Engl 145: Survey of World Literature II

Salaman Rushdie: -1947 to present - Born to a wealthy Muslim business family in Bombay right before the end of British colonial rule - Wrote a book called "The Satanic Verses" that offended the leader of Shi'a Muslims in Iran and issued a decree for Muslims around the world to murder Rushdie. Rushdie joked that the decree was a harsh book review. The Perforated Sheet: - Narrator is Saleem Sinai, a thirty one year old man born on August 15th, 1947 at exactly midnight, the moment India became independent. Because he was born that day, he feels that is destiny is handcuffed to the country. He fears that he may die soon for some reason, so he decides he needs to tell all the stories he knows before his time runs out. - The first story is of his grandfather: a doctor named Aadam Aziz. - Aadam once bumped his nose while praying, from then on he swore never to bow to any god or man, which opened up a hole inside of him leaving his "vulnerable to women and history...

Isabelle Allende: - 1942 to present - Chilean novelist known from bringing magical realism to her experience as a woman - Worked for the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization before beginning a career in journalism - Left Chile for Venezuela because she felt her family wouldn't allow her to continue her journalism career because she was expected to be a woman and take on motherly duties - Allende wrote her first novel as a letter to her grandfather when he was dying And of Clay Are We Created: - Set in 1980's Chile - Told from the perspective of one of Allende's recurring characters Eva Luna - Her boyfriend is named Rolf Carle and is a reporter - A young girl named Azucena was found trapped in a mudslide created after a volcanic eruption and an avalanche happened together. The news of this tragedy travels around the world quickly - Rolf Carle flies there by helicopter and is the first to arrive on the scene because other reporters had trouble getting arou...

This week, I felt my strongest work was my revised project. I originally thought that because I was just explaining my reasoning for why I thought they'd make good reading for students, I didn't think I needed specific quotes. However, after getting some feedback, I realized that choosing quotes that prove what I'm saying about why each piece would make a good lesson makes my overall argument stronger. The feedback I got on this project has been really helpful, and it's made me appreciate that cooperative aspect of this class, even though it used to embarrass me to have others reading me work. I read a lot of great projects too, and those helped me get some ideas on how to better word my analyses to make my points more clear. I weeded out unnecessarily complicated sentences and broke them down into smaller ones that got to the point more quickly. As we approach the end of the semester, I can feel my anxiety getting worse and worse. It's becoming difficult to manage...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenzabur%C5%8D_%C5%8Ce I started out with Kenzaburo because I was interested in the fact that he had a brain damaged son who influence much of his writing, and also the fact that he was one of the first Japanese Nobel laureates in writing. I learned that he described his writing as primarily being about the "dignity of human beings". I became interested in others like him, so I decided to look at the list of other Nobel laureates. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Japanese_Nobel_laureates Overall, there have been 23 Japanese Nobel prize winners. The most won category is Physics with 9, the least won is Peace with only 1. From the list, I wanted to know who the first Japanese Nobel prize winner was and what he won a prize for, so I followed that link. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hideki_Yukawa Hideki Yukawa was the first Japanese Nobel prize winner for his advancements in theoretical physics. Not much is written about his personal l...

I've read the announcements and backed up my work.

Oe Kenzaburo: - Born 1935 to present - Second Japanese writer to receive the Nobel Prize in 1994 - Writing is "grotesque realism" - His main motifs in writing: the threat of nuclear weapons, the corrupted innocence of the youth, and making responsible choices in the face of overwhelming situations The Clever Rain Tree: - Likely to be somewhat auto biographical of the author's life, as many locations and details seem to be very specific - The title is a reference to a certain type of tree called a rain tree, named such because the leaves are so tightly packed that when it rains, the tree holds the water even after the rain is over. This leads to the leaves dripping and giving the appearance of rain. The "clever" rain tree is one specific tree that holds water even more than the other rain trees, because its leaves are even more tightly packed. - The narrator of the story is attending a seminar sponsored by the University of Hawaii's East West Cente...

Wolf Soyinka: - 1934 to present - Political activist and playwrite - Draws from Yoruba tradition, using Yoruba folktales and performance styles Death and the King's Horsemen: -Main character is Elesin, the King's Horseman - It is believed by his people that when the king dies, the king's horseman must commit ritual suicide to accompany him in death, and serve as his guide to the afterlife - Elesin intends to do it but at the last minute a British colonial ruler stops him because he thinks the ritual is barbaric - The people are outraged and tragedies follow such as the suicide of Elesin's son Olunde, who kills himself in an attempt to restore his family's honor and restore the cosmic balance - Elesin ends up killing himself anyway, but it is implied that this is not enough to save his soul or the world Toni Morrison: - 1931 to present - Born Chloe Ardelia Wofford, took the name of Saint Anthony (later shortened to Toni) as her middle name and began...

Nawal el Saadawi: - 1931 to present day - Egyptian woman novelist who covers gender discrimination in the Arab Islamic world - Says she was "born female in a world that only wants males" - Born to a well off family with connections to the elite, which allowed her parents to send her to a university, where she would be educated and also participate in student protests - Became the director of public health in the Ministry of Health in Egypt but was removed from her position when Egyptian authorities read her book "Woman and Sex" and took issue with it being critical of female circumcision (female genital mutilation) - Her overall work is dedicated to women's liberation, understanding gender and sex better, and stopping sexism In Camera: - "In Camera" is another term for "closed session", which is what the trial that occurs in the story is. Closed session is when the public is not allowed to attend. - Told in "stream of consci...

The reading for this week went great, I got to read a story I'd never read before that really resonated with me. That story was Girl by Jamaica Kincaid, and it moved me so deeply I ended up changing my final project to work it in. I really wanted a reason to include it in my anthology, so I ended up moving a few stories around. I even removed a Virginia Woolf from my life to make room for her, if that's not proof of how deeply I felt about her work. I did this because I felt as if the theme of women dealing with sexism and advocating for women's freedom was becoming to prominent in my anthology, and I wanted to make it as diverse as I could. The reason Girl hit me so hard is because I can relate to the girl in the story so well, which is incredible because she only gets a few words in before her mother continues to speak over her. The reason I was able to relate to her despite her lack of presence in the story is because that lack of presence is exactly what I related to...

I think the elements that make up genius are complex, but I think the core of genius is love. You have to honestly love what you set out do learn or do, because that love will push you to the absolute height of accomplishments. A person motivated by pride will only go as far as is impressive, a person motivated by money will only go as far as he is paid, and a person motivated by power will only go as far as he needs to assert control. A person motivated by love, however, will go infinitely far, not because they have anything material to gain from doing so, but because it brings them joy and satisfaction on its own. Still, there are more elements to genius than love. I think being able to learn from others is very important. Prideful people who want to do it all on their own miss out on the valuable insight and information that another person's perspective provides. It's also important to be willing to put in the work, because you can think of a great plan or idea all you wa...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaica_Kincaid I began with the wikipedia page for the author of Girl, because it was a short story/poem that really resonated with me. I think it's really important for women to make their experiences known through art. I wanted to see what other works she had made, and what themes she covers in them. I found out her other stories focus a lot on colonialism and its effects, also on gender and sexuality. There are heavy themes of "Magical Realism" in her work which made me want to look into this more, so I went to that page next. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_realism I already knew what Magical Realism was, but I wanted to see some specific examples. On this page I saw a few things I had heard of, such as the movie "The Green Mile". It is about a mentally disabled black man put to death for a crime he didn't commit who also happens to have mysterious powers. Personally, I felt as though the addition of magic was a...

I'm up to date on the new announcements and I've saved my work.

The short story "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid is written in one long, winding sentence. This emphasizes how long the list of expected behavior for girls is, which contributes to the overall theme of girls being burdened with many responsibilities from a very young age due to restrictive gender roles. The story serves as a reflection of the many gender roles that girls must perform. She tells her daughter about doing every type of housework, from laundry to sowing to cooking to all types of cleaning, and so on and so forth. Even though the girl is expected to find a husband, the mother makes no mention of splitting the chores, and even gives the girl advice on how to continue working even when you are exhausted. She expects her daughter to shoulder this burden with a smile, teaching her how to appear happy even when she is miserable. This reflects how society expects women to do all of the chores and even call it "women's work" but don't want to see a woman lo...

Jamaica Kincaid: - 1949 to present - Born as Elaine Cynthia Potter Richardson, changed her name to evade her family who did not support her writing and also as a reference to her heritage - Contemporary writer known for her work about the immigrant experience and use of first person narration - No one expected anything of her because she was a woman, she incorporates her feelings on that into her work - Raised Methodist but her mother and grandmother practiced voodoo, to be in touch with their culture Girl: - One long sentence - A mother giving her daughter a long list of rules about womanhood - Rules include: don't look or act like a slut, how to wash clothes properly, eat food like a lady, don't talk to street boys, how to sow, how to sweep, how to bully men, how to love men, how to smile at people you like, how to smile at people you don't like, and how to make ends meet. - Obviously commentary on all the expectations piled on women from the time they are you...

Contemporary World Literature: - 1968 was the high point of the protest movement and transformed contemporary society - 1989 was the year many Eastern European countries overthrew communist regimes and the Berlin wall fell - Advancements in women's rights, civil rights, gay rights, lead to more diverse literature - Writers wanted to address all of the changes going on in the world so political allegory became popular - With globalization, writers began to take their international audience into account and want everyone, even those outside their country, to read their work Leslie Marmon Silko: - 1948 to present - Writes short fiction, novels, poetry and memoirs inspired by her Native American heritage. Yellow Woman: - A woman wakes up after sleeping with a man (named Silva) and he reveals he is an ancestral spirit called a Ka'tsina, and he begins to refer to her as "Yellow Woman". The narrator recognizes this as a character from an old myth/legend of fou...