The Rabbi's Cat

AnaMarie Mehmel

Professor Benander

World Literature III

23 May 2011

            The Rabbi’s Cat by Joann Sfar was a very good story. The story has a very good plot and the graphic panels bring the reader into the story by appealing to the reader’s vision. So when reading this a person gets more than just one single focus. A person could read this by just looking at the pictures because they tell the story so well. Of course the story can be read just like a regular book, by just reading the bubbles or one can read both the pictures and the bubbles at the same time.

When reading the panels one can tell when a scene is important because Sfar will make the panel more detailed. Also he changes how the characters actually look so as to amplify their emotions. For example at the end of chapter 2 Sfar completely distorts the cat so that the reader will know that the cat is very angry. Consequently, Sfar uses colors and shapes to show what the cat thinks is important or not, and therefore what Sfar thinks is important. Like when the rabbi’s rabbi was talking Sfar put shapes with squiggly lines instead of words to show that he thought the rabbi’s words were meaningless. Also, in chapter 3 when the family goes to Paris, Sfar makes the panels gray when in Algeria the panels were always bright and colorful. He is saying that the colonial powers and their native lands are dark, dreary, and truly inferior to the land in which they are trying to colonize. Unfortunately, the rabbi’s daughter has been colonized and the rabbi himself has been changed by his trip to Paris; like in Nervous Conditions, by Tsitsi Dangarembga where Tambu changes because of her time at the missionary, she is colonized. The rabbi’s daughter reminds me of her, and the rabbi reminds me of Lucia.   

This story is really eye opening too. It is trying to get people to see that people might be different, but they are still people. It shows that people who are different can still be friends, like when the rabbi left his house and met up with the an Arab, and they had a great time traveling together or when the rabbi met his son-in-law’s father who was not religious at all. They had a great time chatting together. Seeing people as human beings no matter their nationality or skin color is something the world really should learn. It would make things so much better for everyone. I like to think that I am like the rabbi. That I can pray and be faithful to God, but still have a open mind about things. He is someone people should try to emulate.  

Nervous Conditions

AnaMarie Mehmel

Professor Benander

World Literature III

2 May 2011

            Nervous Conditions, by Tsitsi Dangarembga, is a very twisted, complicated story that makes the reader work to understand the first few chapters. It is a very interesting story, but the author uses a twisted writing style in the first few chapters that will make anyone’s head spin. After those chapters, though, the story goes to a linear story line making it easier for European readers to understand.

            The character Nyasha is an interesting one because she rebels against life her family wants her to lead. Her father Babamukuru, the head of the family, moves her, her mother and her brother to England when she was little. This starts a chain reaction of events that lead to Nyasha’s rebellion. Being in England changes her so much that she cannot function properly in her native Shona culture. She has learned that she can act a certain way, the European way, but when in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, everything she learned in England is wrong and her prents want her to go back to the traditional Shona culture. Yet, as Nyasha says in the story, a person cannot unlearn things. There is no going back once a course has been set and begun. So Nyasha has a hard time fitting in her new life in Rhodesia because it is not right for a girl to speak up or defy her father and mother, but in England the views on the woman’s role in the household and in life is very different. She does not understand why she cannot act the way she does because it is the European way and if it is European it must be right. Her rebellion only gets her pain and sorrow. In chapter 6, Nyasha and her father get into a fight that goes from verbal to physical and it is a fight that Nyasha loses. She suffers physical, emotional, mental, and every other kind of abuse you can think of at the hands of her father with the effects lasting a very long time. She become bulimic and dissocializes herself from her family. Her rebellion did not give her anything but pain.

            I believe that many people could probably relate to Nyasha. I know that I do. I moved in with my uncle to get away from my father and his domineering ways. Poor Nyasha did not get that option, unfortunately. I think her life would have been vastly different if she did not have to deal with the humiliation her father forced on her. She does escape in her schooling, but one can only hide behind books for so long. I know that is what I used to do so that I did not have to be around my dad and his hypocrisies. Maybe fathers do not realize how their actions hurt their children, but a wound, whether inflicted intentionally or not, is still a wound that leaves a scar. Each one changes a person for good or evil. Nyasha became bulimic, I left to start a new, better life.

Ngugi

AnaMarie Mehmel

Professor Benander

World Literature III

26 April 2011

            Ngugi was not one of my favorite authors to read because I could not understand what he was trying to say until it was explained to me. To me, his “Decolonization of the Mind” seemed like his Communist Manifesto/Declaration of Independence. He is justifying his use of English to support his African experiences as he writes them. He is also saying that the English he uses, Kenyan English, is a real language. Ngugi just seems to me like he emulates Karl Marx in wanting the oppressed to rise up against their oppressors. The way Ngugi does this is through his writing. He is saying that he not going to embrace the European colonization, but take what their education and use it as a tool to fight back. Ngugi is all about language. Language is a powerful thing that people take for granted. Many people do not think about what they say or how they say it. I do not even think about how words are taken until it is too late, and then people get mad and all I want to do is take back what I said.

            Now his story “Wedding at the Cross” was not as bad as his “Decolonization of the Mind.” It is a powerful story because it shows that the thirst for revenge can change people so much that even loved ones do not know them anymore. Yet, Ngugi also uses this story to show that the colonization of the mind does the same thing. Wariuki was a man without care who had the love a Miriamu, but when her father humiliated him, instead of just accepting that Miriamu loved him and left her family for him, he set out show her father that he was just as good as him. Unfortunately, the way Wariuki did that was by becoming just like Miriamu’s father, whom she had left for a carefree, loving, happy man. So, because he wanted her father’s respect he lost the woman who loved him for who he was. In the end, revenge is a cold bedfellow and therefore so is being colonized body, mind, and soul. Yet, this no new thing, the English wanted to be like the French in their clothing, and most of the English language is composed of French. Americans want to speak European languages, visit European countries because that would make them superior to others. Americans want to be everything European. Evan I want to learn the European languages and travel Europe and then living out my days in Ireland. Europe, mostly England, has colonized everyone not just the Africans, though no one wants to admit to that.

            In his story “Minutes of Glory” shows that being colonized does not make a person happy. Wanjiru had a beautiful name, a name of a goddess, but it she that it wasn’t as beautiful as Beatrice, so she changed it. There is the beginning of her trouble. She was already so colonized that she chose a European name that isn’t that pretty, but it was European so it was better than Wanjiru. Then she wanted to have money and men want her. There is another problem. African women were the back bones of the men, so why would you want to degrade yourself by becoming something so European? Well that did not make her happy though. She didn’t even have men or money. She had no self-confidence which made her very unappealing. So she became the European idea for nothing but heartache. Unfortunately, she was so taken over by that ideal that when she actually had a chance to leave her sorry excuse of a life behind she didn’t. Instead she bought everything needed to make men notice her and want her. She had her few minutes of glory then she was arrested, but she was wanted. Yeah, right! She sold herself to the devil for something that was insubstantial. Her memories are all that she has to show for her life; her very pathetic life.  

Nadine Gordimer

AnaMarie Mehmel

Professor Benander

World Literature III

18 April 2011

            When I first read Nadine Gordimer’s “Good Climate, Friendly Inhabitants” I was not impressed with her. Yet, after reading her stories “Amnesty” and “Six Feet of the Country” my opinion changed. I even reread “Good Climate, Friendly Inhabitants” again and liked it a little bit more than before.

            “Good Climate, Friendly Inhabitants” is about a white woman who works in a gas station with a bunch of black mechanics. She believes because she is white that she is better than them and even acts as if she is the boss when really the head mechanic Jack is the boss; but, because Jack pities her, he allows her to think whatever she wants. She is nice person for the most part, but she is also a ditzy, self important racist imbecile. I call her an imbecile because she allows this con man into her life and gives him whatever he wants. She doesn’t know this guy from Adam, but she still lets him wrap his tentacles around her. Dumb! Gordimer uses this story as a great example of how colonization is taking over the Africans until they are reduced to terror and meekness. That is exactly who the narrator acted with the con man. He terrified her and she did nothing about it. That is wrong. She should not have let him take her freedom from her, if only for a short time. Yet, sometimes it cannot be helped. Africans did not choose to have their country torn apart by the Europeans, and neither did the narrator ask to have the con man invade her life. I think she was too trusting, but also so lonely that she was looking for companionship in the wrong places.

I liked “Amnesty” better. This story struck a chord in me. The narrator just wants to have her man home with her, raising their children, which is what every mother wants right? Yet, she does not get those desires. Her man leaves her to fight against colonization. Now do not get me wrong, I am not saying that the man was in the wrong cause what he was fighting for was a noble and worthy cause. However, I do not see how he could not have fought and married the narrator like he promised. Is one promise worth the price of another? I truly would like to know. I think he could have fought with her by his side against the apartheid. She was as worthy of freedom as he but all she was to him was a quick tumble. She was ignorant to him, but that was not something she could help. She did everything she could to better herself and all for him only for him to knock her up again then leave. Yet, it is important to note that in African culture women who have children are true women and have true strength. In America, being a single mom is an admirable role women play, and that is what the narrator does, but most important is that she is raising the future of her people in every sense of the phrase. While her man is fighting for the country, she is fighting to keep the people alive so that there is a purpose to a country. 

Yet, it is so depressing that her man could not man up and marry her especially after getting her pregnant.

            Gordimer’s “Six Feet of the Country” was a sad story too. It is about a man only tries to help his black servants when it is convenient from him to do so. He was a man who believes that he is so superior than anyone else, even his own wife was less than him because she tried to make the lives of the blacks a little bit better.  He is one of those men who would cut his nose off to spite his face. He could not comprehend in his sick, dense, little mind that helping others because it was that right thing to do was a good, better way than waiting for a reward that was not earned. The narrator was a completely narrow minded. His wife was portrayed as less than a woman because she did not have kids and her husband did not want her, but I believe she is a powerful important figure. It is people like her who do the dirty work that make life for people like the narrator easy. It is not fair of course, but when is life ever fair?

Achebe

AnaMarie Mehmel

Professor Benander

World Literature III

11 April 2011

            Chinua Achebe is a brilliant writer. He uses different styles of writing to make people see his point of view. His “An Image of Africa” is a lecture that calls Joseph Conrad, author of Heart of Darkness, a “bloody racist;” while his “Girls at War” is a story that criticizes people in power who do nothing to help their countrymen. In “The Madman” Achebe tells us a story about how colonization is not just about taking resources, but also taking over the minds of those who are deemed inferior.

            Achebe’s “An Image of Africa” is my favorite of the three not because it was a lecture, but because it pounded Conrad’s Heart of Darkness into the ground, where I truly believe it should stay. Having read Heart of Darkness I can say from experience that it was one of the worst books I have ever had to read and it was truly as discriminating towards “the natives” as Achebe claims. English teachers think Conrad’s book is great literature and therefore should be taught to students. Maybe it is, but that is the European/American view of the book. No one ever thinks that maybe, just maybe, teaching that book teaches the old prejudices to new generations, thus keeping people ignorant to the truth. Africans are people too. So many things in Heart of Darkness are racist that making the book out to be such a great work of literature is saying that being racist is alright. Well, as Achebe tries to make people see, it is not alright. It is downright evil to treat people like they are inferior. Yet, it happens, and all I wish to say to the offenders is “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”

            Now Achebe’s “Girls at War” is disturbing. He uses a girl’s life to show that people in power should do everything they can to aid their people, not just the ones that are close family and friends. It is really sickening to think how people in power abuse their power. The main character Nwankwo, who is a Minister of Justice (man of power), cares for his family and his servants, but he does not help anyone else because he thinks that in times of war people have to take care of themselves. Honestly, I can see his point of view. A person cannot help everyone, and sometimes taking care of one’s family is all that can be done. Yet, in this situation Nwankwo helps a girl because he wants to have her. He only helps those who will give him something in return, the girl’s body in this instance. Personally, I think he is a sick guy who should feel ashamed of his life. He was all talk and no action when it came to actually helping his countrymen. The girl who used any means possible to survive gave her life to help a wounded soldier. Where was Nwankwo? Running in the opposite direction like the coward he was. Men in power only care for themselves. He was a shallow, sorry excuse for a man, but he got to live, while the girl died for what she believed, for the right thing. It is a depressing thing to realize, but that is the way it always seems to work out.

            “The Madman” is an important story because this is where Achebe really demonstrates how colonization is stealing from the Africans. This story is a great analogy for how Europeans have dominated the minds of the Africans, making them believe that they are nothing. That Africans are crazy because they are not Europeans. The European culture is more superior and everything they do is right, so everything the Africans do must, therefore, be wrong. How sick is that? The sad thing is that after being told over and over again that you are nothing, you start to believe it. Here is the true domination of the mind. Yet, Achebe implies that the only way to defeat this is not to play. This is sage advice to me.

The Stranglehole of English Lit

AnaMarie Mehmel

Professor Benander

World Literature III

1 April 2011

First thing I have to say is that I’m greatly disappointed that Mnthali used Jane Austen as the English writer he was going to bash. Jane Austen is one of my favorite writers of all time. I own at least three of her books and have read her Pride and Prejudice six times. However, what he says is completely understandable. Austen’s novels are completely useless to the African people. Learning how to marry the richest man and have love at the same time or what dress is best for dinner is not something an African woman needs to know. Africans need to be taught how to live in their country. African people do not have the luxury of lounging around and chatting over tea. It does not make sense to force a person to learn something that has no meaning to them.  It is one thing to teach people another culture so that they can understand it, but it is completely different to teach that culture because it is the more superior culture; which in my opinion is completely subjective. People will always argue that they are better than another. Yet, because the English thought they were better and because they had power over the Africans, Africans have suffered much. They do not have a real culture. They have whatever they learn from the European universities they go to. Of course, teaching African history is not going to be in the curriculum; and as for language, they cannot make a language of their own without using European techniques. Unfortunately, this kind of oppression happens still today. You’d think that over time and through all the wars, deaths, inventions etc. that people of the world would have learned from mistakes of the past and realized that physical characteristics do not change the fact that a person is still a human being and does not deserve to be treated as anything less just because they might be different from the majority. Europeans still think they are better than the rest of the world, Americans think Mexicans need to go back to Mexico because they are all just lazy, job stealing aliens, men still think women should be at home with the kids or that women cannot do a job as good as a man; the list goes on. This poem kind of reminds me of what is going on in Libya. In the poem it was the English oppressing the Africans, in Libya, America is stepping in to “help” the people. Yes, I understand that sometimes people need help, but America uses their offer of help as a way to be right there in the action and controlling the whole thing. All that does is lead to rebellion and death. Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan etc. are all places were good American soldiers died because of greed and the need to control oil. That does not help the people and that is what Mnthali is saying. Teaching English literature really does not help the African people; it is just England’s way of controlling what the Africans know.