Samuel Selvon is one of the most popular and internationally acclaimed contemporary postcolonial Caribbean writers. He is placed apart by the sheer range and variety of his published works, which include ten novels and a collection of short stories (Ways of Sunlight), a great number of short stories, poems and essays to newspapers and magazines and several plays for radio and television. He is also renowned because he became one of the founding fathers of the Caribbean literacy renaissance of the 1950s. As a postcolonial writer, Selvon seeks to illustrate the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. Homi K Bhabha, a contemporary postcolonial critic, employs some postcolonial notions like ‘hybridity,’ ‘unhomeliness,’ ‘creolization,’ ‘mimicry,’ and ‘ambivalence’ to depicts this relationship between the colonizer and colonized. In this research paper, an attempt has been made to identify the postcolonial problems like ‘stereotyping,’ ‘mimicry,’ ‘hybridity’ and ‘creolization’ in Selvon’s novels. The characters in Selvon novels are best example of postcoloniality, they are away from their ‘homes’ and have to accept the rules and customs of the dominant ‘white’ culture in which they find themselves ‘unhomed’. As Bhabha opines, the immigrant characters are ‘psychological refugees’ who do not know to which culture they belong, to their West Indian culture or to the British culture. They do not know which culture should be of value to them as a result of which their
Colonialism: Tragedy or Blessing? Although we may be too busy with our everyday lives to notice, much of our world is subjected to colonization. In “An American of Color” (1993) by Victor Villanueva and “Reading the Slender Body” (1993) by Susan Bordo, both authors analyze and discuss the effects colonization has on society, and argue that the colonized have begun to mimic or mirror the colonizers as well as becoming a subaltern or the lower rank. Villanueva and Bordo write about their experiences with postcolonialism and the impact it has on society, in which minorities and females are greatly affected.
Two brothers create a special bond but later learn it is not that way. “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst is a story that contains the main character, Brother, and his little brother, Doodle, who struggles physically. Throughout the story Doodle was put to the test by brother physically and sometimes emotionally. Brother did this in pride and learned that pride led to Doodle's Death. The author conveys the feeling of desolation and it is shown by point of view, character dialogue, character actions.
Famous writer Maya Angelou once said, “Don't let the incidents which take place in life bring you low. And certainly don't whine. You can be brought low, that's OK, but dont be reduced by them. Just say, 'That's life.” People, like Elie wiesel and Abraham Lincoln are heroes who tried to make the world a better place.
The very first page of this book we are presented with a letter from Alex, who is obviously leaving home. The letter I believed was a really cool way to give us the background of the story we needed to know on a personal level. This was our first look at Alex. He seems excited to be out in the Alaskan bush. Not too many people would be excited about that.
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.
Literary Analysis of “Us & Them” by David Sedaris There are many people in the world that we don’t understand. David Sedaris’ short story “Us & Them” is a high comedy that uses irony and wordplay to convey the idea that just because someone isn’t exactly like you doesn’t mean you can be rude to them. In this story, there are many examples of word-play.
She achieves her aim in highlighting that the prohibitive laws which reduce people like her to mere sexual bodies is a psycho-social remnant of the colonial past. She addresses a number of audiences within the piece, including the human rights community, the governments of both her native Trinidad and Tobago and The Bahamas, and by extension all citizens of the Caribbean and wider world who have been disenfranchised by laws that diminish their humanity and highlight their perceived iniquity. The implication of her essay is clear: if not just any body can be a citizen, the democracy which we have set up is in need of some adjustment. It relates to us because it reminds us that for every time we deny any body rights, we have failed to live up to the principles on which are postcolonial societies are supposed to be
In the short story “Blackness” by Jamaica Kincaid, the narrator’s consciousness develops through a process of realization that she does not have to choose between the culture imposed on her and her authentic heritage. First, the narrator explains the metaphor “blackness” for the colonization her country that fills her own being and eventually becomes one with it. Unaware of her own nature, in isolation she is “all purpose and industry… as if [she] were the single survivor of a species” (472). Describing the annihilation of her culture, the narrator shows how “blackness” replaced her own culture with the ideology of the colonizers.
Nicholas Carr introduces his opinion of automation through an example of the overused system of autopilots during an airline flight and questions our growing dependence to technology that is gradually beginning to complete task that we can do for ourselves. Carr moves on to reminisces back to his high school driving lessons, his experiences from driving automatic stick shift to manual stick shift and expresses his joy of being able to be in control of his own vehicle. He then focuses on the self – driving Google car that can effortlessly tours around the California and Nevada area, reporting that an accident did occur but was a manual drivers fault. Over the course of the chapter, he presents us with different scenarios of how technology plays
Poetry is an important part of literature which conveys an author 's ideas across to the reader through the use of descriptive language. Poetry helps an author to express their inner emotions and often incorporates various poetic devices which enriches the text. Poetry gives the reader a different perspective and when read closely, can give the audience a look into the authors imagination. Likewise, poetic devices enhance the writing and can drastically change the mood of the poem, as well as, how the reader interprets the poem. Poetic devices are important in literature because they help to convey a message, add spontaneity to a poem, and give the reader a strong visual.
Epoka University Faculty of Architecture and Engineering Department of Architecture ARCH IV ARCH418 PhD. Ernest Shtepani Shasivar Rada ID:02021120 Delirious New York Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan Rem Koolhaas Our role is not to retreat back to the catacombs, but to became more human in skyscraper Manhattan is the theatre for the terminal stage of western civilization... A mountain range of evidence without manifesto.
In A Small Place, the root of Kincaid’s anger is from British colonization in Antigua (her homeland) and the effect it had on the government and society. The postcolonial lens looks at the consequence that external forces have on native people and their land. She loathes the fact that the English used to rule Antigua. Since they destroyed Antiguan government and “left an impoverished society” (Metzger 1165).
In the story “Girl”, Jamaica Kincaid illustrates the talk given to a young Antiguan girl about what is expected of her in order to make a point about the cultural pressures and unfair social boundaries that come with being a girl in the Caribbean. The author plays with word choice and sentence structure in a way that makes this unconventional writing style enjoyable and metaphorically resonant. Though it is possible to read this prose as a mother talking directly to her daughter and the daughter interjecting, it is actually indicative of a larger conversation between a Caribbean society and its young women; this can be most clearly seen in the discussion of Benna, of plant, animal, and human life, of promiscuity, and of manners. Benna is a musical genre similar to calypso; its lyrics often discussed British political scandals and had lewd double meanings. The daughter is instructed not to sing it in church, because the songs are about sexuality, politics and open rebellion - however, this instruction has a much larger societal meaning.
All the three works of group three extend the novelties of group two. “Ecco mormorar” and “S’andasse Amor” adventure the florid writing in them, while “Memtr’io mirava” shares its move to distant harmonic areas. However, there are two traits that are very difficult to define that unite these madrigals; one is an ability to bring to music the syntactic and meaning organization of text and a structural coherence of a rigor which is unknown to Monteverdi’s earlier works. All the listed characteristics and especially the last one, are exemplified in the “Ecco mormorar l’onde” which happens to be Monteverdi’s most famous madrigal of the second madrigal books. The texts of “Ecco mormorar l’onde” is a fourteen-line that illustrates the pastoral dawn, a sort of landscape poetry in which Tasso shined .
Discourse on colonialism generally results in the different opinions of the colonizer and the colonized. The upshot of such discourse shows that colonialism has divergent interpretations. For the colonizer, it is ‘a civilizing mission’; to the colonized, it is exploitation. Such concept is better understood when both the views are studied with an objective approach. Things Fall Apart is a perfect novel to study colonialism as it deals with the perspectives of the colonizer and the colonized.