Lit Anal #5

1. The Color Purple is a novel about an African American woman named Cecil who struggles throughout life. She had to take the part f her mother when she passed away, and during that time her father rapped. She had two children which she never met. Soon after that she is forced to marry another man who already has children. The children as well as her husband are cruel to her and do not respect her. After a couple of years she adjusts to the life. Her sister Nettie moved in with them for  a while but  when she refused to have a relationship with Cecil’s husband she was told she could no longer live there. When Nettie left the house she went to be a servant for an African couple and later became a missionary with them in Africa. Cecil not only morns with the loss of her sister but also with the fact that her husband cheats on her with a singer named Shug. After years of having Shug live with them Cecil begins to form a physical as well as emotional relationship with Shug. Together Shug and Cecil discover letters from Nettie to Cecil that her husband had been hiding from her. When Shug announces that she is leaving Cecil says that she will leave as well, she gets the courage to tell her husband how she really feels about him. Cecil begins her own store and becomes very successful. She goes back to the town to discover that her husband is a changed man and while there she is reunited with her sister.

2. The theme of this novel is that strength can be hidden in the people that appear to be weak. This theme mainly applies to Cecil because she started off as a push over and ends up being independent. She is pushed around by everyone at first and then comes out being strong. She dealt with her father abusing her and then with the abuse of her husband. Shug was the person that Cecil needed to push her to be strong.

3. The tone in this novel is serious and tragic. Though there is a couple of happy moments in there it is mainly filled with sad ones. Since the very beginning Cecil introduces the fact that she was raped and her tone was very somber. She had a very difficult life and spoke of it with a serious tone. The majority of her life was not very good and enjoyable for her. Even when Nettie sent the letters they always contained serious topics and a tragic tone to all she said. Toward the end of the novel it begins to brighten up a bit but Cecil still speaks with a tragic tone.

4. The literary elements in this novel were diction, zenith, and  characterization. The diction was used with the slang that Cecil spoke in. It was effective by making this novel more realistic as well as making Cecil more realistic. The zenith occurred when Shug and Cecil found the letters from Nettie. This was a turning point for the way the story took place because Cecil’s attitude changed after this. The characterization added a better idea f the characters. It helped make sense of why they did what they did. For example the death of Cecil’s husbands ex wife explained his cruel attitude. 

Lit Anal #4

1.       The novel “Black Boy” written by Richard Wright, also the protagonist, is about all of the struggles that Richard faces through life. He is an African American living in a time where blacks were not respected and had no type of freedom, though it was after the Civil War. Since a young age Richard questioned the relationship between blacks and whites and could not understand why it was not equal. He not only struggled with that but also with problems at home. He was constantly beaten and when his father abandoned the family he never had a stable home. As the years went by he began to develop a passion for reading and writing, something that his family did not understand or support. He decided to leave to the north in hopes of a better place but whines up in the same place. Struggling from job to job and still facing discrimination. He turned to a communist group for answers but ends up at the same spot he started.

2.       The theme that this book promotes the most is the theme of equal rights. It constantly shows how Richard struggles to be treated fairly. He is discriminated at every job he obtains. As well as out in public both in the north and in the south. 

3.       The tone that the author uses is serious and melancholy. This novel has nothing funny about it because it depicts a life of a discriminated black man. Mostly all of the events in his life were tragic and sad in some way and so it only makes sense for the author to use this tone.

4.       Richard chose to use simple everyday diction. His choice made reading the novel enjoyable and simple. He also used many literary techniques such as foreshadowing, analogy, dialect, diction, and personification which made the novel that much more interesting. He would use foreshadowing by speaking about his future plans. Though they were only his dreams at the moment they grew to be realities.

Lit Anal #3

1.       The novel The Bluest eye takes place after the great depression and describes the life of African Americans. The main characters are Claudia, Frieda, and Pecola. Claudia and Frieda are sisters and they meet Pecola when she and another man named Henry move into their home for a while. At first they are hesitant about Pecola but soon begin to help her and guide her. Pecola is obsessed with having blue eyes and blonde hair like Shirley Temple. Pecola is also very troubled because of the family she comes from, her parents constantly argue and the arguments constantly turn violent. One day Pecola is rapped by her father, Cholly, and she becomes pregnant. Everyone in the neighborhood judges her and her mother even beats her. The neighborhood hopes her baby dies but Claudia and Frieda hope otherwise. The baby ends up dying because it was born prematurely. After her child’s death Pecola goes mad and believes everyone hates her because her blue eyes are so beautiful.

2.       The theme of this novel is lack of love. This is constantly seen with every character in the novel. Not only does Pecola not receive love from her own family but the community doesn’t show her love either. Her parents did not receive much love when they were growing up which explains why they can’t show love to their own children. The lack of love which Pecola receives ends up driving her crazy and to hating herself so much.

3.       Toni Morrison uses first person point of view which gives us an inside look to the novel. It makes it be that much more interesting and detailed. Her tone is melancholy and through every event we foreshadow something bad resulting from it. Some of the examples in the novel are “All he would do was get drunk sand beat her.” Also “although his income was small he had no taste for luxury.”

4.       The literary techniques that Morrison used that helped me better understand the novel were foreshadowing, diction, dialect, and imagery. The foreshadowing allowed us to get a heads up for all of the bad things to come. The dialect used allowed me as a reader to be able to get a better understanding of the characters. The imagery made the reading become more realistic and the diction was very simple which made reading enjoyable.

vocab list fall # 11

Affinity- relationship by marriage

Bilious- of or indicative of a peevish ill nature disposition

Cognate- of the same nature

Corollary- A proposition inferred Immediately from a proved proposition with little or no additional proof

Cul-de-sac: referred to as a dead end

Derring-do- a daring action

Divination- The art or practice that seeks to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge due to the interpretation of omens

Elixir- A substance capable of prolonging life indefinitely

Folderol- a useless accessory

Gamut- an entire range or series

Hoi polloi- the General populace

Ineffable- incapable of being expressed in words

Lucubration- to study by night

Mnemonic- intended to assist memory

Obloquy- abusive language

Parameter- an independent variable used to express the coordinates of variable point and functions of them

Pundit- a learned man

Risible- provoking laughter

Symptomatic- having the characteristics of a certain disease but arising of a different cause

Volte-face- a reversal in policy

Lit anal # 2 "Things Fall Apart"

1.)Okonkwo, the main character, is a hardworking man ,who is brave and strong emotionally and physically. Okonkwo has three wives and children. Okonkwo is very well known by his neighbors and holds power over them. Not only that but he is also wealthy and courageous. He is the leader of his village. Okonkwo is respected and is selected by the elders to be the guardian of Ikemefuna, a boy who was taken as a prisoner by Okonkwo’s village as a peace settlement between two villages after Ikemefuna's father killed an Umuofian woman. The boy lives with Okonkwo's family and Okonkwo grows fond of him although he lacks emotion toward him physically. The boy sees Okonkwo as a father figure and looks up to him. The Oracle of Umuofia later on pronounces that the boy must be killed to the order of his father’s actions. Ezeudu, the oldest man in the village, advises Okonkwo to not have anything to do with the murder  of Ikemefuna because it would be too painful for Okonkwo to bear. Okonkwo participates in the murder of the boy despite the warning from the old man so he doesn’t seem weak to the public. Okonkwo kills Ikemefuna despite his begging toward Okonkwo to protect him. After Ikemefuna's death, things begin to go downhill for Okonkwo. During a gun salute at Ezeudu's funeral, Okonkwo's gun explodes and kills Ezeudu's son. He and his family are sent into exile for seven years to appease the gods which he has offended. While Okonkwo is away, white men begin to arrive in Umuofia with the intent of introducing a new religion. As the number of convert’s increases, the foothold of the white people grows and a new government is introduced. The village is forced to respond to the imposition of the white people's nascent. When Okonkwo returns from exile, Okonkwo finds his village a very different place because of the presence of the white men. He and other tribal leaders try to reclaim their hold on their native land by destroying a local Christian church set by the white men. In return, the leader of the white government takes them as prisoners and holds them for ransom for a short while, further humiliating and insulting the native leaders. As a result, the people of Umuofia finally gather for what could be a great uprising. Okonkwo, a warrior by nature and adamant about following Umuofian custom and tradition, despises any form of cowardice and advocates for war against the white men. When messengers of the white government try to stop the meeting, Okonkwo kills one of them. He realizes with despair that the people of Umuofia are not going to fight to protect themselves his society's response to such a conflict. When the local leader of the white government comes to take Okonkwo to court, he finds that Okonkwo had hung himself, because he didn’t want any change to be occurring.

2.) The theme of which was most relevant to me was pride and how it affects a person’s life. A great leader and role model had a lot of pride and didn’t show any obvious sign of weakness in public or around family. He was born a warrior and believed himself to be strong. His pride led him too far when he became emotionally involved with Ikemefuna.  After this he had many problems. After getting exile and coming back to his community he had to understand that most of the things changed, but he didn’t listen. He wanted things his way and nothing else. For him pride came before the fall, and this brought him to his destiny, his death.

3.The tone of the book is ironic and tragic and told in a very clear and direct way as if it were a story being passed on from one to another. An example would be when Okonkwo’s disillusioned ideas of regaining his position of greatness upon return from his exile create a tone of pathos.  The fable like tone still remains, but the parables start to become integrated with stories of tragedy and the white man, as opposed to all relating stories about family or village values. Another example of tragic was when Okonkwo helped killed Ikemefuna. This was very tragic in the eyes of the readers because he had raised the boy like his son.  An example of irony is seeing throughout the book because men are allowed to have more than one wife as long as they are able to raise them. Now a days, men can’t even handle one.

4.)The setting in Nigeria is extremely important; it allows Okonkwo’s life to straddle. We the reader has a window into the dramatic changes that occurred in Igbo culture and society as a result of imperialism. For example, we see two different manners in which crimes of murdering a clansman are treated Okonkwo is exiled for seven years under Igbo laws while another man Aneto is hanged by the white court for a similar crime. (pt. 2. pg.130)Imagery is something that is seeing clearly throughout the whole novel. Some examples yams and Egwugwu. Growing yams is labor intensive, and the size of a man’s fields and harvest say much about his work ethic. Yams are grown to gain wealth and also to feed one’s family. Egwugwu are a symbol of the culture and independence of the Umuofia. They are seen as ancestral gods, though in actuality they are masked Umuofia elders. (pg.36)Symbolism: Okonkwo is compared to the fire a lot of times throughout the story. This shows his passion to do things his way. He's nickname was Roaring flame. (pg. 111)Allegory: Mothers and daughters in the novel have a tendency to share folktales, but they are also one of Okonkwo’s son Nwoye’s favorite forms of entertainment. Because Nwoye prefers folktales over bloody war stories, Okonkwo fears that his son is too effeminate. (pg.145) Foreshadow: This technique is a lot throughout the novel. For example when Okonkwo helped killed his son we knew something bad was going to happened because he was prohibit to help.(pg. 167) Syntax: The syntax that the author uses is very simple to understand. For example "leave her to me", the medicine man told Okonkwo in a cool, confidence voice. (pg. 103) Personification: the author uses some personifications in this novel for example he talks about yams etc. (pg. 156)

CHARACTERIZATION

1.)Two examples of direct characterization are Okonkwo and Unoka. Son and father are very important to this novel because the author say certain things about them, in straight forward words.  Two characters that had indirect characterization were Obierika and Ikemefuna. These two characters were somewhat important to the plot, but not really. We had to make our own conclusions to figure out their qualities.

2.)  The author's syntax or diction doesn’t change throughout the whole novel. His descriptions about the characters are very simple and straight forward. He says this is how this character is and this is why, period.

3.)The protagonist is a static character. Okonkwo had a lot of pride and because of that he couldn’t see what the real world was about. He wanted things his way and that brought his death.

4.) I myself would like to meet this character because it reminds me of myself. I also have pride, but I know how and when to reason when I have to. I think me and Okonkwo would have been good friends because we think alike and also differences.