William Cronon’s book, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England identifies, examines and explains the ecological history and changes that took place in New England between the late sixteenth to the early nineteenth century, and how it affected the future of the region.
Abina and the Important Men, written by Trevor R. Getz and illustrated by Liz Clarke, is an adaptation of Abina, a slave’s story and her trial for justice. Abina believes she was sold into slavery despite it being illegal in the British Colonies. The crisis, I believe, is that she struggles to prove her slavery past in court, making it difficult to receive any compensation for her forced labor. The book as, at first, a graphic novel with pictures incorporated with the dialogue. The second part is the actual transcript between Abina and everyone else in the court. I noted a few differences in the experience between reading the primary and secondary document. I believe Abina’s crisis is her inability to express in the court's vernacular that she was wrongfully enslaved, and I believe the differences between the primary and secondary documents change the course of the crisis.
In The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver creates a character Orleanna Price who was semi-voluntarily exiled to the Congo. She was exiled from a happy life due to her marriage to Nathan Price, she was exiled from both America and Americans when she moved to the Congo, and she was exiled from her family when her youngest daughter died. With each exile, Orleanna’s personality is enriched by the things she learns during that exile, and Orleanna finds herself alienated from the people and lifestyle she used to have before each exile. In the first exile, Orleanna’s personality is enriched from the general life lessons she learns with the experience of age. During that exile, she is alienated from everyone she meets if they meet, have met, or even
Kincaid, who is from the South American country of Antigua laments the loss of her country’s history at the hands of famed fifteenth century explorer Christopher Columbus. Kincaid sarcastically describes Antigua, a country “discovered” by Columbus, from his perspective. “In the writings, in anything representing a record of the imagination of Christopher Columbus, I cannot find any expectation for a place like this. It is a small lump of insignificance, green, green, green, and green again… the
In the essay “Sowers and Reapers,” Jamaica Kincaid has a bitter attitude for both speeches “the Holocaust garden” and for the gardens on the Middleton Place Plantation. Chicago is recreating the garden of Auschwitz that was made by prisoners. The garden was made by prisoners who were facing death. It was built as a quadripartite garden. This way of gardening is quite common. Kincaid said that her favorite garden is the Garden of Eden. The recreation of the garden in Auschwitz was the Holocaust garden. This made Kincaid not want to talk about the Garden of Eden because of the German roots in Auschwitz. This creates a bitter thought for Kincaid. For the gardens on the Middleton Place Plantation she describes how the garden had individual spots for a specific flower. She thought the garden was beautiful. Kincaid experiences awfulness because slaves made the gardens. The water from the river was used to flood the rice fields. Their rice-cultivation skills were used to maintain the plantation.
After thinking, I realized that, along with Haiti, many other islands in the Caribbean had been or still were under colonization and being oppressed. The use of the word “island” here can be seen as a call to battle to all other islands in the Caribbean who are being oppressed by their colonizers. Although not immediately following the Haitian War of Independence, many of the fellow Countries that were being oppressed in the Caribbean slowly began to realize and fight for their independence. For this reason, I find the use of the word “island” in this quote very
For many years now, extremist conspirators have believed that the world is going to end, and everyone will perish. However, one poet has a more positive outlook, “A Map to the Next World” by Joy Harjo illustrates the fall of man and the birth of a better world. Symbolism about ancient civilization, modern day society, and her hopes for the future in her poem are used to emphasize that humanity should work towards a restored future.
To understand the real meaning of a literary work, we need to look into the meaning of each word and why the author has chosen these particular words and not different ones. Close reading of literary works helps us understand the author’s thinking and understanding of the time they lied in. One of the American poet and author of the 18th century, Phillis Wheatley, she was one of the most famous poets who changed the life of most Americans. Wheatley’s most famous poem is “On Being Brought from Africa to America”. To look in more detail into this specific poem, first thing is the language that she uses, second the form and style of the poem, and lastly what message she is trying to get to her audience. However, in this essay the main focus will
In this small excerpt from Mansfield Park, Mrs. Norris and Lady Bertram are having a conversation where the Antigua plantation comes up. It is brought up casually, and is clarified as the main source of income for the family’s lifestyle. Through this conversation, Austen makes an attempt to
The most apparent repetition in “Good Times” is the anaphora that prompts half of th lines. In repeating “and,” Clifton transforms her poem into a uniform, rhythmic list of the speaker 's memories (Clifton 2). Uniformity within the poem creates a sense of
When I ask my friends about my most prominent feature, they always mention my “Britishness”. With my Union Jack Converses and other flag covered items, I understand why. Of course, why wouldn't they comment on that? I am proud of my birthplace, and couldn't think of a better place to call home. Yet being a foreigner, I have faced a few challenges in coming to terms with who I am. Some obstacles are more comical than others, yet they all played a part in me understanding that nationality can’t be wiped away.
Michelle Cliff’s short story Down the Shore conspicuously deals with a particularly personal and specific, deeply psychological experience, in order to ultimately sub-textually create a metaphor regarding a wider issue of highly social nature. More specifically, the development of the inter-dependent themes of trauma, exploitation, as well as female vulnerability, which all in the case in question pertain to one single character, also latently extend over to the wider social issue of colonialism and its entailing negative repercussions, in this case as it applies to the Caribbean and the British Empire. The story’s explicit personal factor is developed through the literary techniques of repetition, symbolism, metaphor, as well as slightly warped albeit telling references to a distinct emotional state, while its implicit social factor is suggested via the techniques of allusion, so as to ultimately create a generally greater, undergirding metaphor.
Jamaica Kincaid depicts an instructional survival guiding theme in “Girl,” about a mother giving essential advice to the daughter about very critical life issues. The advice consists of how to do many domestic acts such as Antiguan dishes, being a respectable young lady and many small suggestions to not have a ruined reputation amongst the society the young girl is living in. Throughout the short story uses symbolism to emphasize the theme entirely so the girl learns to behave and be pure in front of others who watch her every move.
Immigrant lives in both Fruit of the Lemon and ‘reality’ hardships mostly share similar endurance. Many immigrants are stuck in two different cultures; their original culture and the new culture that they adopt in a new place. However, some immigrants only have a chance to adopt a new culture. Some immigrant family’s children were born in a country other than their native country. In Fruit of the Lemon, Faith is a person who lived her whole life without her native culture which was hard for her to understand her fellows race. Yet, she could not stands watching her people get hurt in front of her. Before going to Jamaica, where she clears her mind about the confusion, she had about the whole culture problem that led to her depression, she was
“Sugar in the Blood” is a book written by Andrea Stuart, female from diverse racial setting. She was born and raised in the Caribbean Island, in particular, the Barbados. Stuart decision of writing this book comes from inspiration from her earliest ancestors while she was sitting in a library located in Barbados Museum. The library appears to be harshly air-conditioned showing the pathetic condition of her ecological niche. Stuart used census records as the primary source of information and data. Despite the limitations of genealogical study present in the library, she builds various ideas from the sources even if it yields the skeleton and not