From an oppressor to an oppressed, the transferring of power is always accompanied with sorrow and shock. Under the background of post-apartheid South Africa, Lurie, the protagonist in J. M. Coetzee’s novel Disgrace, is one of the typical cases which experience this transferring. From his perspective of adjusting into new South Africa, the intensified race corruption and culture contradiction is shown; meanwhile, one can also explore the historical periods and identities of the colonial South Africa by inferring how those contradictions were formed.
South Africa’s race contradiction can trace back to the apartheid policies. Apartheid was abolished in 1948, put segregation in public facilities, social resources, employment opportunities, and so on upon people in South Africa. Ever since South Africa gradually transformed into democracy and annulled apartheid, people have been stepped into a gestation period in which to contemplate collective guilt and search the origin of the committed violence (Diala 50). Thus, J. M. Coetzee composed Disgrace and attempt to explore the historical roots of racist perspective in post-apartheid South Africa.
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In Chapter 9, when Lurie is watching soccer on television, he understands not a little bit; because the commentary alternates using Sotho and Xhosa, both beyond Lurie’s understanding. As a college professor of modern languages, it’s impossible for him to lack the language ability. The only reasonable excuse is, Lurie has been long lives in Cape Town and alienated from the black residents, there is no needs for him to learn it. On the contrary, in the country of South Africa, “English is an unfit medium for the truth of South Africa.”(117) When Lucy is raped by three local men, he lacks the language to communicate with the criminals: “He speaks Italian, he speaks French, but Italian and French will not save him here in darkest Africa.”
“I stood petrified. What had happened to me? My father had just been struck, in front of me, and I had not even blinked.” (Wiesel 39) In chapter 3 it’s discussing how what happened and what has changed as Elie and his father had been going through the process of selection.
1. “For nearly an hour, she remained...till Papa came home and played the accordion. Only then did she sit up and start to recover.” - Liesel finds comfort and safety in her foster father. She trusts him and is happy when around him; two important aspects of any relationship, especially a family relationship.
Entry #1 “‘Foward! March.’ My father was crying. It was the first time I saw him cry. I had never thought it was possible” (Weisel 19).
In the autobiography Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler, he expresses his political ideologies and strategies in ruling over millions of people. He mostly reveals his perspectives on racial matters, asserting that the Aryan race is dominant over any other ethnic groups. Although Adolf Hitler’s statements successfully convinced and appealed to almost all the people in the Germanic nation, his arguments, however, are undoubtedly loaded with logical fallacies. In Chapter 11 of the autobiography, Hitler mainly focuses on his notions regarding racial superiority.
Thus the reader is once again let down, and left wondering whether there is anyone in Africa who can fit the mold of the leader required. Midway throughout Stephen Kumalo’s journey, the reader is told about a young man named Arthur Jarvis, a staunch opponent of South Africa’s racial injustices who was shot and killed. Much to the reader’s dismay, the more they learn about Arthur Jarvis, the more they mourn his death as Arthur Jarvis embodies all the qualities needed for a
Multi-Paragraph Essay On February 1, 2008, the Columbia Space Shuttle disintegrated while re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, resulting in the fatalities of all seven crew members. The families of these members, as well as all of America, were struck with anguish and heartbreak. With these feelings, the nation looked for a leader to guide them with understanding and authority.
(446) This quote really stands out to me in the passage. Lu talks about no matter at what attempts his parents or teachers tried to do to keep the two conflicting languages conflicts away, it would still emerge and that in his attempt to only think about one language, it would conflict with the other one and they would eventually compromise and both languages would be thought of. Growing up, she compares her literacy to an electronic tool and the ability to switch it on and off whenever she was in her natural place, which was home, and her alien place, which was school. This was the main struggle because it leads to the avoidance of writing with
To Kill a Mockingbird Dialectical Journal #4 "I try to give 'em a reason, you see. It helps folks if they can latch onto a reason... in the clutches of whiskey - that's why he won't change his ways. He can't help himself, that's why he lives the way he does... they could never understand that I live like I do because that's the way I want to live" (Lee 268). (CH) Most people in the town of Maycomb could believe that Dolphus was an abomination, a drunk - whatever one would call him.
Throughout “Désirée’s Baby” by Kate Chopin, slavery and racism play a massive role in how the characters, particularly Armand Aubigny, interact with one another. In Armand’s case, he believes that he holds one of the oldest, proudest, and whitest names in nineteenth century Louisiana. The pride cached within the Aubigny legacy comes to dictate his life and virtually every drastic decision he makes; he appears to live in constant fear of having his name tarnished. His reputation and pride are established as his driving force, but also contribute to a hatred of anyone who is colored. He wills a strict and ominous slave ownership into reality as a result of this irrational fear and overabundance of pride.
This essay is an effort to discuss why matters or race and racism are more than just the attitudes and behaviours of individuals. I will be discussing what racism is and the different forms of racism and I will explain how racism is socially constructed, furthermore, I will give a brief discussion on the history of racism and also discuss some of the key concepts and perspectives to offer a sociological analysis of the complexities of politics of difference and identity, furthermore, I will show how this applies to schools in the South African context. Race is one of the traits that accompanies a person’s social identity, it contributes to the definition and formation of a person’s social identity. Race can be defined as a person’s physical characteristics such as skin, hair or eye colour, it is one of the factors used to differentiate and categorise people where people can be categorised as black,
Book review – Boyhood The novel ‘’ boyhood ‘’ (1997) is written by the author J.M. Coetzee and is about a young boy and his childhood in South Africa in the town Worcester. The boy in the book is the author Coetzee and his life between the age 10 to age 13 and his way to adjust to the society and to find himself as a person. The book describes the love and the hate that Coetzee has for his mother, and the shame that he feels for his father combined with the isolation from his classmates. Boyhood is not only about Coetzee himself but also about South Africa and the apartheid.
Recurrent racism, its social impacts, is a central theme of immigrant writing that creates many landscapes in contemporary literature. The immigrant writer takes an opportunity to attack and tackle racism and its consequence from different angles – religious, cultural and historical. The writer does not randomly preoccupy with and write about her/his intricate experience in the new land, but explicitly unfold his/her race/gender experience with its ups and downs. This type of writing has created a new understanding of theories such as racism/gender/ethnic/counter-narrative and post colonial studies among many others. This alternative genre is maneuvered by political, psychological, social and cultural processes of power that is influential to its construction.
Apartheid The unbelievable crimes that have occurred in South Africa are horrific. The fight for freedom and democracy has cost many innocent lives and harm to almost all black South Africans. Apartheid was the policy of segregation or discrimination or ground of race. Even though the fight has come a long way it is not over yet. It all started in 1948, when the government of South Africa introduced new laws putting a fine line between black and white.
The author takes the topic of Xenophobia to be a human condition that arises out of a lack of proper meaning interaction among people. For example in Oxford University people from other African countries, except South Africa were referred as to Mukwerekwere or Likwerekwere, Afrikans etc. To show that even people from other places were experiencing Xenophobia Refentse mother, while at Tiragalong, she believed that all Johannesburg women are evil and men destroyers even before she meet Lerato Refentse’s girlfriend (Mpe, 2001:29-63), which is leading to the element of fiction known as Dystopia were a person dislike a certain place because she/he imagined it as a bad place (Abrams and Harpham (2012:416-417). Xenophobia also falls under the biggest issue that the world especially South Africa suffers from, immigrants are facing discrimination and violence in the world, though much of that risk stopped from the institutionalised racism of the time due to apartheid. These immigrant were also accused of causing high crime rate in
The survey states that four out of every ten South Africans believe that apartheid was not wrong in its oppressive actions, as well as one third of white South Africans believing that poverty in South Africa in the present day is not a result of apartheid (Wadvalla, 2013). Seeing that this data was gathered twenty years apart the first democratic election in South Africa,