Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Blooming
In the beginning of the novel when Papa and Jaja are arguing because he did not go to communion and Papa “picked up the missal and flung it across the room, toward Jaja” (7). The top shelf was cracked and the figurines landed in many pieces. This could be a symbolic reference to the status of the family right now. In the second half of the book Before Palm Sunday the family is broken up. Papa is in trouble because of his newspaper Standard, Mama is left home alone with Sisi and the children are with Aunty Ifeoma. They are slowly being separated and the children are blooming in different directions. This could also be a reference to the title of the book Purple Hibiscus because Hibiscus bloom when they are exposed to a lot of sunlight and that is what these children are being exposed to right now. They are no longer in their dark gloomy home where they have no voice and no control of their lives(rather they are like robots) they are now in the light of many new things and therefore they are blooming. Jaja for example seems different to Kambili “”His shoulders seemed broader, and I wonder if it was possible for a teenager’s shoulders to broaden in a week” (154). They are exposed to having emotions and having their voices heard. Like the hibiscus they are being showed tender love and care (tlc) and they are blooming into teenage hood. Also the fact that at home they are constantly suffocating although they live in a mansion they are not allowed to breathe feely. It is ironic that at aunty Ifeoma’s home is so small and one could suffocate in this environment (given the description of the size of the house) but instead Jaja and Kambili are free.
David
David seems to have issues with his age therefore I believe that he
preys on young beautiful women to make himself feel young once again.
With Melanie he thinks to himself as he is calling her to invite her
for lunch that she is too old for him yet he still invites her for
lunch. This is one of the reasons why I drew this conclusion, why else
would he want such a young girl she is 20 and he is 52. Also after
Soraya leaves the Escort agency he finds another girl who is no more
than 18 years old. "This one is no more than eighteen" (Coetzee 8).
The fact that when Soraya leaves to return to her family life he feels
that he can not continue without her he needed to find another soraya
perhaps Melanie is this other Soraya. Also the fact that he would
jepordize his career simply becasue he does not want to get caught up
with the way the system works. His collegues want him to give a
sincere apologize however he refuses because he does not beleive what
he did was wrong. Although he is being charged with Harrassement he
does not feel the need to make his own statement which strikes me as
odd. Does this mean that sex is the only important thing going for
him. I mean clearly he is fed up with his current career he has been
divorced twice. He knows that he is getting old and he knows that one
day he will be dried up could it be that he wants to enjoy life now?
preys on young beautiful women to make himself feel young once again.
With Melanie he thinks to himself as he is calling her to invite her
for lunch that she is too old for him yet he still invites her for
lunch. This is one of the reasons why I drew this conclusion, why else
would he want such a young girl she is 20 and he is 52. Also after
Soraya leaves the Escort agency he finds another girl who is no more
than 18 years old. "This one is no more than eighteen" (Coetzee 8).
The fact that when Soraya leaves to return to her family life he feels
that he can not continue without her he needed to find another soraya
perhaps Melanie is this other Soraya. Also the fact that he would
jepordize his career simply becasue he does not want to get caught up
with the way the system works. His collegues want him to give a
sincere apologize however he refuses because he does not beleive what
he did was wrong. Although he is being charged with Harrassement he
does not feel the need to make his own statement which strikes me as
odd. Does this mean that sex is the only important thing going for
him. I mean clearly he is fed up with his current career he has been
divorced twice. He knows that he is getting old and he knows that one
day he will be dried up could it be that he wants to enjoy life now?
Irony in Disgrace
I just wanted to bring up the incredible irony that we come across in the reading for today. I found it funny how after we just had a discussion about rape and consent, we come across the horrible scene in which something bad happens to David's daughter, Lucy. They encounter three men at the farm, and when one asks to use their phone the other's force themselves in. Lurie is knocked out, and after the ordeal is over, Lucy tells David that she has been raped.
She refuses to tell Lurie many details, and doesn't report the part about the rape in the police report. It's interesting to wonder how much this effects David, and if he relates to his experiences with women in his past. He starts to grow further away from his daughter after this, and he begins to get cut-off, just as his old prostitute cuts him off, and also how he loses his relationship with Melanie.
She refuses to tell Lurie many details, and doesn't report the part about the rape in the police report. It's interesting to wonder how much this effects David, and if he relates to his experiences with women in his past. He starts to grow further away from his daughter after this, and he begins to get cut-off, just as his old prostitute cuts him off, and also how he loses his relationship with Melanie.
'Desire is another story'
Desire is indeed another story for Professor David Lurie and his daughter Lucy. The professor Lurie according to 'Disgrace' by J.M. Coetzee, is a man filled with manly desires and do not see anything wrong in such mannish instincts manifesting when it is not appropriate. An example, is his sexual involvement with his student Melanie. She is younger than his own daughter Lucy and of course vulnerable. He shows no repentance because he thinks it is his God given right to show his manhood when ever he feels therefore, it is unjust to punished. In his own words, "One can punish a dog, it seems to me, for an offence like chewing a slipper. A dog will accept the justice of that: a beating for a chewing. But desire is another story. No animal will accept the justice of being punished for following its instinct."
What an irony! Lucy is raped by two total strangers who like David followed their instincts of uncontrolable desire and lust without passion. Will it be true to say, He brought his fate or ill luck on his daughter because of his belief?
What an irony! Lucy is raped by two total strangers who like David followed their instincts of uncontrolable desire and lust without passion. Will it be true to say, He brought his fate or ill luck on his daughter because of his belief?
Monday, June 15, 2009
Disgrace - Ch. 1 - 6
We see the developing theme of exploitation in J.M. Coetzee's, "Disgrace". From the beginning we have the escorts Soraya, who has two sons and Dawn, who is no more than eighteen years of age being exploited by getting sucked into the business where they get paid to have sex with different men. We see more examples of exploitation where David meets Melanie, who is a student of his at the University where he teaches. He develops a relationship with her that is formed out of lust and desire. He ends up having sex with her but it doesn't end up in mutual happiness. Melanie feels used because she will not make eye contact with David and will refuse on some occasions to meet up with him. Melanie then switches roles with David in that she begins to exploit him by taking advantage of him. She stops attending his classes and doesn't even take his midterm but it doesn't matter because he gives her a grade and marks her present every day that she isn't there because of the relationship that they are in. She then exploits him even further when she wants to stop seeing him by dropping out of the course and filing a harassment report on David which brings about a trial he must attend to in order to plead his case.
Melanie Sexual object
In the novel Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee the book deals with controversial theme sexuality. In the first couple chapters we find David a university professor who is involve sexually with Melanie. According to the book David has been married and divorce twice. The David character develops around its passion for Melanie, who is beautiful and smart girl. It seems that Melanie works as a prostitute and that is how David gets to know her. The story continues and David I believe falls in love with Melanie and he harasses her. The fact that Melanie withdrawals the class and doesn’t want to study any more shows her rebellion against prostitution. The professor is shock and Melanie’s father as well that asks David to intersect in her decision. How ever Melanie speak and made a sexual harassment complaint against David.
David seems very calm and I believe he doesn’t even care about the allegations. David’s personality suggests that he sees women as sexual object. This also raises a theme of gender issue between women and men. The novel portraits women as weak and inferior compare to men who are powerful and superior. For example, “She is too innocent for that, too ignorant of her power” (39). This is the opinion of David about Melanie and probably how he views women, innocent, weak and ignorant.
David seems very calm and I believe he doesn’t even care about the allegations. David’s personality suggests that he sees women as sexual object. This also raises a theme of gender issue between women and men. The novel portraits women as weak and inferior compare to men who are powerful and superior. For example, “She is too innocent for that, too ignorant of her power” (39). This is the opinion of David about Melanie and probably how he views women, innocent, weak and ignorant.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Farah Rashid English-255
Prof Fiona Lee Blog.
The Purple Hibiscus Written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi is indeed very bold. It mentions in dept about issues such as domination, oppression, fear, domestic violence etc. Papa being the dominating figure often abuses Jaja, Kimbili and Mama. In the novel the Purple Hibiscus, the author told the story from a women perspective unlike the novel Things fall apart written by the same author from a male prespective. What fell apart in this novel is the household. Not only that, there is a political unrest in the country and in their household too. In this male dominating arena, women are often ignored resulting in silence and oppression. This novel doesn’t only bring out the women point of view, but also is an intelligent attempt to bring out into the surface what is often purposely ignored, unheard and unseen. One f such example is domestic violence. In Purple Hibiscus, we get a strong sense of silence. Various aspect of silence is introduced here in the text. Therefore we can say that the novel carefully and indeed cleverly explores the theme of silence. Through out the novel we see that Jaja and Kimbili are both victims of violence and are equally silent. However Jaja later becomes very vocal about his own opinion and expresses repression against their abusive father. Unlike Kimbili and Mama, he stood up for himself. The notion of silence could also be described as a consequence of a trauma so deep that it is indeed very hard for one to come out of it. Thus silence slowly observes what cannot be said. Fortunately with time Kimbili slowly unwinds and expresses herself. Unlike before where she silently underwent violence, she now realizes the facts. Another such strong theme in this novel Purple Hibiscus is the notion of freedom. Freedom is indeed very hard to accomplish. In this text Jaja, Kimbili and Mama gets freedom from the abusive Papa. At the end of the novel Mama poisons Papa thus obtaining the much desired freedom. Even thought she frees herself from Papa’s oppression, is she really free ?. According to me, I strongly feel that freedom can not be obtained under any condition it is repetitive. Freedom is therefore a constant cycle, not only that for the rest of their lives they have to live with the hard fact that their Mama killed their Papa. Is this any less then mental torture ? I feel that if one is free he/she is definelty bonded to something else. One such example is Mama. Even through she got freedom from her abusive husband she lost her only son who took up the blame for her to jail. Her son is the price she paid. In conclusion, at the end of the novel we notice that each member of fammily is free but they did pay a heavy price for it. Jaja is imprisoned, Mama loose her son and lives with the mental torture that she herself poisoned her husband and finally Kimbili through whom we see the story is "shattered, broken into pieces and can never be fixed". We also learn that it is possible to love the person who abuses and oppress you.
Prof Fiona Lee Blog.
The Purple Hibiscus Written by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi is indeed very bold. It mentions in dept about issues such as domination, oppression, fear, domestic violence etc. Papa being the dominating figure often abuses Jaja, Kimbili and Mama. In the novel the Purple Hibiscus, the author told the story from a women perspective unlike the novel Things fall apart written by the same author from a male prespective. What fell apart in this novel is the household. Not only that, there is a political unrest in the country and in their household too. In this male dominating arena, women are often ignored resulting in silence and oppression. This novel doesn’t only bring out the women point of view, but also is an intelligent attempt to bring out into the surface what is often purposely ignored, unheard and unseen. One f such example is domestic violence. In Purple Hibiscus, we get a strong sense of silence. Various aspect of silence is introduced here in the text. Therefore we can say that the novel carefully and indeed cleverly explores the theme of silence. Through out the novel we see that Jaja and Kimbili are both victims of violence and are equally silent. However Jaja later becomes very vocal about his own opinion and expresses repression against their abusive father. Unlike Kimbili and Mama, he stood up for himself. The notion of silence could also be described as a consequence of a trauma so deep that it is indeed very hard for one to come out of it. Thus silence slowly observes what cannot be said. Fortunately with time Kimbili slowly unwinds and expresses herself. Unlike before where she silently underwent violence, she now realizes the facts. Another such strong theme in this novel Purple Hibiscus is the notion of freedom. Freedom is indeed very hard to accomplish. In this text Jaja, Kimbili and Mama gets freedom from the abusive Papa. At the end of the novel Mama poisons Papa thus obtaining the much desired freedom. Even thought she frees herself from Papa’s oppression, is she really free ?. According to me, I strongly feel that freedom can not be obtained under any condition it is repetitive. Freedom is therefore a constant cycle, not only that for the rest of their lives they have to live with the hard fact that their Mama killed their Papa. Is this any less then mental torture ? I feel that if one is free he/she is definelty bonded to something else. One such example is Mama. Even through she got freedom from her abusive husband she lost her only son who took up the blame for her to jail. Her son is the price she paid. In conclusion, at the end of the novel we notice that each member of fammily is free but they did pay a heavy price for it. Jaja is imprisoned, Mama loose her son and lives with the mental torture that she herself poisoned her husband and finally Kimbili through whom we see the story is "shattered, broken into pieces and can never be fixed". We also learn that it is possible to love the person who abuses and oppress you.
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