Story and History in Things Fall Apart.

Things Fall Apart, is a famous novel written by Chinua Achebe in 1958. This novel reflects different aspects of the African culture and traditions because the story is focused in how an African man called Okonkwo faces his everyday struggles in his clan and community. The literary era of this novel is the post-colonialism, where the most remarkable aspect is the dominance of the British over the indigenous people. Things Fall Apart is infused with this fact of the history, because this novel somehow addresses the problems and consequences of a territory, in this case, of Umuofia, after the arrival of the "white" race. 

Achebe exemplified through a tragic story, some of the cultural aspects and traditions of the African society before the British conquered the indigenous land. The story in Things Fall Apart relates the life of Okonkwo and his surroundings and how after the arrival of the first white men, his life completely changed. In Umuofia, the first man who tried to help the Africans was Mr Brown and his intentions towards them were beneficial for the clans because the education improved and the Christianity was spreading all over the village, in many cases, this religion helped the african people because it gave them hope in their future.

In addition, the second man who replaced Mr Brown was Mr Smith, the difference was that Mr Smith didn't like the African people and he was always rude to them. The attitude of this man towards the Africans is more related to the colonization of Africa. For example, when the British arrived to Africa, they were not interested in a social improvement in the african territories. Therefore, they were only interested in conquering those territories and the Africans were treated as a minority. 

In conclusion, story and history in Things Fall Apart have similarities and differences between both because one of the main purposes of Achebe was to create a story with many aspects from the African culture and traditions, but even though it may include things from what happened in reality, at the end it is just a novel that states Achebe's point of view about the influence of the white race towards the Africans. Nevertheless, the story is also influenced by the African history (colonization) that helped build the Africa that we know nowadays.

  

Things Fall Apart.- First Impressions.

Things Fall Apart- Chinua Achebe

My first impression of Okonkwo (personality, attributes and faults). 

  

Chinua Achebe was a Nigerian novelist who was highly admired by many other authors and readers because of his most famous novel, Things Fall Apart, where he includes different cultural aspects from the African society and literature. In this novel, Achebe achieves to create a different perspective about the African environment and also includes aspects such as the interaction between the africans as human beings, their beliefs and traditions. 

So far, the book has been about the everyday experiences of a man called Okonkwo whose life is a mere example of the African culture and beliefs.

Okonkwo has shown to be a strict man due to his good reputation in the community and because he is one of the most admired men in the village. He learned to be strong and brave because he hated the way he father was. His father was a very lazy man and everybody in the village disliked him because he wasn't productive in comparison with other men. Therefore, Okonkwo started to think that any men who didn't fight or participated in battles, wasn't men at all and he was also afraid to become like his father. This can be one explanation of his personality and behavior towards other people. 

Okonkwo's most important attribute is that because of his strong personality, he is capable to control his three wives, and he decides how he wants to raise his children. On the other hand, one of the biggest faults of Okonkwo is that sometimes he gets to be so rude that he hurts people without noticing it. He even hurts himself because he keeps all his feelings and emotions inside and do not express them, in other words, he keeps the guilt provoked by his actions inside himself and he can be seen by as a careless man. 

In conclusion, it is important to highlight that the African culture and beliefs are certainly exemplified in the novel, for example, the fact that despite Okonkwo showed to be brave, rude and mean, in the inside, he really cared about the others but the reason why he didn't express his feelings was because he wanted to prove to everyone that he was strong enough to be the "leader" and a good example of a "real man". 

 

Joseph Conrad's style

Conrad's style in Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), was a novelist whose texts have been admired for almost a century. He is highly recognized by many other literature authors and readers because of the style and word choice in his stories. One of the most famous books he has ever made is Heart of Darkness, a story full of adventure that allows the reader an imaginary journey to the Congo. Conrad’s style in this story is mostly based on hyponyms, words of more specific meaning than a general or superordinate term applicable to it. 

The firt chapter of the story starts with many descriptions about Marlow’s, the main character, surroundings. Conrad is environmentally descriptive, in comparison with Edgar Allan Poe, who uses a lot of descriptions in the characters’s aspect, temperament or thoughts. These descriptions can be expressed with the use of hyponyms, because they create a text that appears semantically richer and with more meaning compressed into each clause.

For example, in Heart of Darkness, Conrad constantly mentions the word “darkness”, and it can be related with different aspects of the story, in other words, this witty author says a lot in just a word. Through my own interpetation of the word “darkness”, I realized that it is written in different scenarios of the story but it can allude to the discrimination suffered by the Africans or to the fear of Marlow of experimenting a whole new adventure.

Summarizing,  Joseph Conrad uses hyponyms to give each sentence much more information to the reader, even though each sententence only uses a certain number of terms and has no additional words. Hyponyms allows the reader to have a more general interpretation of Conrad’s story.

Edgar Allan Poe and the Romantic Era.

Edgar Allan Poe, was an American author who created the term "short story" in the literary world. He is highly admired by many other authors and readers due to his poems and stories that encompass a macabre, dark and mystery environment. In addition, he was considered part of the American Romantic Movement, therefore, most of his works are product of a mix between aspects from the Romantic Era and characteristics from the Gothic Fiction, such as "Hop Frog", "The Cask of Amontillado", "The Murderers in the Rue Morgue" and "The Pit and the Pendulum". 

 Moreover, in the Romantic story, the setting is usually set in a distant time in the past, in other words, this setting can be a dark, mysterious or unknown place. Hence, Poe created new worlds in each of his stories, so that the readers would only concentrate on the themes, motifs and the chartless environment. For example "The Murderers in the Rue Morgue" is set in France instead of America and in this detective fiction, the environment is full of mystery and astonishment because the descriptions give the reader and idea of how the setting can be in real life, but it is actually a place distant from the present, this means that, Poe creates in this work a Romantic distance from the reader. 

Equally important, the Romantic Era is also recognized because of the rejection of the rational and the intellectual, establishing an importance to the intuitive and emotional. In his critical theories, Poe emphasized that the importance of art should be related with emotions, therefore, this theory is infused in most of his works. For example, in "The Pit and the Pendulum", the main character is being tortured by his own thoughts and emotions and he is transmitting them to reader, and the beauty of this short story is in sensing and being focused on his fears and terrors. Also, in "Hop Frog" and "The Cask of Amontillado", the dwarf and Montresor committed homicide because they were driven by his emotions and the madness was impulsing them to look for revenge. 

In conclusion,  most of Poe's short stories and poems are influenced by the Romantic Era, emphasizing the human nature by giving a huge importance in the emotions of the characters. Also, it is interesting how the macabre, mysterious and dark environment is caused by the consequences of expressing those emotions and feelings. 

Margaret Atwood.

Margaret Atwood.

After reading some of Margaret Atwood's texts, I realized that she always includes Canada in them, either she describes some of the culture or important aspects (just like in "Tour-de-farce") or she just mentions the name and relates it with the rest of the text (just like in "Happy Endings"). Somehow I've learned how she admires the country she was born in and how she compares Canada with other countries such as England. I bet she is proud to be Canadian and that is one of the things I appreciate about her because instead of talking how wonderful are other countries, she talks about her natal country and makes me want to go to Canada, on the other hand, it can also be boring because everything she's relating everything with some Canadian aspects, excluding the rest of the world. But in "Tour-de-farce", even though its pretty obvious that she misses Canada, when she moves to England she realizes how much she loves her natal country but has to accept a different culture and needs to get used to it. 

Post-modernism.

What I've learned about post-modernism is a way to explain reality. It looks for a way to explain that reality and is not only how humans see or understand about it. In Post-modernism, the mind tries to understand its own reality, this is why is skeptical of explanations or arguments that claim to be valid for all groups because is focused in each person and how they consider something to be valid or true. 
The interpretations is essential in Post-modernism because as I mentioned before, it depends on each person how they consider something to be valid, so the interpretation is the most important thing because through them we can see what the world means to us and, therefore we can see how reality is constructed, individually. 

"Post-modernism cannot on its own principles ultimately justify itself any more than can the various metaphysical overviews against which the postmodern mind has defined itself." 

-Richard Tarnas (philosopher) 

Atwood and post-modernism?

 Relating post- modernism with Margaret Atwood, we can see that some of her texts contain a lot of post-modernism aspects in them, for example, in "Happy Endings" is not necessary to analyze if the text is valid or not because we can get a personal interpretation of that and give it our own validity. Another example is "Tour-de-farce", because in this text we can see that there are some important aspects of post-modernism such as self-awareness, intertextuality, deconstruction and pastiche. 

John Donne's poetry.

"The Sun Rising" and 

"The Canonization".

During this last period, in my Literature class, we've been analyzing John Donne's poetry, and two of the poems that we analyzed are "The Sun Rising" and "The Canonization". After reading them, my impressions about Donne's work didn't change at all, because the first Donne's poem that I read was "The Flea", so I realized that he has the same "essence" in all his poems (at least in the ones that I've read). He uses a lot of rhetorical figures, and of course, his famous "wit" is always present.  

Somehow, Donne uses words that seem to be simple, but when you read it again and again you realized that they can have more than one meaning. I believe that decided to use a lot of literary devices to have an unique impact in each reader, because even though he transmits a message in each of his poems, at the end, everyone can have a different interpretation because of the words he uses. There is one out of two possibilities, either you totally understood what he's saying or you didn't understand anything, and again, it is all because of the meaning of the words that he uses. 

Also, Donne is recognized due to his majestically wit, included in all his poems. He had a genius way to transmit his thoughts, feelings and beliefs. 

For example, in "The Sun Rising", he uses a lot of hyperbole and metaphors, and the poem is about two lovers being bothered by the Sun, in comparison with "The Canonization" that also has implied the theme of "love" and/or "couples" and it's mainly focused on that, in contrast with "The Sun Rising" that it's mainly focused on the Sun. "The Canonization" is about two individuals that are in love and they tell others to not criticize them for their love. They state that their love is indestructible and everyone can feel however they feel about it, because their love is going to be an example for future generations to follow.  

Now, every time I read a Donne's poem, just by reading the title I know that is going to be about religion, death, love, women or sexuality. 

Satire III

"Satire III"

 

During the last weeks, we've been reading John Donne's poetry in my Literature class. There was a poem that caught my attention immediately because it made me think a lot about God, devil and religion in general, this poem is called "Satire III". This poem mainly talks about man and religion.
It's interesting that in someway, Donne's poem makes me want to have a religion and do the "right thing" by following the word of God. Another interesting fact about "Satire III" is that he establishes that when human follow their temptations, they're not actually feeding their soul and that religion is the solution for everything they need.
This is related to the fact that people actually have a religion because they feel more confident and less scared of real life. Therefore, I can conclude by saying that it is essential for humanity to have a religion because it is a guide that will make them feel less afraid of their future.
What I learned about John Donne when I finished to read this poem is that he thought religion was the right thing for him and wanted to transmit that message to everyone else.
He was a person that really, really liked metaphors and we can see one in the beginning of "Satire III", when he says "Death be not proud".
My experience with "Satire III" is that at first, I didn't understand what he was talking about because his constant use of metaphor, so I had to read it again and again. Also I realized that for a lot of people, religion (how Donne describes it) is their answer and guide for everything, but not for me. 

 

 

 

 

I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than live as if there isn't and to die to find out that there is.

Albert Camus

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_religion.html#e27KjGfoHReVMgyb.99

 "I would rather live my life as if there's a God and die to find out there isn't, than live as if there isn't and to die to find out that there is." 

-Albert Camus