anything which separates it from the vast majority of popular or young adult literature published. Not only does Achebe fail to demonstrate a mastery of the English language (something which has been accomplished by many non-native authors) his novel is also completely devoid of developed characters. If he wanted Europeans to realize that Africans were not one-dimensional he should have created a main character who was less of a savage.

While Things Fall Apart is considered to be the beginning of the 20th Century African novel (or something of that nature) it is entirely unremarkable except for its chronologically early popularity; that is to say, other African fiction does not come from it but simply comes later. Were a similar novel written which did not take place in Africa, it may have fallen entirely out of print at this point. This novel quite simply does not meet any imaginable standard of great literature, nor does it create a discernible "African Voice." Instead, Achebe provides a simplistic narrative of the process of colonization which is only unique in that it is set in Africa.

However, beyond stylistic issues, this novel has several weaknesses when trying to make its intended points. Firstly, while Achebe's Africans are sympathetic characters and clearly intended to be wholly human, it is difficult for the reader to be particularly critical of the British, being as the Africans were mutilating the corpses of children and leaving twins to die of exposure. There is nothing nice to call these things but "savage customs." Certainly not a culture anyone thinks should be held onto. It is very easy to understand how this seemingly accurate experience in Africa would lead Europeans to civilize the continent- and civilize doesn't need to be in quotations when one is talking about ending the practice of leaving twins to die of exposure. More than anything, the novel shows the end of a culture which may have had a sort of quaint pastoral charm if one is a Romanticist or an egalitarian anarcho-Primitivist, but was savage and in great need of reform. While it is unfortunate that Africans were suddenly put under a foreign yoke, jobs were created, prices for agricultural goods increased drastically, and untouchables were allowed into the fold of decent society. And somewhere someone is crying because this happened.

A further weakness of this novel comes in Achebe's extraordinarily clumsy handling of European disinterest in African customs. This is akin to Upton Sinclair writing a book which was supposed to be entirely in favor of socialism then not showing enough faith in his readers (incidentally, the "huddled masses") to figure out the message on their own, and going on to destroy an otherwise reasonable narrative with explicit political proselytizing. Achebe falls into the same trap with the District Commissioner who is planning on writing a book about African customs. Specifically, his idea that Okonkwo's story could occupy a chapter, or "Perhaps not a whole chapter, but a reasonable paragraph, at any rate" (209). As the book closes with that, the ending message is that to Europeans African lives will never be more than a sidestory (whereas the reader nows that it is possible to write a novel about Okonkwo: they just read it.) However, this point is well made without this commentary. Instead of ending the book by saying that the body of a suicide will desecrate the soil, thus leaving the novel a tragedy whereby an admirable character is unable to adapt to a rapidly changing world, the reader is left with a patronizing effort to induce guilt about an insufficient breadth of cultural knowledge.

Things Fall Apart is a lot of things. It is interesting and entertaining. It is informative about African culture and customs. However, this novel does nothing to further the art of the novel, it instead just takes basic conventions of narration and sets them in Africa. The use of African religion is no different from a European work discussing God, and the things the Africans go through are no different than what progress did to disrupt the European social fabric. It is easy to understand why this book is read in schools, being as I would have been able to easily read and understand it in the third grade, but it seems this becoming one of the "Great Novels of the 20th Century" has far more to do with the ideology of literary scholars than with any real or imagined literary merit.

On one level I feel bad being so harsh, as I actually quite enjoyed reading this book and found the exposure of African culture to be very interesting, however the books weaknesses in plot, storytelling, and style wholly separate it from great world literature of the period. The issue with this book is that it is something you would give to a friend who doesn't like reading when they are about to fly somewhere, it is no sort of revolution for third world literature.

Further, it is extraordinarily ironic that Achebe wants to call Conrad racist for portraying Africans as savages, then rights a story about how leaving twin babies to die of exposure because they were cursed were normal. According to Achebe these people were practicing human sacrifice, and somehow the use of the term savage is unfair. Like so many other terms, savage has been attacked by cultural Marxists to the point of being profane in any context which is not criticizing someone for using it to describe a native. In reality, Conrad is showing the pieces of the society that Achebe says fell apart because of Europeans. Ironically, Heart of Darkness is in most ways a far more scathing critique of colonialism than Things Fall Apart, being as most of the actions that Europeans take in the latter are objectively positive whereas in the former the actions of Europeans are morally questionable at best.

The End of Jews in China

2010-03-02T13:02:00.000-08:00

When Jesuit missionaries first discovered Chinese Jews in the 19th Century they were shocked to find out that Jewish communities had existed in China for over a millennium- the largest and longest lasting community being the Kaifeng Jews. Known as the "Seven Surnames and Eight Families," or simply foreigners, Jews had entered Kaifeng fleeing persecution and asked for protection from the governor of the province, at which point they were given Chinese surnames (Buck 3). From this point on, the Jews had no reason to fear persecution in polytheistic China, where their religion was not offensive or even understood by the Chinese. Instead, the Jews of Kaifeng were at risk of disappearing through assimilation, a possibility basically non-existent in Europe and the Near East.

The story of Peony deals with the end of the Kaifeng Jewish community- the point at which they stopped being a separate people and become fully Chinese. Indeed, by the end of the novel the last Rabbi had died, no one in the community is able to read Hebrew, the the synagogue is falling into disrepair, with the holy stones being sold to foreigners. The Jews of China simultaneously achieve what European Jews were hoping for and avoiding: a lack of discrimination and complete assimilation.

In the novel the character David is trying to understand why his people faced persecution in other lands. An old trader of Jewish origin, who regularly took caravan journeys West tried to answer this question by explaining a story from his childhood, "They were hated because they seperated themselves from the rest of mankind. They called themselves chosen of God...I come of a large family, and there was one among us, my third brother, who declared himself the favorite of my parents. He boasted of it to the rest of us--'I am the chosen one,'...And we hated him...I hate him to this day. I would gladly see him dead...I kill nothing. But if he died I would not mourn" (Buck 163). For a people who have undergone seemingly inexplicably oppression for all of history. This would also explain why this did not create a issue in China, where the people thought of the Jews as having their own god, not being the chosen people of the one true God. To Kao Lien, the Jewish trader, this has not been worth it, and he sees the time for this separation as being over. "Are we to forget all that we are? No...But we are to forget the past and separate ourselves no more. We are to live now, wherever we are, and we are to pour the strength of our souls into the peoples of the world" (Buck 164). The Chinese Jews ultimately followed this strategy, though they had little choice as their culture faded. By the time of the Revolution the Chinese Jews suffered like everyone else in China, but no differently.

It is easy to understand why the Jews would want to maintain their culture. It is also easy to understand why their success at business and trade would make them feel like they had a separate society worth holding onto. However, it is difficult to determine if maintaining a separate culture has really been worth it given the horrific oppression that Jews have faced. Peony creates a very interesting social structure by looking at an unoppressed minority trying to determine if there is any reason to not be Chinese.

Assimilation vs Seperation in Peony

2010-02-22T22:33:00.000-08:00

"They are a strange people, not like ours. They are a sorrowful people, and they worship a cruel god" - Kung Chen (138)

A strong theme in Pearl S. Buck's novel Peony is the value of assimilating into a foreign culture in which you are living as compared to keeping your people's own values and customs. In the novel the main family are wealthy Jews living in Kaifeng, China. Unlike their brethren in Europe these Jewish communities are completely safe and accepted by the Chinese society. Without a monotheistic culture the idea of worshiping a different god is not well understood but not offensive to Chinese society. Instead, the Jews are seen a strange people following a harsh and invisible God, but they are still widely considered to be "good people" by the Chinese.

The arrival of Jews in Kaifeng is described as having been a steady stream, starting with traders and merchants. Later, Jews would come in larger numbers fleeing persecution. According to the novel, "The Chinese in the city viewed these modest invasions with tolerant eyes. They were a clever people, these Jews, full of energy and wit" (Buck 7). Essentially the Jews were accepted into Chinese cities for the same reason they were invited to live in the Ottoman Empire following the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain: they could read, write, and do math. However, despite the family's wealth and the great tolerance of the Chinese, the matriarch of the family is extraordinarily concerned about losing the traditions of her people and falling into Chinese heathenism. She frequently yearns to return to the Promised Land, but the men in her family do not see any reason to leave China, which is their home.

Madame Ezra is convinced that the Chinese are being kind to destroy Jewish culture and lead to assimilation without violence. This brings up a classic point in minority communities: to what level is it extent is it possible to integrate into a community without giving up unique cultural values? According to Madame Ezra, "Because the Chinese have not murdered us, does that mean they are not destroying us...there is an unchangeable difference between them and us. We are the children of the true God, and they are heathen. They worship images of clay" (68). However, the Jews were so safe in China that the children of the Jewish community did not understand the persecution which their people were facing until a trader came back with a story of Jews being massacred in the West.

The narrator describes that the trader could not, "Make this young David understand, who had all his life lived in safety and peace? What ancient curse was upon their people elsewhere that did not hold under these Eastern skies?"; At news of the massacre Ezra states, "As long as we live here, we are safe (78). It is in many ways difficult to imagine Madame Ezra's chagrin at a continuing life amongst the Chinese even if it requires intermarriage; further, it does not seem it would be particularly difficult for trade caravans to return with Jews fleeing violence in order to keep the community strong. However, even without persecution the Jewish community continued to shrink, as Madame Ezra saw it, "It was, of course, easier to sink into becoming a Chinese, easier to take on easygoing godless ways, than it was to remain a Jew (112). This gives a better idea of her issues with living in China, as she does not think that the Jews can contain morality in a heathen society (of course, Jews had been doing so for thousands of years.)

One of the defining features of Jewish and Chinese interactions in the novel is a mutual ignorance of closely held customs. While David studies both Confucius and the Torah, his mother has little understanding of the Chinese lifestyle, and the Chinese know very little about their Jewish neighbors other than that they are foreigners. When David wants to marry a Chinese girl who father explains his feelings about his daughter marrying a foreigner, "When foreigners come into a nation, the best way is to make them no longer foreign. That is to say, let us marry our young together and let there be children. War is costly, love is cheap (102). His daughter feels the same way, hoping she can save David from the fate of his people, "She would take him away from the dark, sorrowful people to whom he had been born and bring him into the pleasant sunshine in which her people lived. He would forget death and learn to love life" (103). What is strange about these statements is that despite a lack of cultural understanding Madame Ezra and the Chinese seem to feel the same way: their lives would be better, or at least easier, if they were Chinese. Madame Ezra's faith is the only obstacle to her assimilation.

It is difficult to know where the rest of this novel will go in terms of this theme. It is particularly interesting to compare this to America in the early 20th century when there were masses of unassimilated immigrants in the country, including Jews and Catholics. Both natives and immigrants had trouble deciding how to handle the situation. While many public schools taught in German even until the First World War, increasing action with government agents made the English language particularly necessary. In the case of the Jews of Kaifeng, it seems that being able to write in both Hebrew and Chinese would contain extraordinary benefits in terms of trade, especially as knowing Hebrew would make it easier to learn Arabic and further increase ones ability for communication. It seems that if life was so much better in China but they were still a dying people they should have told other Jews they were in contact with to come to China.

S., Buck, Pearl. Peony (Oriental Novels of Pearl S. Buck Series). London: Moyer Bell, 2004. Print.

Race in Heart of Darkness

2010-02-18T20:42:00.000-08:00

Note: Instead of citing directly any of the essays which I read in the Norton Critical Edition of Heart of Darkness and will instead generally discuss racial issues in the novella.

The issue of race in Conrad's work has been a subject of extensive discussion. There is a clear disparity between the portrayal of Europeans and Africans in Heart of Darkness which has been criticized for the absence of African characters who possess unique traits. While it is easy to look at this as racism, there are a variety of things which Conrad was discussing. While he is clearly not giving Africans the same interest as the European characters, he is examining a society destroyed by violent exploitation. The disparity of a civilized and calm Europe and a turbulent central African reeling under violent oppression is not an unfair comparison.

There are several intentions which Conrad could have had for his novel. For one thing, within the text there is clearly an in depth discussion of late 19th century imperialism which does not hold imperialism in high regards. Unlike Kipling, Conrad does not feel that there is a "white burden" which Europeans have to fulfill. Instead, Conrad shows that imperialism is not helping either party; the expense is not worth it to Europeans and the devastating toll on Africans does not need to be further described. While Africans could have greatly benefited from trade for European goods, instead Africans were enslaved and slaughtered in order to steal their land and resources. Further, the Belgian were not allowing Africans to trade with anyone but Belgian government officials.

Whether or not Conrad views Africans as being a "lesser race" the system of capitalism is designed as such that it would help everyone; regardless of the abilities of central Africans in economic production, and actual system of free trade would have helped Africans significantly. The system of setting up trading posts and trading with the natives in a mutually agreeable fashion benefits everyone, however the Belgians did not follow a remotely similar policy. Instead the Belgians looted the country dry.

There was a distinct reason that being in Africa was destroying the soul of Europeans, and it was witnessing the brutal oppression of Africans. It is hard to imagine the experience of going up the Congo river at the time to be anything but ghoulish; it seems something that a generally sympathetic person could not emotionally handle. Instead, Kurtz tries to take control of Africans and protect them from other colonizers. Whether or not he does that successfully, it seems that Kurtz is trying to save the people from the violence they were already facing. The primary reason which Europeans seem so disturbed is the violence which they are surrounded by.

Conrad shows no illusions about imperialism, and instead Marlowe sees it as a purely for-profit adventure. As he moves further up the river, it becomes increasingly apparent that this situation is destroying Europeans involved in it while devastating African society. Imperialism in Africa was often a horrific experience, it stands to reason that Marlowe would not see an inspiring pinnacle of human civilization in an area ravaged by marauders.

Freedom of the Press in Ten Days

2010-02-14T20:46:00.000-08:00

Despite John Reed's obvious enthusiasm for Bolshevism he is more than willing to explain Bolshevik acts which he would presumably be against. The best example of this is Lenin's suppression of the press. However, it is always difficult to know by what extent Reed is being taken in by Lenin's political sophistry. At the time of writing Reed seems to attribute infinite wisdom to Lenin and Trotsky, though later in life he was very dissatisfied with the results. Lenin's excuses for suppressing the freedom of the press are an interesting example of political rhetoric as Lenin seeks to justify suppressing newspapers after years of being strong defenders of freedom of the press while in a minority.

In the chapter notes following chapter seven Reed provides a document written by Lenin justifying suppressing newspapers. Lenin admits that there are cries that, "the new Socialist authority is in this vioalting the essential principles of its own programme by an attempt against the freedom of the press" (Reed 250). Lenin goes on to explain that the problem is that the wealthy segment of the population are able to "seize a lion's share of the whole press" and in doing so "poison" the minds of the population (Reed 250). Lenin claims that as soon as order is restored so will measures against the press, however he later goes on to argue that this cannot be allowed.

Lenin's arguments against a free press also provide an example of the idea that freedom of the press is meaningless without respect for private property. The Bolsheviks officially supported a policy of seizing all supplies related to printing as "property of the people." One Bolshevik says directly, "it is as private property that we must examine the question of the press" (Reed 354). The Bolshevik resolution argues that there needs to be a new printing regime, "under which the capitalist owners of printing-presses and of paper cannot be the all powerful and exclusive manufacturers of public opinion" (Reed 354). This is a criticism which falls flatly on its face, as communist groups were regularly able to print underground newspaper and pamphlets, a consistent feature in the text. Though they argue that political groups should be allowed representation through the use of state-controlled printing presses, this would obviously not be the case. They argue, "The reestablishment of the so-called 'freedom of the press,' the simple return of printing pressed and paper to the capitalists,--poisoners of the mind of the people--...would be a measure of unquestionably counter-revolutionary nature" (Reed 354). It is difficult to imagine that anyone would believe the Bolsheviks about re-opening newspapers; the idea of a party in power controlling printing presses and not abusing the situation is completely unrealistic.

A consistent feature of Ten Days that Shook the World is the inclusion of fantastic primary documents such as speeches and fliers. The reader is able to get a concept of the actual rhetoric that Bolsheviks were using to justify their actions. While these occasionally seem like something which would win over an uninformed and uncritical voter, other claims are simply outlandish. It is really quite difficult to imagine how Reed could have supported these men, but he was allegedly heartbroken about the horrors of Bolshevism in practice.

Propaganda and Ten Days

2010-02-09T21:06:00.000-08:00

Ten Days That Shook the World is fascinating in a variety of ways, but one of the most interesting in analyzing the political slant to the text. This is particularly interesting due to John Reeds clear political association and a lack of time to reflect on the consequences of Bolshevik governance. In the author's introduction he explains, "In the struggle my sympathies were not neutral. But in telling the story of those great days I have tried to see the events with the eye of a conscientious reporter, interested in setting down the truth (Reed liii). While it would seem obvious where a socialist would stand during the Russian Revolution, in fact socialist factions in Russia could not have been more split.

It is easy to understand why Lenin would have approved of Reed's book since in many ways it seems to prove the Bolsheviks right. For example, he states, "That the Bolsheviki would remain in power longer than three days never occurred to anybody--except perhaps to Lenin, Trotsky, the Petrograd workers and the simpler soldiers..." (Reed 162). In relation to whether or not the Bolsheviks would take power, Ten Days That Shook the World seems to show a remarkable amount of foresight by Lenin and Trotsky in deciding when to take power. However, this is an accurate portrayal of the Bolshevik strategy (as they were anticipating the inability of building strong resistance) and does not represent a justification of the Bolshevik cause.

In many instances Reed relies on primary documents in order to explain history, which adds a great amount to the validity of his merit. For example, it contains many proclamations from various groups. For example, it includes a Bolshevik pronouncement exclaiming that, Either--the power will remain in the hands of the bourgeois-landlord...repression for the workers, soldiers and peasants...inevitable hunger and death. Or--the power will be transferred to the hands of the revolutionary workers, soldiers and peasants; and in that case it will mean a complete abolition of landlord tyranny, immediate check of the capitalists...then land is assured to the peasants..." (qtd Reed 112). This quotation is not surrounded by any sort of commentary from Reed, and instead he continues his historical narrative. This style allows the reader to view the text from an existing viewpoint; the reader can either be impressed or disgusted by the Bolshevik world view and in most instances Reed does not insert commentary. Either way, the idea that a Bolshevik would say such a thing is not even slightly contentious.

In other instances the absolute hypocrisy of the Bolsheviks is explained in clear deal and not followed by justification. For example, in nearly the same breath Bolsheviks abolished capital punishment in the army while, "All pillage, disorder and speculation were forbidden under pain of death" (Reed 137). While the absurdity of these conflicting values is obvious: Bolsheviks would continue to praise themselves for abolishing capital punishment while issuing death threats to anyone opposing revolution.

Ten Days That Shook the World is an amazing primary document in 20th Century history. It both presents documents produced by competing groups and tells the narrative of an American in Russia during tumultuous times. John Reed left the revolution with a reinvigorated sense of wealth redistribution. The reader, knowing what Bolshevism brought about, is likely to leave with a different opinion.

Reed, John. Ten Days that Shook the World. 1960. Ed Wolfe, Bertram. Vintage Books. New York.

P.S. This edition of the text does not use Oxford commas. I have no idea why I maintained faith to this in quotations despite the fact that it drives me insane and I'm convinced it's quite simply wrong despite what some British people believe.

Looting Africa

2010-02-04T00:59:00.000-08:00

Marlow, the main character in Heart of Darkness, does not see any noble intentions in Europe's African expeditions. While colonization may have initially allowed Africans to trade for goods which they did not previously have access too and could not make, by the late 19th century European military dominance made trade with natives unnecessary. In theory, Europeans purchasing land and increasing the economic productivity would improve the state of Africans, like all empires, Europeans began sending in expeditionary forces to loot the country side and weaken local kingdoms. Following this, these areas would either be brought under direct European control or turned into vassal states. Marlow has no illusions, and is simply going to Africa for a sense of adventure, but what he finds is an occupational insanity caused by the decivilizing effect looting Africa had on Europeans.

During the late 19th century there was a significant amount of discussion about "civilizing the world" and Christianizing Africa. While native peoples can benefit from new technology, skills, livestock, and crops, it is not productive to force native peoples to behave in a more European fashion; it is neither good for the native peoples or for Europeans. Instead of being taken in by idealism or ideology, Marlow see colonialism from a very cynical viewpoint, explaining the purpose of European expeditions in Africa as, "to tear treasure out of the bowels of the land...with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe" (Conrad 133). However, unlike Marlow, his aunt is taken in by the idealistic viewpoint stating that Europeans are, "weaning those ignorant millions from their horrid ways" (Conrad 113). Marlow tries to mention that the idea of these companies in Africa is to turn a profit, and is surprised by how out of touch with reality women can be. This statement could certainly be more broadly applied, as it seems like a lot of dialogue is generally based on idealism and not facts.

Clearly, like other things there were positive and negative aspects of the European presence in Africa. For example, the Congo as a personal possession of King Leopold II received some of the most brutal treatment in the history of colonialism. Europeans could have legitimately helped Africans by simply creating industry in Africa and taking advantage of cheap labor. The main thing that is difficult to assess about colonialism is the quality of life which colonized people were experiencing prior to European arrival. While it has been popular since Romanticism to lionize the "noble savage" it seems that most hunter-gatherers would realistically live hard lives, frequently go hungry, and face many dangers. For example, around the turn of the century in India the average life expectancy for an Indian male was 20, appalling low, however when one considers disease, sanitation, starvation, et cetera it is difficult to know how much that would have gone down under British occupation. Similarly, a large percentage of Africans probably did not live in permanent homes or own more than they carried with them, and presumably frequently did not have food for more than a few days. This is by any measure dire poverty.

While Europeans certainly could have behaved in a better fashion during the colonial period, it is really difficult to guage the effect it had on local populations when one considered that a large percentage of the population were either enslaved or in dire policy upon European arrival.