Literary Analysis!

So I have decided that I am going to write the last essay for this class on Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart." While reading this novel and the other African folk stories that we read, I realized how much I love African folk literature. I love the way it reads and the wisdom I feel it exudes. There is also a lot of symbolism in Achebe's novel and I'm excited to dive into the criticism that's out there. When we discussed in class I wrote down some ideas that I address in my paper. Here are some:

• Okonkwo seems to represent the "old" ways, and Nwoye seems to represent the "new"
• with this, we can enter into how exactly Okonkwo symbolizes the tribes old ways with his personality traits, and the way he dies. I also want to see whether most critics are satisfied with the Okonkwo's fate
• Why did Achebe choose to write this novel in English?
• The significance of the final paragraph
• The significance of the way the novel is divided into three parts -- could it be where Okonkwo is and how his resolve gradually diminishes?
• The similarities and differences between the two religions in the novel, and the theme of cultural identity present in the novel
• and of course, the examination of the novel using post-colonnial criticism.

Thankfully, I have a good amount of ideas to fill 6-7 pages.

Child's Play

Higuchi Ichiyo was born in 1872 in Japan.  Her brother died when she was 15, and her father died when she was 17, leaving her, her mother, and her sister to fend for themselves. Her father had always supported her education; he would get her trasnlated, abridged version of classic novels and made her memorize his favorite poems. During her lifetime, Japan was leaving it's "secluded" age and Western customs were taking over Japanese culture, this included education. Men were sent to schools and received a "western" education, but women were not allowed. Ichiyo herself went to an all girls school because of this. She soon taught at the same school, and wrote poems and short stories to supplement the income.

When her father died, she moved her little family to the outskirts of the red-light district. This was an area of extreme poverty, but also an area where western culture had not penetrated and traditional Japanese culture was present. The neighborhood of minstrels, fortune tellers, jugglers, merchants, and day laborers provided Ichiyo with a much grander setting for her fiction, including her most famous piece, "Child's Play."

Ichiyo was largely unknown until this short story was published. It's main characters are a group of children about 13 or 14. A major present in the short story is a loss of innocence as the children grow up. This can be reflected to Japan losing it's "innocence," in a sense; when the US came charging in with it's gunboat diplomacy, forcing industrial civilization on a previously secluded Japan. It can also be reflected in Ichiyo's own life; when her father died, she was forced to grow up and get a job to support her mother and sister, not only at a young age, but also at a time when that was traditionally the man's role.

This theme of growing up can be tied to another short story we read call "The Man Who Was Almost a Man" by Richard Wright. But in this story, rather than the adult world thrusting itself upon the young boy, the young boy tries to thrust himself into the adult world. He believes he is a man when he is still just a boy, and when he tries to act like a man he ends up killing a mule. Rather than face his problems and take the consequences, he runs from them, further proving that he's still just a boy with more growing up to do.

Wole Soyinka

The Cotton Club; famous Black club during
the Harlem Renaissance

Today in class, we learned a little bit about negritude. Negritude was a literary movement among black writers in Paris that began in the 1930's and 40's. Inspired the Harlem Renaissance, the movement became an assertion of the writers' cultural identity. They sought to give black people around the world an identity of their own. Politically, the movement was a response to, and a refusal of, French colonialism, and affected how those who were colonized viewed themselves. We learned in class that Achebe was a supporter of the negritude movement, but Soyinka was not.

Wole Soyinka was born in Nigeria and educated in England. There's no doubt that he experienced racism and complete disregard of his culture by the English. "Death and the King's Horseman" is one of Soyinka's more famous works. It is about a minor chief, Elesin, is destined to follow his dead king to the afterlife. To do this, he must commit ritual suicide. But the Englishmen, who are attempting to colonize and westernize the tribe, ruin the ritual in order to save the Elesin's life (they don't understand how important the ritual is to the tribe). In the end, they only succeed in causing more trouble because he committed suicide in his cell after seeing that Olunde, his son, had commit suicide to take his place in the afterlife. I guess the intentions of the English were good, but they were ignorant to the beliefs and customs of the tribe and deliberately disrespected their culture.

Wole Soyinka

Soyinka himself said that this play was not about culture clash, but this perplexes me because that's all it seems to be about. If we take his word for it, though, it leaves us wondering what it is really about. Discord among the many cultures present runs rampant throughout the play and it's hard to imagine that Soyinka's overall meaning is not something to do with that discord. My first impression after reading the play was that it is about oppression of the black people by the white, and the consequences it has. The play could also be about moving on and letting past occurrences go; at the end, a woman says "Now forget the dead, forget even the living. Turn your mind only to the unborn." Here Soyinka seems to say just focus on the future because you can't change what's happened.

"I've got a joke for you."

"Women's rights."

How many times have you heard a man say that one?

Jane Addams, famous suffragette
from the Progressive Era
Owner of the Hull House

Feminism, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary, is "the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men." We've discussed a few authors in class that could be considered feminist, including Virginia Woolf, Alfonsina Storni, Anita Desai, Nawal El Sadaawi, and even Rabindranath Tagore (even though he was a dude!).

In "A Room of One's Own," by Virginia Woolf, she enters a library with the intent of reading about women. What she finds is an overwhelming amount of books, about women, all written by men. She says it's as if men are automatically qualified to write about women simply because they are men. She also gives an example of "Judith" Shakespeare, William Shakespeare's "sister." Woolf goes on to explain that, had Shakespeare been a woman, he would not have been as successful, and more than likely would have killed himself. The message of her short story was that all a woman needed to be a successful writer was a quiet room of her own, and money.

Alfonsina Storni was a feminist poet. Her poems have an almost accusatory tone, and seem to tell a story of a woman over-powering a man. Take her poem "Little Bitty Man" for example:

Little bitty man, little bitty man
let your canary loose that wants to fly away.
I'm that canary, little bitty man,
let me go free.

I was in your cage, little bitty man,
little bitty man who gives me a cage.
I say little bitty because you don't understand me
and never will

Nor do I understand you, but meanwhile
open up the cage, for I want to be free.
Little bitty man, I love you half an hour.
Ask no more of me.

Anita Desai's short story "Rooftop Dwellers," is the story of a woman in India who chooses to leave her cushy life with her parents for a life of independence in the big city. The main character, Moyna, had a job and a home and supported herself. She was a very strong and independent woman whose goal seemed to be to prove people wrong, people who thought women couldn't make it on their own. In the end, the journal she works for is going under and she has trouble deciding whether to go home or not. Though Desai leaves the ending a little open, I personally got the impression that Moyna chose to continue her independent life. This gave me a sense of empowerment.

Nawal El Sadaawi (left) wrote a short story that sounds curiously similar to her life. It involves a woman who is sent to jail for speaking ill against her people's leader. In the jail she is torture by being raped. At one point during her torture, one of the men said, "This is the way we torture you women - by depriving you of the most valuable thing you posess." To which she replied, "You fool! The most valuable thing I possess is not between my legs." This is an extremely powerful moment in the story for the woman.

In Rabindranath Tagore's "Punishment," a man kills his wife out of sudden rage. His brother, in an attempt to save him, tells his wife to take the punishment, for it was no secret that the two women constantly fought. The wife was dumbfounded, she could not believe that someone who loved her so would ask her to do such a thing. When the man realized what he had done and tried to tell the truth, she continued to take the blame, as if to tell him 'this is what you wanted, isn't it?' At the end of the story as she sits in jail she is told that he wants to see her, to which she replies "To hell with him." More feminine empowerment!

In all honesty though, I'm not that big of a feminist. Crazy, right? I am a girl, after all. I should be a feminist. I mean it's grand that we can vote and all, I am all for that! And who doesn't want equality of the sexes, that's important. But I'm not the type to go picket somewhere or write some strongly worded essays or short stories just to try and change some man's mind. I am more the type of person to go out and actually do what they say/think I can't do. Actions speak louder than words after all.  :P