In this literature circle we began to unravel the last of the story. At the end of the book, all the loose ends came together and everything began to make sense. There was a significant analogy in this chapter: lock, stock and barrel. These represent the three girls, Leah is the barrel, Rachel the lock and Adah the quiet stock.All these parts when separate are useless and when put together are complete and make a whole. The assemblence of the parts creates a whole, however it is a violent and destructive whole,a gun. This could be seen as, once the girls are all together, they create something deadly and together they kill their Ruth May. Another analogy for the Price family arose in the last section of the book: the tree, the stump and the seedlings. The tree stands for Orleanna who hold everything together and is Ruth May's safe haven from the rest of the world. The stump is Nathan, rotting away into nothing and the seedlings are of course the girls, springing up from underneath the safe tree, growing taller as the stump rots further into the ground.
The Okapi appears once again in this chapter. Our class decided that it represented the spirit of the Congo who lived for one more year and then died, it was subjected to the same cycle of life as the spider and anything else; when one creature dies, another one lives. So, perhaps by the death of the Okapi it will allow another animal, another country to live for just one more year. This is an interesting topic, the Okapi was affected by one of the smallest of insects and was allowed to live an entire extra year and bread children. The idea that everything on earth is tied together and that every second we live we are affecting others tied into a speech we heard in chapel. Weather it be a child or an insect we are affecting everything around us.
Each girl including Orleanna found their own personal religion away from Christianity. Adah found science and the study of disease. She still believes in balance and uses her palindromes in her work. Rachel has not changed, she believes only in herself and her material goods. Leah is perhaps the most like her father, she is constantly over-compensating for a guilty past. Leah believes with all her heart in Anatole and Africa, she is a humanitarian and believes in suffering. Orleanna still has some christian blood in her, but mainly she turns to her garden for comfort. She started new with new seeds and can see beautiful things grow from her hands. This is how the four living Price's deal with their history and their very present pain.
The title of the last chapter is "the eyes in the trees". These eyes are Ruth May because she is the green mamba snake up in the branches looking down on everyone. She watches everything and yet no one can see her. Nathan, Orleanna and the three sisters all feel the eyes on them, creating guilt and furthering Nathan's need to save.
Ruth May was in the end set free with death, like Methuselah. Ruth May talks about how death is like living. There is a palindrome here that Adah had earlier pointed out. The palindrome of life and death. So, when Ruth May tells her mother to walk into the light, it is a double meaning. Light comes both from life as well as death, from birth and death alike. Lightness is also forgiveness. Ruth May, Methuselah, Nathan were all set free at death, they walked into the light and were given forgiveness.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Lit Circle #5: Song of The Three Children/The Eyes In The Trees: Moderator
1. In the last section of the book, The Eyes In The Trees, Ruth May was missing her usual childish voice. Why do you think this is?
2. Based on the three sisters personalities can you identify them in their last reunion?
3. In The Song of The Three Children Orleanna does not have her usual starting section, what is the significance and why was Rachel the one to go first?
4. Rachel talked about her regrets for not moving back to America, what stopped her what do you think would be different about her and her life had she gone?
5. Rachel has referred back to her book of How to Survive 101 Calamities and how it has saved her, what do you think the significance of this book is and why is it so important to her?
6. In Leah’s section she talks about Anatole’s stories, she told one in particular about a couple trying to cross a river. What is the meaning of this story and who might the couple, represent?
7. Adah talks about being left under a tree in the forest as an infant. This was the original tradition in Kilanga if one were to give birth to twins. So why does Adah say that she was left under a tree, what is she trying to say?
8. Adah often refers to how her mother stares at the sea as if, glaring across the ocean at Africa. Why does Adah say this and why would her mother be glaring?
9. What could the okapi represent? It has come up a few times in correlation with Orleanna.
10. Why does no one know what happened to Kilanga? Has it disappeared? And if so how, where is every one they used to know and who was the familiar woman who spoke their local tongue?
11. Why could they not find Ruth May’s grave? And why was it so important to find?
2. Based on the three sisters personalities can you identify them in their last reunion?
3. In The Song of The Three Children Orleanna does not have her usual starting section, what is the significance and why was Rachel the one to go first?
4. Rachel talked about her regrets for not moving back to America, what stopped her what do you think would be different about her and her life had she gone?
5. Rachel has referred back to her book of How to Survive 101 Calamities and how it has saved her, what do you think the significance of this book is and why is it so important to her?
6. In Leah’s section she talks about Anatole’s stories, she told one in particular about a couple trying to cross a river. What is the meaning of this story and who might the couple, represent?
7. Adah talks about being left under a tree in the forest as an infant. This was the original tradition in Kilanga if one were to give birth to twins. So why does Adah say that she was left under a tree, what is she trying to say?
8. Adah often refers to how her mother stares at the sea as if, glaring across the ocean at Africa. Why does Adah say this and why would her mother be glaring?
9. What could the okapi represent? It has come up a few times in correlation with Orleanna.
10. Why does no one know what happened to Kilanga? Has it disappeared? And if so how, where is every one they used to know and who was the familiar woman who spoke their local tongue?
11. Why could they not find Ruth May’s grave? And why was it so important to find?
Lit Circle #4 Response
We had another literature in class, this time on the chapter of Exodus. One of the major points we covered was that of guilt. In this section each girl deals with their own personal guilt and how the deal with it and seek redemption. Each girl including Orleanna has found their own religion, which helps them deal with their withstanding guilt. Orleanna has found gardening and cherishes the flowers and beautiful living things the she grows and nurtures. Each new seed to her is like a second chance, at life and as a mother. Rachel deals with her guilt by believing and trusting only herself and her material goods. She has changed very little, the least out of the entire family. Rachel pours herself into her appearance and her hotel. She stays oblivious and blocks out anything that brings her back to her childhood; this only leaves her stuck and in denial. Leah marries her first love, Anatole. She has made her religion service. She has become exactly like her father in how she feels a need to save others and does it be suffering. She has a constant need to save others, from poverty, hunger but mainly from the government. Leah overcompensates for Ruth May’s death and does this by her political actions. Adah, the last living daughter has made science her religion. Adah makes disease her redemption. She studies disease that is prominent in Africa. Her bible is the same, she believes in muntu and the cycle of life. When one good thing happens, something else bad will come up to keep its balance. Adah in going to school and becoming a doctor inevitably met many people, one of who helped her to get rid of her limp. She is no longer crooked and has lost her old way of seeing things. She misses her old self and like Jekyll and Hide, pretends, at night, that her limp is back, but her old way never lasts past the night.
Nathan also had a very small, but interesting part in this section. We learn that he has died. Nathan was apparently chased up a wooden tower and burnt to the ground. This was very close to the death of Jesus Christ. The parallel between their two crucifixions was curious. Nathan perhaps just took the bible a little too serious. There was also a quote from the bible that Adah described as being related to Nathan’s death. It was the last excerpt from the testament. It ended with the phrase: “and this shall be the end”.
We noticed a second parallel in this chapter. It was between Ruth May and Lummumba. The both died on the very same day, January 17th. They were both innocent figures representing less innocent wholes, the Price family and the Congo. Both the Price family and the Congo were victims of other forces, the Congo of foreign nations and The Price family of Nathan. Each ended with a tragic death, Lummumba and Ruth May. After the death of Ruth May the price family split, ending their independence from Nathan and the Congo. By the death of Lummumba, the Congo also had an end of independence and a split as well. As of now in the story the price family is split and shattered as well as the Congo, in both literal and metaphoric terms. The Prices family is no longer close in heart; they are also separated by a great ocean. The Congo is fallen apart being lead into poverty and chaos by Mbutu. It is also about to split literally into two different countries. The Democratic Republic of the Congo and The Republic of the Congo.
Another large point that we discussed was that of the emotional change in Adah that was expressed in this chapter. Adah throughout the chapter is tormented with a question to which she cannot alone answer. She yearns to know the reason that her mother chose to take her out of Africa instead of Leah or Rachel. Orleanna had to make a choice, and she chose Adah. Adah made one very important phone call to her mother on Christmas Eve, asking why. Why did Orleanna choose Adah? Simple. Adah was relieved to discover that the reason she was chosen was because of her rank as the second youngest child. A mother loves from the bottom up, and Adah just happened to be next in line. This call showed another side to Adah that we had not seen before. Adah needed love, she asked for it for the first time. Adah finally expressed her well-stifled requirement of love.
Back in Kilanga we have news that Tata Ndu has died of heart complications and so his eldest son took over the job. This son was a rather controversial chief and so was driven out of the village leaving the second oldest son in charge.
Leah talked about how we are all co-conspirators, referring not only to her family but also directly to us, and the reader on page 474. She asks us what we do now. She has told her story of poverty and suffering. We know how we can help and where to go, but what are we going to do? This is exactly what Kravinsky and Singer asked us. They have given us all this information and what? What are we going to do?
Nathan also had a very small, but interesting part in this section. We learn that he has died. Nathan was apparently chased up a wooden tower and burnt to the ground. This was very close to the death of Jesus Christ. The parallel between their two crucifixions was curious. Nathan perhaps just took the bible a little too serious. There was also a quote from the bible that Adah described as being related to Nathan’s death. It was the last excerpt from the testament. It ended with the phrase: “and this shall be the end”.
We noticed a second parallel in this chapter. It was between Ruth May and Lummumba. The both died on the very same day, January 17th. They were both innocent figures representing less innocent wholes, the Price family and the Congo. Both the Price family and the Congo were victims of other forces, the Congo of foreign nations and The Price family of Nathan. Each ended with a tragic death, Lummumba and Ruth May. After the death of Ruth May the price family split, ending their independence from Nathan and the Congo. By the death of Lummumba, the Congo also had an end of independence and a split as well. As of now in the story the price family is split and shattered as well as the Congo, in both literal and metaphoric terms. The Prices family is no longer close in heart; they are also separated by a great ocean. The Congo is fallen apart being lead into poverty and chaos by Mbutu. It is also about to split literally into two different countries. The Democratic Republic of the Congo and The Republic of the Congo.
Another large point that we discussed was that of the emotional change in Adah that was expressed in this chapter. Adah throughout the chapter is tormented with a question to which she cannot alone answer. She yearns to know the reason that her mother chose to take her out of Africa instead of Leah or Rachel. Orleanna had to make a choice, and she chose Adah. Adah made one very important phone call to her mother on Christmas Eve, asking why. Why did Orleanna choose Adah? Simple. Adah was relieved to discover that the reason she was chosen was because of her rank as the second youngest child. A mother loves from the bottom up, and Adah just happened to be next in line. This call showed another side to Adah that we had not seen before. Adah needed love, she asked for it for the first time. Adah finally expressed her well-stifled requirement of love.
Back in Kilanga we have news that Tata Ndu has died of heart complications and so his eldest son took over the job. This son was a rather controversial chief and so was driven out of the village leaving the second oldest son in charge.
Leah talked about how we are all co-conspirators, referring not only to her family but also directly to us, and the reader on page 474. She asks us what we do now. She has told her story of poverty and suffering. We know how we can help and where to go, but what are we going to do? This is exactly what Kravinsky and Singer asked us. They have given us all this information and what? What are we going to do?
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Lit Circle #4: Exodus: Physiological Critic
Adah:
Through this chapter Adah struggles with self-acceptance as well as self-discovery. Characteristics that were once a burden to her now seem self-defining and precious. Adah did not realize what her differences were worth until they were gone. Her limp was once considered a handicap and liability but, now that she has lost her benduka, she longs to feel the old slanted Ada; which she has lost. “I find I no longer have Ada, the mystery of coming and going. Along with my split body drag I lost my ability to read in the old way.” (Adah: 492). Adah has a hard time accepting her new self, “Oddly enough, it has taken me years to accept my new position.” (Adah: 492). She misses what she used to see, her slant, and the person she no longer is. “When I open a book, the words sort themselves into narrow-minded single file on the page; the mirror-image poems erase themselves half-formed in my mind. I miss those mirror poems.” (Adah: 492). Sometimes when you wake up you realize you are a different person, every day you change and form into a whole new being. Adah feels nostalgic and has a sort of ache for the past. She sometimes tries to recreate what she use to have, “Sometimes at night, in secret, I still limp purposefully around my apartment, like Mr. Hyde, trying to recover my old ways of seeing and thinking. Like Jekyll I crave that particular darkness curled up within me. Sometimes it almost comes. The books on the shelf rise up in solid shapes snap forward to meet my eyes. But it never lasts. By morning light, the books are all hunched together again with their spines turned out, fossilized, inanimate.”
Adah also searches for personal answers in this chapter, the main one being why her mother chose her to take out of Africa. Adah felt sure of everything she knew, she was steady in where she belonged in the world, her worth, her rank. “Oh, I knew it all, backward and forward. I learned the balance of power in one long Congolese night, when the driver ants came: the bang on the door, the dark hustle and burning feet, and last of all Adah dragging the permanent singsong of her body left . . . behind. Out into the moonlight where the ground boiled and there stood Mother like a tree rooted motionless in the middle of a storm. Mother staring at me, holding Ruth May in her arms, weighing the two of us against one another. The sweet intact child with golden ringlets and perfectly paired strong legs, or the dark mute adolescent dragging a stubborn, disjunct half-body. Which? After hesitating only a second, she chose to save perfection and leave the damaged. Everyone must choose.”(Adah: 412). This defined how Adah thought of herself, she was not the worthy child, she was not the chosen one and so that is how she founded her worth. But, in this chapter Adah found herself to be worth more than she had ever thought, and so all that she ever thought was now put into question. Her life was complicated, she was not first, but neither was she last, “There was room in Adah for nought but pure love and pure hate. Such a life is satisfying and deeply uncomplicated. Since then, my life has become much more difficult. Because later on, she chose me. In the end she could only carry one child alive out of Africa and I was that child. Would she rather have had Ruth May? Was I the booby prize? Does she look at me and despise her loss? Am I alive only because Ruth May is dead? What truth can I possibly discharge?”(Adah: 413) This is the state we left Adah at the end of the chapter, a time of questioning and self-discovery both because of her new way of seeing the world as well as her new place in her mother’s life.
Orleanna:
Orleanna began the chapter by describing her grief and how she dealt with it. “AS LONG AS I KEPT MOVING, my grief streamed out behind me like a swimmer’s long hair in water. I knew the weight was there but it didn’t touch me. Only when I stopped did the slick, dark stuff of it comes floating around my face, catching my arms and throat till I began to drown. So I just didn’t stop.”(Orleanna: 381) And so, to deal with her unrelenting pain that followed her, she never did stop moving until she brought her baby, Adah back to the U.S. safe and alive. Orleanna had a special attachment to Ruth May, it was her last born and unlike the others, she wanted baby Ruth May to stay with her forever, she cradled her and fed her, cherishing every moment. This was the last first step she would see from her own child and so it counted three fold. Ruth May was the lucky last one, and so by order she was the favorite, but once Ruth May died, Adah was next in line.
Orleanna left Nathan without a word; she never turned around but moved forward, right through anything that might cross her path. She knew deep inside herself that she should have left him long ago and so she feels guilt about it, but also anger. “Nathan was something that happened to us, as devastating in its way as the burning roof that fell on the family Mwanza; with our fate scarred by hell and brimstone we still had to track our course. And it happened finally by the grace of hell and brimstone that I had to keep moving. I moved, and he stood still.” (Orleanna: 384).
After Orleanna had settled back down to life in America, she began to become her own again. Nathan and the Congo forever scarred her, but she was becoming a person apart from him. “The odd thing is when Father was around she never gardened at all. That was his domain, and he directed us all in the planting of useful foods, all to the Glory of God and so forth. We never had one flower in our yard the whole of my childhood. Not so much as a dandelion. Now Mother’s shack is the mere peak of a roof surrounded by a blaze of pinks, blues, oranges. You have to bend under a wild arch of cosmos when you come up the walk, and use your whole right arm to push the hollyhocks aside to get in the front door. It turns out Mother has an extraordinary talent for flowers. She was an entire botanical garden waiting to happen.” (Orleanna: 410). And that’s just it, Orleanna was waiting to happen, perhaps now, she cannot be what she could of, or would have been without Nathan, but she is still becoming someone new and independent. “Like Methuselah I cowered beside my cage, and though my soul hankered after the mountain, I found, like Methuselah, I had no wings. This is why, little beast. I’d lost my wings. Don’t ask me how I gained them back—the story is too unbearable.” Orleanna is slowly through an unbearable journey, gaining back her wings. “When I visit her out in her walled garden with her hands sunk into the mulch, kneading the roots of her camellias. If she isn’t home, I walk down to the end of the historic cobbled street and find her standing on the sea wall in her raincoat and no shoes, glaring at the ocean. Orleanna and Africa at a standoff. The kids flying by on bicycles steer clear of this barefoot old woman in her plastic babushka, but I can tell you she is not deranged. My mother’s sanest position is to wear only the necessary parts of the outfit and leave off the rest. Shoes would interfere with her conversation, for she constantly addresses the ground under her feet. Asking forgiveness. Owning, disowning, recanting, recharting a hateful course of events to make sense of the story. All human odes are essentially one. “My life: what I stole from history, and how I live with it.”” Orleanna has returned to her unmanaged, shoeless self. No one is controlling her except herself and her ever-haunting guilt.
Through this chapter Adah struggles with self-acceptance as well as self-discovery. Characteristics that were once a burden to her now seem self-defining and precious. Adah did not realize what her differences were worth until they were gone. Her limp was once considered a handicap and liability but, now that she has lost her benduka, she longs to feel the old slanted Ada; which she has lost. “I find I no longer have Ada, the mystery of coming and going. Along with my split body drag I lost my ability to read in the old way.” (Adah: 492). Adah has a hard time accepting her new self, “Oddly enough, it has taken me years to accept my new position.” (Adah: 492). She misses what she used to see, her slant, and the person she no longer is. “When I open a book, the words sort themselves into narrow-minded single file on the page; the mirror-image poems erase themselves half-formed in my mind. I miss those mirror poems.” (Adah: 492). Sometimes when you wake up you realize you are a different person, every day you change and form into a whole new being. Adah feels nostalgic and has a sort of ache for the past. She sometimes tries to recreate what she use to have, “Sometimes at night, in secret, I still limp purposefully around my apartment, like Mr. Hyde, trying to recover my old ways of seeing and thinking. Like Jekyll I crave that particular darkness curled up within me. Sometimes it almost comes. The books on the shelf rise up in solid shapes snap forward to meet my eyes. But it never lasts. By morning light, the books are all hunched together again with their spines turned out, fossilized, inanimate.”
Adah also searches for personal answers in this chapter, the main one being why her mother chose her to take out of Africa. Adah felt sure of everything she knew, she was steady in where she belonged in the world, her worth, her rank. “Oh, I knew it all, backward and forward. I learned the balance of power in one long Congolese night, when the driver ants came: the bang on the door, the dark hustle and burning feet, and last of all Adah dragging the permanent singsong of her body left . . . behind. Out into the moonlight where the ground boiled and there stood Mother like a tree rooted motionless in the middle of a storm. Mother staring at me, holding Ruth May in her arms, weighing the two of us against one another. The sweet intact child with golden ringlets and perfectly paired strong legs, or the dark mute adolescent dragging a stubborn, disjunct half-body. Which? After hesitating only a second, she chose to save perfection and leave the damaged. Everyone must choose.”(Adah: 412). This defined how Adah thought of herself, she was not the worthy child, she was not the chosen one and so that is how she founded her worth. But, in this chapter Adah found herself to be worth more than she had ever thought, and so all that she ever thought was now put into question. Her life was complicated, she was not first, but neither was she last, “There was room in Adah for nought but pure love and pure hate. Such a life is satisfying and deeply uncomplicated. Since then, my life has become much more difficult. Because later on, she chose me. In the end she could only carry one child alive out of Africa and I was that child. Would she rather have had Ruth May? Was I the booby prize? Does she look at me and despise her loss? Am I alive only because Ruth May is dead? What truth can I possibly discharge?”(Adah: 413) This is the state we left Adah at the end of the chapter, a time of questioning and self-discovery both because of her new way of seeing the world as well as her new place in her mother’s life.
Orleanna:
Orleanna began the chapter by describing her grief and how she dealt with it. “AS LONG AS I KEPT MOVING, my grief streamed out behind me like a swimmer’s long hair in water. I knew the weight was there but it didn’t touch me. Only when I stopped did the slick, dark stuff of it comes floating around my face, catching my arms and throat till I began to drown. So I just didn’t stop.”(Orleanna: 381) And so, to deal with her unrelenting pain that followed her, she never did stop moving until she brought her baby, Adah back to the U.S. safe and alive. Orleanna had a special attachment to Ruth May, it was her last born and unlike the others, she wanted baby Ruth May to stay with her forever, she cradled her and fed her, cherishing every moment. This was the last first step she would see from her own child and so it counted three fold. Ruth May was the lucky last one, and so by order she was the favorite, but once Ruth May died, Adah was next in line.
Orleanna left Nathan without a word; she never turned around but moved forward, right through anything that might cross her path. She knew deep inside herself that she should have left him long ago and so she feels guilt about it, but also anger. “Nathan was something that happened to us, as devastating in its way as the burning roof that fell on the family Mwanza; with our fate scarred by hell and brimstone we still had to track our course. And it happened finally by the grace of hell and brimstone that I had to keep moving. I moved, and he stood still.” (Orleanna: 384).
After Orleanna had settled back down to life in America, she began to become her own again. Nathan and the Congo forever scarred her, but she was becoming a person apart from him. “The odd thing is when Father was around she never gardened at all. That was his domain, and he directed us all in the planting of useful foods, all to the Glory of God and so forth. We never had one flower in our yard the whole of my childhood. Not so much as a dandelion. Now Mother’s shack is the mere peak of a roof surrounded by a blaze of pinks, blues, oranges. You have to bend under a wild arch of cosmos when you come up the walk, and use your whole right arm to push the hollyhocks aside to get in the front door. It turns out Mother has an extraordinary talent for flowers. She was an entire botanical garden waiting to happen.” (Orleanna: 410). And that’s just it, Orleanna was waiting to happen, perhaps now, she cannot be what she could of, or would have been without Nathan, but she is still becoming someone new and independent. “Like Methuselah I cowered beside my cage, and though my soul hankered after the mountain, I found, like Methuselah, I had no wings. This is why, little beast. I’d lost my wings. Don’t ask me how I gained them back—the story is too unbearable.” Orleanna is slowly through an unbearable journey, gaining back her wings. “When I visit her out in her walled garden with her hands sunk into the mulch, kneading the roots of her camellias. If she isn’t home, I walk down to the end of the historic cobbled street and find her standing on the sea wall in her raincoat and no shoes, glaring at the ocean. Orleanna and Africa at a standoff. The kids flying by on bicycles steer clear of this barefoot old woman in her plastic babushka, but I can tell you she is not deranged. My mother’s sanest position is to wear only the necessary parts of the outfit and leave off the rest. Shoes would interfere with her conversation, for she constantly addresses the ground under her feet. Asking forgiveness. Owning, disowning, recanting, recharting a hateful course of events to make sense of the story. All human odes are essentially one. “My life: what I stole from history, and how I live with it.”” Orleanna has returned to her unmanaged, shoeless self. No one is controlling her except herself and her ever-haunting guilt.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Free Choice: 4
Last summer I went to France, we only stayed in Paris for a few nights, but while we were there we, of course, saw the Eiffel tower. It seemed like one of the most important things to do while we were there. There is always so much hype around it, and I can't say it ever let me down. The structure was huge and so complicated. Eiffel, the man who built the Eiffel tower also constructed the Statue of liberty. I have been to the top of both of these iconic towers, and it would have been a hard task to over imagine either. The Eiffel tower was supposedly first built for a party and opened to bad reviews from the french. Now it is certainly seen with different eyes. There must have been over a thousand metal beams supporting and building up the tall structure. Once you had climbed the seemingly millions of stairs up to the top you could see the entire city, the Notre Dame, Arc de Triumph and small cobble stone streets of Paris were within a half an hours reach, and the tip of the swaying Eiffel tower was touching your feet. I felt like I was on top of the world, I was really just on the top of Paris France, but that is not much compromise. With the seine river flowing close by I took a deep breath of the clear summer air and began the long descent. While the rest of my trip was amazing and though I had a chance to see world famous painting and cathedrals, nothing can top the Eiffel tower.
Free Choice: 3
I am currently enrolled in a class called service leadership, where we learn about different types of service and how to do our own research and make our own projects. I am glad that I'm taking it because I feel that it will help me find more opportunities to give back. Recently, we have been concentrating particularly on the environmental aspect of both our local and our global communities. The more I learn, the more I feel obligated to do something about what is happening in our world and on our island. My sophomore class has been learning about helping others and how such little things as a dollar a week can make as big a difference as someones life. Not only am I learning about this in service leadership, but in science and English as well. In fact our two essential questions for this whole English semester are who am I in this world and what type of world is this. We also just had a big project in science about how we can find alternate sources for our energy that would both save money and our environment. There are so many little things we can do to improve our environment every day that would have very little affect on our daily lives such as eating locally grown food, walking to school or simply traveling less.
In the beginning of English, this semester we read two very interesting articles on helping others in general. There are so many things we can do that would be so easy and yet we never seem to get around to doing them. The two articles were, The Singer Solution to World Poverty and The Gift, a biography about Zell Kravinsky. They both had very strong and controversial ideas generally telling us that if we bought a ten dollar t-shirt instead of donating that money to a third world country, where a child's life could be saved with it, then we were directly killing that child, cold blooded murder. While I do not completely agree with this idea, I do feel more obligation to be frugal and the article haunts me every time I pass my I.D. card over the snack bar counter. Even if our hands are not bloody, perhaps we are closer to that daunting name of murder than we think. Every time I take a bite of food or drink a sip of water am I starving an infant across the world? Every time I get dressed in the morning is someone in Africa dying of heat stroke? Every time I step under my roof to sleep is a child in South America left out at night? How direct are my actions to the rest of the world and every time I take, is someone else loosing?
In the beginning of English, this semester we read two very interesting articles on helping others in general. There are so many things we can do that would be so easy and yet we never seem to get around to doing them. The two articles were, The Singer Solution to World Poverty and The Gift, a biography about Zell Kravinsky. They both had very strong and controversial ideas generally telling us that if we bought a ten dollar t-shirt instead of donating that money to a third world country, where a child's life could be saved with it, then we were directly killing that child, cold blooded murder. While I do not completely agree with this idea, I do feel more obligation to be frugal and the article haunts me every time I pass my I.D. card over the snack bar counter. Even if our hands are not bloody, perhaps we are closer to that daunting name of murder than we think. Every time I take a bite of food or drink a sip of water am I starving an infant across the world? Every time I get dressed in the morning is someone in Africa dying of heat stroke? Every time I step under my roof to sleep is a child in South America left out at night? How direct are my actions to the rest of the world and every time I take, is someone else loosing?
Lit circle #3 Response
We just finished discussing the Bel and the Serpent section of the Poisonwood Bible last class and this is a reflection on that discussion as well as a brief summary of what our class and Mrs. Watson found to be most significant in the chapter.
Orleanna opens the chapter differently than usual; she talks politics. She confides her deep guilt and remorse for being so oblivious to the world beyond her doors. While reminiscing she seems to be appalled at how ignorant she was, the escape, capture and eventual death of Lumumba flew so easily by her while her eyes were averted to Ruth May's rising fever and Rachel's 17th birthday.
After Orleanna's chapter, but still toward the beginning of the chapter we begin to see mounting tensions and family disputes. One of the most significant and important parts of this previous chapter was the death of Ruth May. As each different character recorded their memories of what happened they seemed to each deal differently with the situation. The mixing of religion and politics could be preserved as the bite from the fly. After casting a lop-sided vote of weather to except Jesus into their culture Leah begins to turn away from her father's solid failure. Leah begins to rebel and brings both good and bad attention to their family, but as much as it may seem Rachel wants it, attention is the last thing she needs from anyone besides her family. She wants so badly to fit in that she begins to resent Leah for bringing in unwanted attention. Rachel begins to feel like all she needs to do is get away from the Congo, back to where she is considered "main stream" and can blend in. As Rachel grows more and more desperate so does their African situation.
Ruth May dies by death of snakebite, a pivotal point both in the story and in the contained characters. All three daughters who witnessed the death of their younger sister seemed to react very differently on the surface but beneath it all, I believe they had very similar reactions; they just described the emotions in different ways. All three girls were drawn in and silent. They were stuck in that moment. It brought them all crashing down to reality. I felt like their Bantus at that moment finally became what we would consider Muntu. Rachel observed that they could not or would not move. They thought that they could freeze time and that moment so that their family could stay just as it had been, in one piece. Leah clearly described a moment of immobility and Adah recorded a refusal from all of them to move or follow Ruth May. Adah also made an observation of how much Ruth May’s death was like her birth, Leah described the last breath of Ruth May similar to that of a baby’s first breath, exactly the way Adah found it to be. They both made identical remarks on the resemblance of the puncture wounds into Ruth May’s arm are of a punctuation mark at the end of a sentence. Rachel worried about he3r mother’s reaction to Ruth May’s death, though she had (as it seems in the present), nothing to worry about.
Orleanna was calm, cool, and collected at the news of Ruth May’s decease. Mrs. Watson shrewdly observed that perhaps Orleanna was so over come with emotion that she simply could not feel or express it. Orleanna went right to business creating a shroud for the corps. Nathan’s reaction was minimal, besides a few comments about Ruth May not being baptized he seemed to have little concern or problem with the news, but I expected nothing more.
Another significant part of this chapter was the whole deal with the title of the chapter and what it represented. Bel and the Serpent was a religious story that told of a false idol, Bel and the serpent. Through much discussion we agreed that Bel could represent either Nathan or tata Kvundu. Both of which preached texts or messages (curses and such) to which I find rather questionable. Nathan seems to believe hard what he preaches, but in his desperation to gather popularity among the locals he would not stop for a moment to not tell a lie if it could get him ahead. Tata Kvundu preaches false curses and predictions that villagers put much weight on. The people of Kilago are like the serpent because they believe so hard in tata Kvundu that they will eventually be bitten, even if they turn away and towards Nathan. An honest leader is a rare treasure in this time in the Congo.
Orleanna opens the chapter differently than usual; she talks politics. She confides her deep guilt and remorse for being so oblivious to the world beyond her doors. While reminiscing she seems to be appalled at how ignorant she was, the escape, capture and eventual death of Lumumba flew so easily by her while her eyes were averted to Ruth May's rising fever and Rachel's 17th birthday.
After Orleanna's chapter, but still toward the beginning of the chapter we begin to see mounting tensions and family disputes. One of the most significant and important parts of this previous chapter was the death of Ruth May. As each different character recorded their memories of what happened they seemed to each deal differently with the situation. The mixing of religion and politics could be preserved as the bite from the fly. After casting a lop-sided vote of weather to except Jesus into their culture Leah begins to turn away from her father's solid failure. Leah begins to rebel and brings both good and bad attention to their family, but as much as it may seem Rachel wants it, attention is the last thing she needs from anyone besides her family. She wants so badly to fit in that she begins to resent Leah for bringing in unwanted attention. Rachel begins to feel like all she needs to do is get away from the Congo, back to where she is considered "main stream" and can blend in. As Rachel grows more and more desperate so does their African situation.
Ruth May dies by death of snakebite, a pivotal point both in the story and in the contained characters. All three daughters who witnessed the death of their younger sister seemed to react very differently on the surface but beneath it all, I believe they had very similar reactions; they just described the emotions in different ways. All three girls were drawn in and silent. They were stuck in that moment. It brought them all crashing down to reality. I felt like their Bantus at that moment finally became what we would consider Muntu. Rachel observed that they could not or would not move. They thought that they could freeze time and that moment so that their family could stay just as it had been, in one piece. Leah clearly described a moment of immobility and Adah recorded a refusal from all of them to move or follow Ruth May. Adah also made an observation of how much Ruth May’s death was like her birth, Leah described the last breath of Ruth May similar to that of a baby’s first breath, exactly the way Adah found it to be. They both made identical remarks on the resemblance of the puncture wounds into Ruth May’s arm are of a punctuation mark at the end of a sentence. Rachel worried about he3r mother’s reaction to Ruth May’s death, though she had (as it seems in the present), nothing to worry about.
Orleanna was calm, cool, and collected at the news of Ruth May’s decease. Mrs. Watson shrewdly observed that perhaps Orleanna was so over come with emotion that she simply could not feel or express it. Orleanna went right to business creating a shroud for the corps. Nathan’s reaction was minimal, besides a few comments about Ruth May not being baptized he seemed to have little concern or problem with the news, but I expected nothing more.
Another significant part of this chapter was the whole deal with the title of the chapter and what it represented. Bel and the Serpent was a religious story that told of a false idol, Bel and the serpent. Through much discussion we agreed that Bel could represent either Nathan or tata Kvundu. Both of which preached texts or messages (curses and such) to which I find rather questionable. Nathan seems to believe hard what he preaches, but in his desperation to gather popularity among the locals he would not stop for a moment to not tell a lie if it could get him ahead. Tata Kvundu preaches false curses and predictions that villagers put much weight on. The people of Kilago are like the serpent because they believe so hard in tata Kvundu that they will eventually be bitten, even if they turn away and towards Nathan. An honest leader is a rare treasure in this time in the Congo.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
