Take Stock Week 17

I have backed up everything. I have declared every assignment except for one that I did late. I am caught up on every announcement.

Weekly Review: Week 17

            For this week, I feel a little relieved getting all this work done. It was honestly a lot to do but I somehow managed to get it done. Looking back at this past semester, I can see how all this work has helped me because I have learned many ways of editing, looking at readings, analyzing texts and changing how I write my essays. I feel that I have improved throughout the semester with each and every work that I did. I learned from both my own work and others work because I got to keep an open mind. By that, I mean I learned how to look at readings in different ways by seeing what they wrote and applying that to mine. I have even noticed that I take what I learned from this class and apply it to other classes, especially when it comes to looking at readings, studying and even writing. Looking at my writing today compared to my past work, I definitely see a change in how I word things. Therefore, I can officially say that I have learned from this class and even my other classes because I try to take all I have learned and use it on everyday life and things I do. I really enjoyed seeing other’s work honestly. This is because it is really fun and interesting getting to see others work and seeing how they progressed throughout the semester. Overall, everyone did such an amazing job on their work and I really learned from them. Getting both my online classes done is honestly very relieving because now I can just focus on my last two finals, thus lowering my stress a bit. I hope everyone had a great time this semester and I hope everyone has a great summer. I wish you all good luck on your future endeavors!

Project Submission #3 Revision Week 17

1)      Slow down and read out loud when you proofread.

·         I fixed some minor mistakes with this one, like wording.

2)      Answer the Question with a Clear, Debatable Thesis.

·         I fixed my thesis again to make more sense.

3)      Weed out extra commas.

·         I got rid of some commas while changing sentences around.

Revised Project Submission: https://sites.google.com/view/kitkatstull/project-3

Week 17 Analysis: A Literary Analysis

Mahasweta Devi, “Giribala” (1147-1165)

            In “Giribala” by Mahasweta Devi, the character Giribala is average looking, had lovely eyes, and “nobody ever imagined that she could think on her own, let alone act on her own thought” (1149). She is stuck in this desperate world with this awful, deceitful husband that she must fully adjust to. I feel that the theme of this story is feminism because of the many struggles this woman must face against the social standards of women.  For example, She knew that although the groom had to pay a bride-price in their community, still a girl was only a girl. She had heard so many times the old saying ‘A daughter born, to husband or death, She’s already gone.’ She realized that her life in her home and village was over, and her life of suffering was going to begin” (1151). Women of this time were basically involved in this “transaction” of marriage where the groom pays the bride’s family and this was traditional in the West Bengal region.  There is a huge emphasis on woman in this story, where woman are to be obedient to their husbands. We see hints of feminism in this woman’s journey and adjustment to new lifestyles (or a suffering lifestyle).  We see a look into the north-central region of West Bengal in this story where we see many looks into the cultural practices like arranged marriages, bride-price, and the deceit and viciousness required to survive in a resource-suffering society. We see an example of this viciousness and deceit in the husband when he lies about his living condition and more. The cultural practices seem to be a reoccurring presence in this story. For example, “What kind of woman would leave her husband of many years just like that? Now, they all felt certain that the really bad one was not Aulchand, but Giribala. And arriving at this conclusion seemed to produce some kind of relief for their troubled minds” (1164). We see the social standards of women in West Bengal again. Therefore, the emphasis of feminism is in Giribala’s fight against social standards and bad living conditions with a terrible husband.

Reading Notes W17: Mo Yan, Part X

Mo Yan, “The Old Gun” (1188-1198)

Mo Yan:

·         Born 1955

·         Burst onto China’s literary scene in 1986

·         “Much of Mo Yan’s fiction is set in his native Gaomi County, in Shandong Province-a real place, albeit one that Mo Yan’s fictions enhance and transform almost into myth” (1188).

·         “Roots Seeking”: “This movement arose in the 1980s, one of many waves of response in China to the collective experience of swift modernization in the preceding decades” (1188).

·         An anxiety over China’s eroding cultural identity, technological and economic lag.

·         The writers: “sought to turn from grand models of the future and instead to look for Chinese selfhood in the intimate, local, and rooted places around them: in the rural past, in family lines, in small-h history” (1188).

·         Roots school favor: masculine aesthetic, celebration of raw potency, toughness, and bravado.

The Story:

·         Younger generation trying to connect with their ancestors.

·         A boy and his relation to his dead father through the “old gun”.

·         “The story is typical of the movement, too, in its masculine emphases, narrating a young male’s relationship with the spirit of a lost, primitive, masculine past” (1188).

·         The boy being emasculated is a metaphor for unmanning of Chinese people by Confucian and Maoist pasts. Desire to perform an act like firing a gun, symbolizes compensation for wrongs done to him in the past and desire for control and power.

·         A World lost.

·         Search for something lost.

Quotes:

·         “He felt starving, his whole body limp. He snapped a piece of grass from the ground, rubbed the mud from it, put it in his mouth and began to chew on it, but this only made his hunger worse…” (1191). This only happened once he put the third measure of gunpowder and the third handful of shot into the barrel.

·         “In the days of the republic none of the three countries controlled these parts-there were more bandits round here than hairs on a cow’s back; men, women, they’d all turn violent at the drop of a hat, they’d kill a man as calmly as slicing a melon” (1197).

Reading Notes W17: Devi, Part B

Mahasweta Devi, “Giribala” (1147-1165)

Mahasweta Devi:

·         Born 1926

·         Most important fiction and prose writer in the Bengali language

·         She is a premier social activist in Asia for aboriginal peoples

·         “Her unflinching novels, stories, plays, and essays about these and other disenfranchised people provided the literary foundations for what would later be called ‘subaltern studies’: the rigorous documentation of the lives of the powerless and the critical examination of how and why society marginalizes them” (1147).

·         Born into a high caste family in Dhaka

·         “The truth of literature lies chiefly in its commitment to people, actions, events, situations, and objects outside language, rather than to the literary language such topics are captured in” (1148).

·         Her beauty in writing serves a higher moral, social, or political purpose

The Story:

·         “The story offers a sharply etched picture of rural life in the north-central region of West Bengal around 1975, and a meticulous representation of the impact of its social organization, cultural practices, and economic problems on the life of an illiterate, vulnerable girl barely past puberty” (1148).

·         Arranged marriages in this region involve bride-price.

·         The girl’s father arranges her marriage without checking into (investigating) the groom.

·         Desperate world

·         Bonding between fictional character and reader

Some Quotes:

·         “She knew that although the groom had to pay a bride-price in their community, still a girl was only a girl. She had heard so many times the old saying ‘A daughter born, to husband or death, She’s already gone.’ She realized that her life in her home and village was over, and her life of suffering was going to begin” (1151).

·         “What kind of heartless parents would give attender young girl to a no-good ganja addict? How can he feed you? He has nothing.” (1152).

·         “Bangshi Dhamali happened to be in the village that day, and he too remarked on how Giri’s health and appearance had deteriorated since she went to live with that no-good husband of hers” (1155).

·         “The night wind soothed her raging despair, as it blew her matted hair, uncombed for how long she did not remember” (1158).

·         “What kind of woman would leave her husband of many years just like that? Now, they all felt certain that the really bad one was not Aulchand, but Giribala. And arriving at this conclusion seemed to produce some kind of relief for their troubled minds” (1164).

Reading Notes W17: Rushdie, Part A

Salman Rushdie, “The Perforated Sheet” (1129-1143)

Salman Rushdie:

·         Born 1947

·         Born into a wealthy Muslim business family in Bombay 1947

·         Spoke his mind freely in his works

·         His works are more of “Novels of Ideas”

·         Magic realism writer

·         “Rushdie’s goal is to bring the reader closer to reality, which has its rational or rationally explicable features (as described by science) but is also irrational, unpredictable, and bizarre” (1130).

·         Many of his characters are allegorical or personifications of ideas

·         “Rushdie builds his narratives around conflicting ideas and fantastic characters and events with wit and playfulness, and with precise attention to the sensuous details of everyday life” (1130).

·         Writer on: migration, immigrant communities, Diasporas, cultural mixing, and hybridity.

The story:

·         Protagonist and narrator: Saleem Sinai

·         Protean narrative

·         Sinai is born August 14 and 15 1947: “The moment at which India and Pakistan became separate nations; as a “child” of that historic hour, he finds that his destiny is entwined with India’s fate as a nation, so that his life unfolds as a precise parallel to the country’s collective history thereafter” (1130).

·         Histories of India/Hinduism and Pakistan/Islam.

·         Babies are switched: Sinai grows up thinking he’s Muslim when he is actually biologically Hindu. This story is the beginning of a story that is comical and tragic.

Some Quotes:

·         “Oh, spell it out, spell it out: at the precise instant of India’s arrival at independence, I tumbled forth into the world” (1131).

·         “It’s the place where the outside world meets the world inside you. If they don’t get on, you feel it here. Then you rub your nose with embarrassment to make the itch go away. A nose like that, little idiot, is a great gift. I say: trust it. When it warns you, look out or you’ll be finished. Follow your nose and you’ll go far” (1138). Uses his nose to teach a lesson.

·         “Doctor Aziz’s fall was complete. And Naseem burst out, ‘But Doctor, my God, what a nose…” (1143). He had fallen in love with her even though he has never seen her face. We see the nose pop up again: referring to quote from page 1138.