The book marriage of Anansewa is an African play sourced from an Akan folktale whose story tells the tale of a beggarly, struggling father, Kweku Ananse, who concocts a plot to escape the privations life has to offer, especially the financial constraints in which he finds himself such as: paying his daughter Anansewa’s school fees, primarily among other needs. In the context of pages (44-47), Sutherland’s writing makes this time of celebration in the play both enjoyable and significant for us readers through the application of literary devices such as engaging diction in the dialogue between Aya (Ananse’s Mother) and Ekuwa (Ananse’s Aunt), atoning metaphors and the mollifying utilization of song. Consequently, Sutherland’s method of writing …show more content…
As the conversation between Aya and Ekuwa continues, Sutherland gives me further insight into the life of Anansewa - her mother died and her grandmother and aunt substitutes her position and role. We observe this when Aya reflects, “Yes, it is true that you and I are here doing all we can, and yet when I remember that the person who should be here as well, bustling around Anansewa, is her own mother,….It isn’t as though we could send a messenger by taxi to fetch her. Truly, death has done some wickedness.” Sutherland’s writing here make this time of celebration in the play both enjoyable and significant as her grandmother and aunt are there for her and substitutes the role of her late mother in her time of celebration. The fact that she still enjoys her outdooring ceremony despite it being rushed truthfully makes reading it all the more pleasurable. Although a pivotal component in a young girl’s life at the time of courtship is her mother, Sutherland’s writing makes the death of Anansewa’s mother significant as we are told that even with her absence in her life she actually relishes her outdooring ceremony “so much” that, according to her grand-aunt, Ekuwa notes that Anansewa “keeps on asking questions in order to learn as much as she can.” This verifies that regardless of the fact that her mother was not there, she intends to relish in the presences of her grandmother and aunt and learn from them at her outdooring
Song of Solomon, a novel written by Toni Morrison in 1977 spans over the course of 30 years during which the protagonist, Macon Dead, embarks on a quest for cultural identity. In a small excerpt retrieved from the novel’s first chapter, we see how Macon observes his estranged sister Pilate, along with her daughter and granddaughter, through a window. Through the narrator’s vivid descriptions, symbolic setting, and witty comparisons, Morrison conveys a conflicted relationship between the observer and the observed. In this piece, Morrison utilizes vivid diction that works on multiple levels. For example, in the text he uses specific phrases to create a image and representation as if we (the readers) are present.
The worst bearing of both Rowlandson and Equiano has to face was being separated from their own love ones. Rowlandson was separated from her family and relations when her village was attacked then eventually lost her only child that was with her. Nevertheless, Equiano also endured tormented pain when he was parted from his sister while she was the only comfort to him at once. He was a young boy in a fearful atmosphere with nothing to convey a positive perspective. “It was vain that [they] besought than not to part us; she was torn from [him], and immediately carried away, while [he] was left in a state of distraction not to be describe”.
He pointed out that the particularities of a given culture determine the nature and manner of functioning of societal institutions that influence how children think and learn. The case In Search of Sangum, Asha deals with the conflict of two completely different cultures. In one culture she must act as the “perfect Indian daughter” in her home and the other culture she must be an independent American woman outside of her home. In Someday, My Elders Will be Proud, where Jean experienced two completely different worlds.
Antonia and Jim both traveled to Nebraska leaving places that they loved. Jim had just lost his parents while Antonia left her homeland that she loved dearly. Her father’s sadness was noticeable to Antonia and she held that burden close to her heart. She longed for her father to overcome his sadness of missing their home in Europe. She recognizes that her family was not the same.
The grandmother’s transcendence to grace happens in her last moments of life. Through her last hours of suffering, she had loved. She then completes this character transformation by dying peacefully with, “her face smiling up at the cloudless sky”
It is also a story of intercultural marriage, the foreign population of Addis Ababa in the early 1970s, and a descriptive narrative of the early years of the Ethiopian revolution. The book keeps repeating the descriptions of ritual and village life, rural travel, problems for women in a society
At first glance, it seems like an aimless reminiscence by a starry-eyed boy about a romanticized girl. But as the novel progresses, it becomes so much more. Antonia coarsens as she works like a man in the fields, cavorts with the boys in town, and eventually unmarried motherhood. These incidents only reveal that the story is not about Antonia’s perfection—it is about the old country and her fierce devotion to it. Antonia’s poor choices made her a “battered woman”, but returning to the country replenished the “rich mine of life” in her soul and made her as insurmountable as “the founders of early races” (Cather, 127).
The author uses the emotions of both the narrator and the grandmother to show their different opinions on how they see their identities. “The awful grandmother knits the names of the people who have died and of the people who are still alive into one long prayer fringed with the grandchildren born in that barbaric country with its
While living with her, Jay finds out that his aunt, Tita Chato, had taken Jun under her roof for a year after he ran away from his home. He witnesses the heartbreak that Tita Chato and her wife experience having to watch Jun leave them too, his reason being that he was done, “‘Pretending,’ Tita Chato provides. ‘To be our son, I think.’ She closes her eyes like the words are physically painful” (Ribay 170). Jun had not only left Tita Chato’s home, but also her care.
Using distinctively visual, sensory language and dramatic devices in texts allows the reader and audience to view as well as participate and relate to different emotions. In the fictional play “Shoe Horn Sonata” written by John Misto, 1995, Misto sets the scene by using dramatic devices to address the extremely confronting circumstances that the protagonists, Sheila and Bridie experience. Similarly, in the poem “Beach Burial” by Kenneth Slessor, 1944, Slessor too uses extremely strong visual language on the subject of war to overcome the gruesome realities of the subject matter. Misto’s play “Shoe Horn Sonata” shares the impacting journey two young women are forced to face, spending 1287 days in captivity in a Sumatran war camp, during world war two.
According to Martin Payne, narrative therapy encourages “richer, combined narratives to emerge from disparate descriptions” of experiences (Payne 7). The strong use of narrative in Half of a Yellow Sun is an essential aspect of the novel, with the narrative being interdependent on the mixture of many different stories being told by a variety of narrators. (De Mey 9). Adichie employs the intersections of these different narrative strategies within the novel as Ugwu writes the story of his experience of the Biafran War, while for Olanna; the narration of her traumas to Ugwu is central to being able to overcome its stifling affects. Through these characters’ experiences with narration, Adichie is able to illustrate its potentially therapeutic effect.
For instance, it is quite clear that Ibsen's decision to talk about the topic of money in this play is influenced by the societal norms or cultural expectations at the time where the society in Norway at around the nineteenth century had changed significantly in terms of its socio-economic ideologies and people had become obsessed with money where they would always take care of their financial health by trying to avoid debt by all means. This explains why the opening discussion in this play is about the topic of money and the story ends up with a divorce which has been occasioned by borrowed money by a wife in order to save her husband’s life. However, the most important aspect of the play is how Ibsen has demonstrated that women are willing to reject social conventions in order to safeguard their interest as was witnessed with Nora and Ms. Linde who are two women who have gone against social expectations in order to care for their families. For this reasons, Ibsen play is influenced by the social and cultural norms of the time where he seeks to show that a time had come to reject some of the conservative social conventions that
Final Analysis Writers of works of literature have long employed various stylistic devices to execute their literary objectives. Some of these stylistic devices include – but are not limited to – the use of settings, theme, and characters. Furthermore, such works can be analyzed, understood and interpreted through the lens of theories such as Feminism, Post-colonialism, and Existentialism. The use of various stylistic devices in service of the exploration of various literary theories serves to make literature vibrant, richer, and much more useful to the society in which the work is produced. Through the use of the mentioned stylistic devices, writers are able to demonstrate links that exist between their works of literature and theories such as Feminism, Post-colonialism, and Existentialism.
S. Naipaul and J. M. Coetzee these Post-colonial writers have all dealt with Africa in their own individual and unique ways. Achebe does not treat the African culture and ways of life as something hybrid, complex, dependant for its significance on the Western style of perceiving things or neither has he shown Africa to be existing only in relation to its difference from or consonance with the Western form of religion, culture, identity, and discourse. The major theme of the novel ‘Things Fall Apart’ centers around the destruction of Africa’s intricate, almost incomprehensible but unique way of life and culture in the wake of British colonization and forced or maneuvered conversion to Christianity. The administrative as well as religious changes that the British tries to impose upon the native Africans has the disastrous effects of uprooting the indigenous people from their original root and tradition and can be seen as some instruments of subjugation, subordination and subservience which starts with creating distrust, doubts and insecurity in the minds of people for their Igbo tradition, and its cultural and religious practices and ends with making them internalize the Christian way of life and British administrative apparatuses. Another theme that is explored in this novel is the inherent fault of the central character Okonkwo, who is ambitious, industrious, honest, masculine but is rash, and unthinking and his sense of self and identity is wholly dependent on the approval of others in his community and he thinks of anything that intrudes into it as a threat and he tries hard to be a man though in a flawed manner.
Finding Meaning in My Favourite Text The play, “In the chest of a woman”, written, directed and published in 2008 by the Ghanaian playwright, Efo Kojo Mawugbe, told the story of a female character who deviated from society’s constructed norms. The protagonist, Nana Yaa Kyeretwie, came to the forefront to challenge society’s notion that men should lead while women follow. This was evident as Nana Yaa exhibited macho characteristics. The hilarity of the text coupled with the feisty and cunning nature of Nana Yaa made the text stand out as my favourite.