Friday, April 12, 2013

Guinea Woman

It seems her fate was anchored
in the unfathomable sea
for her great grandmother caught the eye of a sailor
whose ship sailed without him from Lucea harbour.
Great grandmother's royal scent of
cinnamon and escallions
drew the sailor up the straits of Africa,
the evidence my blue-eyed grandmother
the first Mulatta
taken into backra's household
and covered with his name.
They forbade great grandmother's 
guinea woman presence
they washed away her scent of
cinnamon and escallions
controlled the child's antelope walk
and called her uprisings rebellions.

This poem brings to light conflicts with being mixed that arose in this family. The children of "Great Grandmother" and the sailor from Lucea were controlled as they were growing up and in the process, their quirks and actions were controlled by the family not to be that of their mother and father's. But as time went on, their grandmother's traits were still there and no matter what they did they came back. Unhomeliness suggested by great grandmother's interaction outside her own race.



Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Blues by Derek Walcott

Those five or six young guys
lunched on the stoop
that oven-hot summer night
whistled me over. Nice
and friendly. So, I stop.
MacDougal or Christopher
Street in chains of light.

A summer festival. Or some
saint's. I wasn't too far from
home, but not too bright
for a nigger, and not too dark.
I figured we were all
one, wop, nigger, jew,
besides, this wasn't Central Park.
I'm coming on too strong? You figure
right! They beat this yellow nigger
black and blue.


     This poem by Derek Walcott is a bit difficult to analyze given that it is rather difficult to figure out when it was written. However, a line does appear that strikes dischord with me.

"I figured we were all one, wop, nigger, jew, besides, this wasn't Central Park." 

I felt that this meant that in his eyes, (probably Derek Walcott's Eyes), he viewed himself as the same as the same as these other groups. He even used the terms that were used to refer to certain groups of people that had undergone their hardships in the past. But, even though all 3 groups had been discriminated against, he was beaten up and on top of that for nothing. His group was still considered lower even after considerable attempts in history to correct that. 

I did nothing. They fought
each other, really. Life
gives them a few kcks,
that's all. The spades, the spicks.

I felt this line was a symbol of the war within the world on how to deal with these many racial groups and how it caused problems within their own groups as individual opinions waged war on each other.

You know they wouldn't kill
you. Just playing rough,
like young Americans will.
Still it taught me somthing
about love. If it's so tough,
forget it.

     I think this last piece is about how opinions of America formed. Played rough and like to try to fix things but, if it was gonna cause so much trouble, then maybe their help is not worth it.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

A Far Cry From Africa

"Again brutish necessity wipes its hands
Upon the napkin of a dirty cause, again
A waste of our compassion, as with Spain,
The gorilla wrestles with the superman.
I who am poisoned with the blood of both,
Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?
I who have cursed
The drunken officer of British rule, how choose
Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?
Betray them both, or give back what they give?
How can I face such slaughter and be cool?
How can I turn from Africa and live?"

     This is an excerpt from Derek Walcott's A Far Cry From Africa. Unlike much of what we have read before, it is fairly short and written in a poetic form. In it, you can see the conflicts he has being forced to choose "Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?" It seems to be a political poem on the state of affairs in Africa.

Much like Codicil, A Far Cry From Africa, seems to be wrecked with this conflict of 2 things.

To change your language you must change your life.

"I cannot right old wrongs.
Waves tire of horizon and return.
Gulls screech with rusty tongues

Above the beached, rotting pirogues,
they were a venomous beaked cloud at Charlotteville.

One I thought love of country was enough,
now, even if I chose, there is no room at the trough.

I watch the best minds rot like dogs
for scraps of flavour.
I am nearing middle
age, burnt skin
peels from my hand like paper, onion-thin,
like Peer Gynt's riddle."

'"From David Walcott's Codicil"'

Having to choose between the country and the what was once the governing power, the colonizer. This conflict seems to be the basis for the emotions expressed within both poems. Conflict between the past and the future.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Passport to Paradise

     "Her man was going to burn in hell, not because of his sins, but because he was poor and black. The rich békés of the land openly kept several concubines; their skins and their eyes had the greenish tint of the absinthe which they drank like coconut water and which aged them as rapidly as the cartman's white rum. Yet, when one of them died, he was given the grandest of funerals. The whole clergy, in their robes, walked in procession before the hearse with crosses and banners. Masses sung in Latin were celebrated for months on end for the repose of their soul."

This quote gives reason as to why someone would choose to go against their own religion which was an important thing in postcolonial societies. To go against the dominant religion, in this case, for Eloise to find an alternate way of salvation in the afterlife for her husband Eugenio, is to go against the hegemony. Eloise went against the hegemony because of the hegemony. The way the elites of the society lived were in contradiction to the ideals that had been established by the hegemony and because Eugenio was both poor and black, that effectively made the family sub-altern at least in alignment with the elites.


Sunday, March 24, 2013

When Women Love Men

I have two quotes. The first quote is on a broader scale about a recurring theme with postcolonial texts.

     "It happened when you died, Ambrosio, and left each of with half of your inheritance, that all this confusion began, this scandal spinning around all over like an iron hoop, smashing your good name against the walls of the town, this slapped and stunned confusion that you swung around for the sake of pleasure, pushing us both downhill at the same time."

This quote is basically a demonstration of the power money has on people. If you have the money, you have the power to alter people to your liken because with money comes power and influence. The problem with money and power in postcolonial societies seems to be a recurring them that appears in many of the texts we have read so far and it should be no surprise that it is found here. In postcolonial type societies depicted by many of the previous authors, money brings too much power and when it suddenly vanishes, or appears, it creates a great disturbance in that so called society. But, because people in postcolonial type societies as depicted by previous authors show that their is huge importance to power and class, it creates a raging war within the likes of which could not be stopped without a restructuring of the entire society which in itself is unacceptable.

"...hidden in my brothel, where no one will know that they have let themselves be made, that they have been putty in my hands, so that then they can, pompous like roosters, delight the little white girls, those blobs of custard that rich girls probably look like in bed, because it is not proper for a good girl to thrust her pelvis, because good girls have vaginas of polished silver and bodies of carved alabaster..."

The key phrase, it is not proper. This is the problem that is recurring throughout this text that seems to be the main idea. This problem reveals issues not with just women being proper, but with men being proper as well and for a postcolonial text, it is a big deal because it challenge a common type of society depicted by these kinds of texts that looks down on taboo acts...

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Dream Haiti (Draft)

"///I write Shante Chackmul & ask WHAT NAME BAHAMAS GIVE TO HAITIANS WHO COME TO YR OUSE TO BEG WURK///

And it was not that we was going anywhere if you see what i mean -
i mean we was not going anywhere although the ship was movin
i suppose & the sea was also movin impeccable & so were the waves
& yet in my dream it was juss like on board anyship anytime & tide"

Dream Haiti brings to light many emotions that refugees from Haiti felt during that time. They were forced out to find a new and better life but in the process were not making any progress. The ship was moving but there status was not and because of which, they were subject to whim of the rest of the world. This text being written in an modern font, (not modern anymore), yet being combined with broken English captures many eyes to the importance of his story, example of New Discourse. We are all human, yet we treat each other so differently. Help is needed and they shouldn't be ignored like they were substandard. This also points to unhomeliness in a new interconnected world.



(Sorry! I accidentally saved it as a draft!)

The Old Men Used to Dance

"Now that he's taken the time time to travel through his homeland, from Cumuto, Tacariguam, Tunapuna, to Curepe, he sees the same hand mingy with space for passing, the same atmosphere armed with an aggressive narrowness. It offends him. The press of open drains and abutted concrete curbs, the unexpected ditch that must be skirted with great care between with great care close, menacing walls offend him. Overseas the drains are all placed underground: why couldn't such care be taken here? The press of other drivers impatiently cutting and squeezing in their knowledge of the local terrain offends hims. Why couldn't things be more orderly here? Why couldn't street signs be posted at a level where drivers may easily read them?"

As we get into more modern post colonial texts a new theme seems to be emerging. The effect of time on places like Trinidad seems to be somewhat stagnated and the author makes sure to point that out in great detail. Alongside this, the author seems to compare his homeland with the rest of the world showing that his homeland is behind in technology and growth yet people have been moving forward. For example, although technology wise his homeland's growth has been stifled, the people of the island seem to have lost track with their own history. The author longs for a return to the past. Now it seems that his world is moving about abruptly and impatiently with no sense of direction somewhat dangerously without remembrance of past.

(Respond to this one~)

Sunday, February 24, 2013

The Light on the Sea by John Wickham

This story has a similar feel to the story Some People are Meant to Live Alone in a sense that Mr. Farley and Uncle Arthur have spent a majority of their time alone and have come to terms with it. However, this quote shows the difference between the stories:

     "'You know,' he said, 'I never knew what light was. All those years behind those trees in that dark house, The light use to trickle, never flow. Mark you, I used to like it, I didn't complain. I thought the gloom was pleasant. But I never knew what the light was.'
     'And how did you come to find out, to see the light?' I asked.
     'I was lucky. When my sister died, there was no one to look after things; I had never learned to cook. My friend told me about this place. The moment I saw it, I knew that I was not going back to that dark house.'"

     Unlike Uncle Arthur who seemed to have shared his loneliness and in a sense cursed his nephew with it, Mr. Farley talks about the opposite although not directly. It seems that the light happened to be his escape from perpetual loneliness of which cursed many people experiencing unhomeliness. By this, it seemed that Mr. Farley was escaped because he truly was unable to fend for himself and by escape, he went to a home where people looked after him. He became surrounded by people whose job is to help him, and thus he was not alone anymore.
     Picture being stranded out at sea with no land visible to the eye. Not seeing birds, fish, anything the moved other than the sea (Loneliness). You grow use to it when this is your life, when it is all you know or remember. Out of no where, there is a light. Because loneliness is all you know, this light can be fearful. Some people stay away, some people go towards it, and some are pulled to it. Mr. Farley in this case, was pulled towards the light. He escaped loneliness by chance but many people are not that lucky.


Tuesday, February 19, 2013

The Doors Open at Three

     The most important quote from this story, The Doors Open at Three by G. Cabrera Infante, is on the very last page.

     "Down the street a man with a long pole in his hands was lighting the lamps one by one. As I watched him I understood. It was then that I realized that I was quite alone, all alone rather, and that I would never see Virginia again. Never again would I feel what I felt when she said to me: 'Wait for me. The doors open at three. I'll be there.' The idea of loneliness horrified me more than loneliness itself. But it was inevitable and I accepted it: I knew because two big tears were clouding my eyes. I could make nothing out but the yellow glare of the yellow lamps lighting the street ahead."

The idea of loneliness is repeated throughout almost every novel we have read dealing with post-colonization. The fear of being left alone in a world surrounded by people because you could not relate, you were shunned, or for any other number of reasons, was overpowering and common thought among people experiencing unhomeliness and its presence in many different forms in the majority of the stories we have read now confirms this.

Friday, February 15, 2013

F Feb 15 Read C. L. R. James's "Triumph," pp. 35-49


This short story is mostly concerned about the interactions between the 3 characters of Mamitz, Celestine, and Irene. All 3 seem to be on the low end of social hierarchy as they live in "barrack-yards" in which "...the porters, the prostitutes, the cartermen, washerwomen, and domestic servants of the city" lived. 

     C. L. R. James presents their place, the women in the barrack-yards, by explaining something about Mamitz.

"Niether the accusation nor the beating had worried Mamitz. To her and her type those were minor incidents of existence, from their knowledge of life and men, the kept women's inevitable fate..."

Women lived in this society that C. L. R. James has depicted yet he says that this fate is inevitable. Meaning that in the same society, women are oppressed. Women are others and this quote does a great job at depicting this. The women in the story, Mamitz, Celestine, and Irene, are using men to live, to survive, because this inequality already made it sufficiently difficult to achieve otherwise.


"It's the wo'se when you meddle with them common low-island people, said Celestine..."

The character of Nicholas had been lied to by Mamitz, Celestine, and other characters in the yard of whom thought lowly of him because he was from St. Vincent. In the end, because of his love for a women that was using him to get his money, Mamitz achieves her goal of getting that money. Nicholas didn't know who to trust. Should he believe Irene, the outcast in the barrack-yard, or the rest of the yard. All in all, C. L. R. James was trying to show that even though the women were considered others in their own society, there were still others in that same society. Nicholas being from St. Vincent, made his place in that society even lower. Even though Nicholas had a job and had money, he was still considered lower than the people of the barrack-yards.

Even in a society of others, there are still others.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

W Feb 13 Read Frank Collymore's "Some People are Meant to Live Alone," pp. 1-8 and Alfred Mendes's "Pablo's Fandago," pp. 18-25

"...Then he was arrested for murder. They hadn't enough evidence to convict him, but he was fini. Disowned by all his former friends, he could go nowhere, do nothing. The shock and the scandal had killed his poor old mother. He was desperate..."

This is one part of the quote I would like to talk about. The character being talked about here is named Smith. Uncle Arthur is telling the story to Bill about how "Some People are meant to live alone". This quote mentioned here depicts someone who has been shunned away from the society he used to partake in yet he still wanted to participate in it. He was cast out, an other. When the character of Jones takes him in, it was a small step back into general society now that Smith had found someone that would put up with him. However, Smith was on the verge of being cast out again.

"...After a while he'd go upstairs and then he'd begin to pray. Pray aloud. Jones told me that of all the things of earth that are likely to rouse thoughts of murder in a man's heart, there is nothing to equal the sound of a voice you do not particularly care for, praying on your behalf...He told him he'd either have to quit him or quit the house.... And then (Smith). . . then he confessed to having committed that murder. He couldn't live alone with the knowledge of that if he woke in the night and felt there was nobody near him, nobody he really knew, he was certain he'd either go mad or kill himself."

This second part of the quote, and the story, reveal what I believed to be one of key elements of people experiencing unhomeliness. The fear of being alone. The fear of being cast out of society and not having anyway back in. The character of Smith felt that without Jones, he would truly be left alone in the world which for him was a likely possibility for he was already cast out of general society for he taboo past. This fear of loneliness, having no one to turn to was present as well in Jean Rhys' Pioneers, Oh Pioneers, and Wide Sargasso Sea. This fear became a reality in a sense in both as that the characters of Ramage and Antoinette, became ensnared in a vicious cycle that left madness as their only solace. What makes Frank Collymore's Some People are Meant to Live Alone different was that Smith brought his madness to Jones. Jones responded by killing Smith. Now the fact that Uncle Arthur is in fact changes the idea of the story. By that I mean, he just confessed murder to his nephew Bill. This in a sense extends Uncle Arthur's self imposed exile from society seeing that probably one of the last people who would associate with him had been pushed away by the form of story. Now, I would say that Uncle Arthur was not experiencing unhomeliness as he did say he wanted to see Bill again, but Uncle Arthur seemed to be alright with being alone.

I would say that the 3 forms of madness presented here were all a result of being thrown out of society. Antoinette's madness, which at first wasn't madness but became true madness for she was told to be mad and thus she became mad, was a result of being true loneliness. Ramage's madness, which turned to possible suicide (still a bit unclear), was a result of society turning against him for his taboo marriage and the fact the he represented change. Uncle Arthur's madness is a result of himself. Although he had come to terms with being left alone in society, although he seemed to have longed for social interaction to an extent, his madness was a result of himself. He then confessed to murder to his nephew and imposed his madness onto Bill. Uncle Arthur didn't fit in, like Ramage and Antoinette.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Wide Sargasso Sea Part 2

I have 2 quotes of which I would like to discuss on :

Page 61

"'It was a a song about a white cockroach. That's me. That's what they call all of us who were here before their own people in Africa sold them to slave traders. And I've heard English women call us white niggers. So between you I often wonder who I am and where is my country and where do I belong and why was I ever born at all.'"

This quote is otherness in its true form expressed in the feelings of Antoinette. It is here that she truly expressed how she feels she does not belong. It is made even more stronger by the fact that throughout the novel, Jean Rhys makes the reader aware of Antoinette's otherness and then by revealing this almost inline with the definition of otherness, shows the importance of it not only to Antoinette but to Jean Rhys as well. Jean Rhys uses this otherness as well to explain Antoinette. Antoinette is only at eases with Christophine, but it seems that everyone else treats her with contempt. Antoinette is tormented by the fact that she can not seem to belong, which along with her marriage to Mr. Rochester adds to her unhappiness, and thus is what I feel is a major part to her insanity. This inherited madness that runs through the family is in fact passed down by their, the family's, need for money. Money seems to lead to their unhappiness even though it was intended to make them happy. There tool for happiness always broke their minds, made them make terrible mistakes, and created a vicious cycle that has become gossip. That gossip comes back in the next generation and poisons the family leading to strife, unhappiness, and insanity.
     This cycle would be easily broken if money did not cloud their judgement but without it, would they have still become insane with unhappiness?

A tough question of which I can't seem to answer.
They need money to achieve some happiness but that money intrudes on their happiness. That money is a catalyst for uncertainty.

Page 94
"They drive her to it. When she lose her son she lose herself for a while and they shut her away. They tell her she is mad. Question, question. But no kind word, no friend, and her husban' he go off, he leave her. They won't let me see her. I try, but no. They won't let Antoinette see her. In the end - mad I don't know - she give up, she care for nothing. That man who is in charge of her he take her whenever he want and his woman talk. That man, and others. Then they have her. Ah there is no God."

Annette lost it for a while, according to Christophine, after her son had died. But instead of giving her time to recover from the tragedy, she was locked away, shut up. On top of that, it seems she had no choice to her own fate. She had no control over her life. A maddening concept to think that your life is not in your own hands. She was treated like she was insane, again another thing that could actually crack someone. She was shut up away from all her friends, if she had any, and her husband left her. The pain of that is enough to drive anyone insane. If Annete, or any other person for that matter, were not insane before hand, they would be after facing an ordeal like this. Losing control of what you can and want to do. Being told you are not well mentally and being treated likewise. Not being able to see friends and family. It is a living hell. Not to be driven insane is a testament to you strength and you should be consider the pillar of perseverance!

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Wide Sargasso Sea

From page 14 of Wide Sargasso Sea:

     "That's not what she hear, she said. She hear all we poor like beggar. We ate salt fish - no money for fresh fish. That old house so leaky, you run with calabash to catch water when it rain. Plenty white people in Jamaica. Real white people, they got gold money. They didn't look at us, nobody see them come near us. Old time white people nothing but white nigger now, and black nigger better than white nigger."

This quote contains a couple of things about Antoinette and the time period that is occurring in Wide Sargasso Sea at this point. First off, this quote speaks volume about Jean Rhys' "affinity" with coloured people because of the fact that here it is represented again. Jean Rhys' spoke about this on page 155-156 in the "Black Exercise Book." However, as what was stated in the aforementioned passage and what applies to Antoinette, she is rejected because she isn't black. Antoinette can not find solace with colored people because of her skin color. Because her mother was from Martinique, Antoinette would feel the rivalries between the English and the French. (Martinique being French and Jamaica being English) This sets up the double consciousnesses as well. Antoinette's family, before they met Mr. Mason, were poor. They didn't have money like white people should have because although they were white, they weren't hence the term "white nigger." They could not be white and they were rejected by the majority of people to which they did belong to. Thus, double consciousness. Antoinette, on page 29, even gets stalked and confronted by a white and black child. Jean Rhys is showing the extent of double consciousness here by including this story in her novel.


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(Just looked at the schedule... posting this anyway.)

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

W Jan 30 In Class: "Wide Sargasso Sea: Real and Imaginary Islands" and Discussion; all selections by Rhys, 132-56

     The selection of letters presented to us in pages 132 to 145 show us, the readers of the letters, an in depth analysis of the mind of Jean Rhys in her writing of here book, Wide Sargasso Sea. She makes at first many comments about freedom of criticism in the relation between Americans and the English, how she was "dragged into writing by a series of coincidences", and the state of the arts.
     Now, at first, this may seem like menial things just to talk about with a friend but however, everything she writes here is reflected on in here novel. She chooses to write about the mind of a lunatic from the West Indies. This goes to contradict what the English generally publish which is about pleasant things in a sense to control he masses, an abstraction of what was written by Jean Rhys herself. She takes on the perspective of a character of whom would be difficult to understand of which is a feat in literature, a new perspective. She wants to build up the "mad Creole". Give an explanation to the madness, a reason for Mr. Rochester cruelty.
Jean Rhys makes it perfectly clear in her letters about her intentions for her novel. Not only does she want to build this character up, but as mentioned in the letter to Francis Windlam in the 4th paragraph, "But I, readin it later, and often, was vexed at her portrait of the "paper tiger" lunatic, the all wrong creole scences,...", she wanted to build up Creole, and the true cruelty of Mr. Rochester. On the note of Mr. Rochester true cruelty, here is a quote in the same letter that shows a perspective from whence his cruelty came. I say a perspective because it is not the only perspective:

     "Mr. Rochester tries hard not to be a tyrant. Back in Spanish Town he gives her a certain freedom, tries to be kindly if distant.
     But now she is angry too. Like a hurricane. Like a Creole. For his second revenge - his affair with her maid (and next door) has hurt more than the first.
     She uses her freedom to rush off and have an affair too - first with her pal Sandi - then with others. All coloured or black, which was, in those days a terrible thing for a white girl to do. Not to be forgiven. The men did as they liked. The women - never.
     So imagine Mr.R's delight when he can haul her to England, lock her up in a cold dark room, deprive her of all she's used to - watch her growing mad. And so on ..."

This perspective offers insight to the cruelty of Mr. Rochester in the sense that he is getting hypocritical revenge for her not only smearing her own name, but in the process smearing his.


    All of which falls in line with her novel Wide Sargasso Sea. These letters are the inner-workings of Rhys' mind as she worked on completing the novel.

(Sorry for the wall of text! ~Leroy Hunter 8:49pm 30/1/2013~)

I would like to mention that in the very last reading, From Black Exercise Book†, there was this sense of double consciousness  She feels uneasy with both black and white people. She felt akin to black people but in reality is rejected for she is white yet, although she is white, she feels akin to black people. A conundrum which create the double consciousness.



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Again, I am sorry for the wall of text provided here, I could not organize my thoughts as I would have liked. (Sensitive to the light being emitted everywhere on the account that I might be sick.) So this wall of text is an example of the untrimmed version of a blog that I put up at first.

Friday, January 25, 2013

R L.Carson's Reading Sargasso Sea

     "Once they lived near the sea's edge, a few feet or a few fathoms below the surface, but never far above a firm bottom. They knew the rhythmic movements of waves and tides. They could leave the shelter of the weeds at will and creep or swim about over the bottom in search of food. Now, in the middle of the ocean, they are in a new world."

     I feel that this quote represents the feeling of both colonizers going to the West Indians and the indigenous people having to meet and experience the colonizers. Both people were thrown into new environments, West  Indians into the societies of their colonizers and colonizers into the new environment of the West Indies, and had to learn the differences betwixt each other. Because of which, no one can feel safe or find a home even among themselves as people find new tides or waves to suit life in their new environments. This create changing of the rhythm brought on by time disturbs the tides and creates the double consciousness not only among the West Indies' indigenous but creates conflict among the colonizers and causes immense changes within both cultures.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Reading by Jane Eyre

From page 129
'"Go," said Hope, "and live again in Europe: there it is not known what a sullied name you bear, nor what a filthy burden is bound to you. You may take the maniac with you to England; confine her with due attendance and precautions at Thornfield: then travel yourself to what clime you will, and form what new tie you like."

This first portion of the quote I believe is what formed the mindset about many colonists. They believed that they lived 2 different lives. One in the West Indies and one in England. It explains why many colonists acted the way they did and thus treated the people the way they did. The life they had in the West Indies did not matter, the only one that was important was the life in England, the one to which they were born too.

"That women who has so abused your long-suffering - so sullied your name; so outraged your honour; so blighted your youth - is not your wife; nor are you her husband."

This quote seems to contradict the presence of God because their marriage was under him. So why is it that should he return to England that this marriage does not stand? Is God's presence not accounted for in the West Indies? If this is the case, it this why colonist treated the indigenous people of the West Indies like beast or in a twist of words, why the colonists acted like beasts themselves?
 

Thursday, January 17, 2013

End of Mary Prince Readings 89-115

The quote I am about to post is of several parts and comes from pages 110-111 

"Masters v. Slaves
Jacob of Mozambique, slave of W, Servyntyn, for threatening the life of his master, and making resistance against the Veld-Cornet: condemned to be exposed to public view, made fast under the gallows; thereupon to be flogged, branded, and confined on Robben Island (to work in irons) for life."

Jacob basically receives a life sentence for threatening his master. Even with this perspective alone, the unfairness can be seen. The slave's life, of which he doesn't even own because it is at the master's discretion, is basically and permanently taken away from him as he is sent to prison. Now, a true demonstration of unfairness.

"Slaves v Masters
O.C Mostert, for cruel treatment of a female slave, in consequence of which she died; condemned to be banished from this colony and its dependencies for twenty-five years."

To compare, Mostert is not even sent to prison, just sent away from the colonies for 25 years as compared to Jacob, who didn't kill anyone, it given a life sentence to prison on Robben Island. Even the law judges slaves differently. The slaves believed they would be treated differently if they were free but in their society, it is impossible for that to truly happen, that and the chance of them being free was slim as the master's would physically and psychologically prevent slaves from achieving that purpose.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

W Jan 16 Read the Introduction and The History of Mary Prince to p. 38


Posted at 11:39 p.m. EST


Taken from page 10 of Am I Not A Woman and a Sister? The History of Mary Prince,
     "When I reached the house, I went in directly to Miss Betsy. I found her in great distress; and she cried out as soon as she saw me, "Oh Mary! my father is going to sell you all to raise money to marry that wicked women. You are my slaves, and he has no right to sell you; but it is all to please her." She then told me that my mother was living with her father's sister at a house close by, and I went there to see her."

     I find that it is a strange conflict to talk about being a slave, an item, and about that item's family in the same sentence. If slaves are not human, if slaves are items that hold value and can be traded at any whim, why is it that one, Miss Betsy shows fondness of them as humans, and two tells the "item", about their family?
What I am trying to say is that their seems to be confusion brought on by this myriad of owners that Mary goes through. (To be clear, Mary has a few good owners but then the rest are awful.). She is treated humanely and inhumanely at the some time. She is an other in her society, even when she became free.

She is never truly free in that society.

Pg 34 applies directly to this blog.
"She said, "If she goes the people will rob her, and then turn her adrift."

Finally, There is a passage on page 37, that ends with the end of the reading on page 38 if which is very long and thus unreasonable for me to try to post, that starts with "I am often much vexed,..." that shows an example of misrepresentation.
   Many slaves were not able to read and or write  even much for that matter communicate on a level of which they could be understood outside of their "class". So, it is a farce for anyone other than a slave to say how a slave must feel and even worst so for people to believe what that person says.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

M Jan 14 "The Dark Mirror: Slave Communities" : just the speeches from Shakespeare's The Tempest (1611) by Caliban; also read Richard Steele's THE SPECTATOR entry for Tuesday, March 13, 1711. on Inkle and Yarico; also read Robert Browning's 1864 dramatic monologue "Caliban Upon Setebos"

From The Spectator

     "Sir, when I consider, how perfectly new all you have said on this Subject is, and that the Story you have given us is not quite two thousand Years Old, I cannot but think it a Piece of Presumption to dispute with you: But your Quotations put me in Mind of the Fable of the Lion and the Man. The Man walking with that noble Animal, showed him, in the Ostentation of Human Superiority, a Sign of a Man killing a Lion. Upon which the Lion said very justly, We Lions are none of us Painters, else we could show a hundred Men ruled by Lions, for one Lion killed by a Man. You Men are Writers, and can represent us Women as Unbecoming as you please in your Works, while we are unable to return the Injury. You have twice or thrice observed in your Discourse, that Hypocrisy is the very Foundation of our Education ; and that an Ability to dissemble our affections, is a professed Part of our Breeding. These, and such other Reflections, are sprinkled up and down the Writings of all Ages, by Authors, who leave behind them Memorials of their Resentment against the Scorn of particular Women, in Invectives against the whole Sex. Such a Writer, I doubt not, was the celebrated Petronius, who invented the pleasant Aggravations of the Frailty of the Ephesian Lady; but when we consider this Question between the Sexes, which has been either a Point of Dispute or Raillery ever since there were Men and Women, let us take Facts from plain People, and from such as have not either Ambition or Capacity to embellish their Narrations with any Beauties of Imagination."

     I have decided to use this passage because it shows a true example of otherness within a society by Arietta's scolding of a man of whom exhibits a very sexist nature in his account of the Story of the Ephesian Matron. By otherness, I mean to point out that even with her own society, that women are made into an entirely different class as men. Because of this class difference, women are not able to properly represent themselves and are represented improperly and are unable to show the faults of that way of thought. This quote serves not only as an example but also as an awakening to the hypocrisy that is happening. 

Thursday, January 10, 2013

F Jan 11 "Reflections of Europe in the New World": all extracts from Christopher Columbus's 1492 Journal and Sir Walter Raleigh's 1595 The Discovery of Guiana

    Both sources seem to show that the motive for exploration was for the discovery of gold and other various riches for the king and queen to have. Their exploration also being for knowledge and expansion, in other words colonization. Their description of the people as they move through the islands seems to show that the people are primitive compared to them and weak if they should attack them.

      "I do not, however, see the necessity of fortifying the place, as the people here are simple in war-like matters, as your Highnesses will see by those seven which I have ordered to be taken and carried to Spain in order to learn our language and return, unless your Highnesses should choose to have them all transported to Castile, or held captive in the island. I could conquer the whole of them with fifty men, and govern them as I pleased."

     The importance of this, is to show how different they were compared the indigenous people of the islands they passed by. The intentions of the colonizers is to, one, find and discover land suitable for the king and queen, two, discover untold riches and bring it back to their king and queen, and finally although indirectly, suggest changes for the king and queen to infer onto the indigenous people of the islands to make them more civilized like converting them to Christianity, and making them learn their language. General rules of colonization.

     On a side note, we don't really see anything from the perspective indigenous other than the fact that they are in awe of the explorers and willing to trade for things although they seem ignorant of their values.


Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Child's article


" ln the period after decolonization,
it rapidly became apparent (to the newly independent nations, at least) 
that although colonial armies and bureaucracies might have with-
drawn, Western powers were still intent on maintaining maximum 
indirect control over erstwhile colonies, via political, cultural and 
above all economic channels, a phenomenon which became known as 
neo­colonialism."

   This text is important to consider when formulating the definition of post-colonization. Post colonization is very ambiguous in the fact that it can be different for which ever country entering said period.  For example, some countries although decolonized in a sense remain colonies to the country that colonized it in the first place. Their post colonization COULD then be defined as neocolonialism as this period of time that the former colony is subject to the colonial countries whim has an effect on the culture of the people in the former colony. 
    The true importance of this text, is to show the problem of specificity with a word like post-colonialism. Does it mean after decolonization, is it after being colonized for some time, or could it be when there was some noticeable change with the social operation of the colony? The ambiguity of the term makes it difficult to discern yet making the term specific causes problems of inclusion. By this I mean, if the term were to be specific, it would fail to include other examples of what was thought to be post colonization on the grounds that it didn't fit specifically within the definition yet it was OK before the term's definition changed. It is a paradox. This is a theory because it isn't perfect. 
 "In The Political Unconscíous, Fredric jameson high-
lights the Ways in which theories, ideologies and intellectual practices 
contain a Utopian dimension, for instance, dialectical thought as ‘the 
anticipation of the logic of a collectivity which has not yet come into 
being’.16 If even unsavoury ideologies such as Fascism can project a 
Utopian aspect, how much more so sets of theories which are grounded 
in the histories and experiences of the formerly- or still-colonized world, 
and which articulate their aspirations? There is a form of perverseness 
in taking the label ‘post-’ for a state which is not yet fully present, and 
linking it to something which has not fully disappeared, but in many 
Ways that paradoxical in-betweenness precisely characterizes the post-
colonial World."