The 5 Senses: Muted

As we see in Plato’s allegory of the Cave, we as humans perceive reality with our 5 senses. This statement can be analyzed in many different ways, and can lead to many different trains of thought. One distinct one that always comes to mind when I think of the 5 senses is what it would be like to not have all 5. Take blindness for example. MAKEUP ARTIST Mollye Burke was diagnosed blind when she was 12 years old, being “legally blind” her whole life. Qualities of being “legally blind” are things like tunnel vision and no perception of depth or detail. She explains vividly that she could never see things, well, vividly. She is currently a YouTuber and MAKEUP ARTIST (yes you heard/read me) in her late twenties. Mollye explains in many of her videos what it’s like to be blind, and offers many insights about the senses and the world around us that sighted people, or “sighties” as she calls us, fail to realize in everyday life. Things like the idea of color, or distance in vision, or simple things like having to SEE to EAT. Watching her life story as she’s unfolds it for her viewers is inspiring, entertaining (like she’s got a sense of humor), intellectual, and really just gets you thinking about the world around you and how you perceive it. I HIGHLY recommend watching a couple of her videos to really get your mind thinking about how different each and every person perceived the world around them. https://www.youtube.com/user/MollyBurkeOfficial (She has a whole playlist about her sight.)

Plato's Allegory of the Cave and "The Pedestrian"

Plato's Allegory of the Cave is an interesting metaphor. The allegory starts with prisoners being held captive and chained up in a cave. A fire is placed behind them so that it may give off shadows to anything that pass by. Everytime something passes by the fire, including people holding figurines and other objects, the prisoners recognize these objects but only through the shadows casted by the fire. One prisoner is freed from his confinements and discovers of the outside world where the sun is the true source of light and also that shadows are but mere reflections of objects. While reading this allegory, I was reminded of a short story that Mr. Shipman had us read in Sophmore year named "The Pedestrian"

"The Pedresian" is a short story by Ray Bradbury and it describes a world in the year of 2053 where books no longer exist and the only thing that most people do all day is watch TV. There is only one person who isn't susceptible to this TV obsession and regularly goes out on evening strolls unlike the rest of the world. This character, named Leonard Mead, encounters a robotic police car that tries to arrest him (Yes, you read that right, a police car tried to arrest him because police no longer existed) and the car is confused when Mead tells it that he is a writer (because again, books didn't exist anymore so writers were obsolete). Afterwards, he is arrested and brought to a psychiatric center in the police car.

I think that these stories are similar in the since that they try to isolate someone for having a higher knowledge that those around him. In the prisoners' case, he has to leave the cave to gain knowledge about the outside world where it is much lighter. He then tries to convince the other prisoners that there world is an illusion but they all think he is just crazy. Mead has a similar situation because everybody in his world just stays in their homes all day and watch TV. The world for the citziens in the short story IS the TV despite the fact that the picture on the screen of the television isn't tangible. So, both the citizens of Mead's world and the prisoners live in a reality that they can't even be physically a part of. Also, in the short story, every home is described to be dark but with a faint light (presumably coming from the TV). This is very similar to the prisoners of the caves because they too reside in a dark place with a faint light, which is the fire. Mead's house is also described to be a very bright house with all of the lights on at the end of the story. You can compare this to how the enlightened prisoner, after he leaves the cave, is more connected to the outside world when he sees the light of the sun. So, in both stories, light is a representation of a higher knowledge. Yet, for having that higher knowledge, both characters are thought be crazy. After having found about the outside world, the prisoner tries to convince the others of the new world but they reject him and call him crazy and, for Mead, the police car thinks he is crazy because he is just taking a stroll outside and also because Mead claims that he is a writer, an occupation that isn't necessary in his world anymore.

Plato's Paradox

In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato both address and skirts around the issue that we don't know what we don't know, and in doing so creates a maybe unintended paradox. He describes a scenario where there are prisoners, that represent humanity, who are trapped and limited to a reality of shadows. It is impossible for them to know anything else because they are limited by the experiences of their five senses, and the only way out is to use their intelligence to process the world around us, and to eventually see the useable. Plato then goes on to describe how there are only a few who can access the world of perfect forms on there own, the philosophers, and that it is their duty to inform the general populous. But, the issue of we don't know what we don't know still remains. What if there is more than what Plato claims are "perfect forms", if there is some higher plain of existence that is simply out of our reach. Because we are human, humanity is limited; there might be things that can't be reached by our five senses or our intellect. There is just no way of knowing. This is where Plato's allegory becomes a paradox. He claims there is a way to reach the unknown, but there is truly no way to know what we don't know. As a result, Plato, nor any of us, can never really know if we could ever achieve perfect knowledge, or if we are still only just touching the surface of what is "real".

¿matrix?

Plato's allegory of the cave questions the entire reality we have grown to know. Plato challenges what is real and claims that the universe we can create through our five senses is artificial. In the allegory, it is the shadows that the cave dwellers consider reality, it is all they know and it is the source of their entire wealth of knowledge.

It makes one wonder whether Plato had any truth to his allegory. Is anything we perceive reality. We would like to think that it is and that of course what we sense is actual. But isn't that exactly what the cave dwellers though. They were under impression that of course, their knowledge was all there is.

I think a more interesting question and one more disturbing to think about is whether or not any of the knowledge that we hold so dearly and any of the knowledge that we have yet to discover is tainted, not because it is wrong but because it is fake. What if the knowledge we carry is simply properties of a world that is just a representation of something more real?

Boo, scary I know.

¿compact?

So far on the blog, the class has only discussed what we are reading. This blog post will be about what we are writing: college essays.
We work our whole high school careers and even more so to accomplish only a few things. These accomplishments include: learning how to learn, creating social skills, and preparing for college. That's four years of education centered around two or three things.

The college admissions game is one that must be played for a long time. With very precise calculations that must be made years in advance. One must plan ahead to give themselves the best chance possible. Students spend hours upon hours slaving over coursework and devoting themselves to their passions. That's a lot of time, with a lot of personalities and stories that come from it.

College admission, however, expects a condensing of the past four years, they expect a condensing of yourself. A condensing of who you are, what you like, what motivates you, why you believe what you believe. Students are tasked with an enormous obstacle and provided only 650 words. So far I have already written 187 words.

Essays are only "one piece of the puzzle" as colleges like to say, but one must be compelling none the less. Those without an essay that sums up who they are as a person will be at a great disadvantage.

The challenge comes in using every word precisely. I think this is a worthwhile challenge as it weeds out those who not only can't articulate themselves properly, but those of whom are not motivated enough to take the time to do so.

Raphael and Ancient Greece

As we jump into our unit on Ancient Greece, I thought it would be cool to share one of my favorite works of art, Raphael's The School of Athens. Raphael was a highly-renowned Italian Renaissance artist known for his frescoes (a type of mural) that decorated the Palace of the Vatican.

The School of Athens depicts a gathering of many of Ancient Greece's famous philosophers and writers, including Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Although the fresco is chronologically incorrect (not all of these famous figures lived at the same time), it highlights the school of classical philosophy that began with the Ancient Greeks.



The two central figures of the painting are Plato (the man with the white beard dressed in red) and his student Aristotle (next to Plato to the right). Plato is looking up, symbolizing his search for higher ethical meaning and his philosophical nature--which is not surprising considering he wrote The Allegory of the Cave. Aristotle is looking down, revealing his focus on more earthly, concrete ideas.



Sources: 
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Raphael-Italian-painter-and-architect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael_Rooms#The_School_of_Athens

Plato and Marquez: Social Views

Plato's cave allegory and ideas about spreading knowledge reminded me of Marquez's social values and warnings about communicating history. Plato thinks that those who gain high knowledge should share their ideas with the other people who they might view as unenlightened or "common". This reminded me of Marquez's ideas of equality and distribution that he displayed in his portrayal of Macondo; no one was a higher social status or at an advantage. Plato said that a highly aware or educated person should go back among the farmers and other workers to teach them, not stand above them. Plato believes these people should take the lead and fill political positions; Marquez does think there should be leadership, just as Ursula and her husband take charge at different points, but that all the citizens should have a hand in making decisions, and no one should be a tyrant. I think both support the idea of spreading equal knowledge and avoiding rifts that divide the community.

Plato talked about different kinds of communication, some in which those in the dark would agree their reality consists only of shadows, and other interactions where a knowledgeable person would be isolated and questioned by those who don't know what they know. Marquez emphasizes the communication, remembrance, and passing down of history in order to avoid these situations; he doesn't want anyone in the dark, so to say, about their history, and he also doesn't want the situation to develop in which the majority would become unaware and lose a piece of their identity.

Comment on Jessie's "SING, Unburied, SING: The Power of Song" post

I wasn't able to post this as a comment for some reason, but I mean this as a comment on Jessie's Post titled "SING, Unburied, SING: The Power of Song" :)

This is interesting, and I think we can also relate it to what we read and talked about Greek tragedy so far. I thought it was surprising that even the prisoners got released to enjoy the 4 day festival, and that about 14000 spectators attended. We also learned women gained the ability to attend, which is significant because women were kept from many activities outside of the house at this time. I think this all speaks to the influence of music and the way stories connect communities together. The Greeks used old myths and well known stories, readapted them, and preformed them; this highlights the importance of shared culture and history in connecting as a group. The audience could relate to the story and knew it as a part of their culture, but still created new cultural bonds from the adaptations and new social points the playwright created. In "One Hundred Years of Solitude", there are struggles with unity and identity when that history is lost or unknown. As you said, song plays an important role in "Sing, Unburied, Sing" by connecting the prisoners to one another, connecting the people of the region together, and by immortalizing/passing down history. Just as these songs, like you pointed out, served as an escape for some, such as the Parchman prisoners, it did the same for the Greek prisoners and oppressed women; it also connected them as a unified group. The Greek performances were religious in the worship of Dionysus, just as religious songs were sung during worship in Parchman.

Memory in One Hundred Years of Solitude

"Memory is a living thing […] all that is remembered joins, and lives--the old and the young, the past and the present, the living and the dead."

~Eudora Welty 

This quote serves as an epigraph for Sing, Unburied, Sing, but it just as easily could be applied to One Hundred Years of Solitude. In the novel, characters also suffer from seeing ghosts, like the characters in Sing, Unburied, Sing. The ghost of Prudencio Aguilar is a literal "living" memory of a violent deed that haunts Jose Arcadio Buendia; he connects the events of the past with the people of the present. 

Furthermore, memory in general serves as a link between the generations. Ursula, the matriarch of the family, is the glue that holds the Buendias together. She has been around the longest and has seen her sons leave Macondo for years and return, her grandson become a tyrant, her great-grandson build a railroad, and so on. She remembers it all, and her memories tie her descendants to their ancestors of the past. Later on in the novel especially, Ursula forms bonds with her many greats-grandchildren by telling them stories of her ancestors. With her memory, she bonds the living of the present (the children) with the dead of the past (their deceased ancestors). The act of storytelling binds the oldest woman in town with her youngest family members. Memory is the essential connection the Buendias must have to survive as a family, just as Welty reveals in her quote.

Our Limited Perspectives

Recently, I watched a film on Netflix called Room which tells the story of a woman who is kidnapped at 17 and kept in a shed with a child conceived when the man who took her raped her. It's extremely hard to watch as it continues to follow these characters after they escape the hostage situation and attempt to live in normal society and a world which is entirely new to the boy, who has known nothing but the shed. As I watched, I realized the extent of our empathy and understanding is inevitably limited. I couldn't begin to imagine the emotions felt despite the fact that I was watching them play out. We hear of horrific things that occur everyday, though can't comprehend the actual pain if we aren't directly involved. In a way, I think the world can sometimes indirectly numb us to things which should be inconceivable. It's almost a double edged sword in that we can be moved and broaden our capacity for empathy through things such as social media and film, though overexposure could have the opposite effect or give us the notion that we understand things we simply can't fully. I then thought of Sing, Unburied, Sing and the question that has come up regarding Leoine and the amount of empathy that would be right to give her. I believe it's human nature to try to understand and form opinions on things, though I also think our limitations in understanding should remind us to keep open minds.
Furthermore, this could connect to the allegory as it addresses our limited perspective as a fact of the human condition. Similar to the characters who can only imagine what the shadows cast on the wall depict, we can only imagine what we would feel if we experienced the things we form opinions on in reality. It's in our nature to draw conclusions from what we see, regardless of its authenticity.
I would be really interested to hear what you guys think regarding this question and the extent to which we can form opinions considering we haven't gone through the same experiences.

SING, Unburied, SING: The Power of Song

In class yesterday, people had really insightful opinions regarding why Jesmyn Ward chose to call her book Sing, Unburied, Sing. After class, I thought more about the "singing" aspect of the title; after all, it appears twice in the title! (I also think it's cool that the title, Sing, Unburied, Sing, has a nice musical quality to it.)

More specifically, I explored the importance of singing in African American heritage. After I read Ward's novel and thought about the title, I immediately remembered a brief discussion my class had in AP U.S. History in tenth grade. When we talked about slavery in America, we discussed how music and "labor songs" were a significant part of African American culture.

Ward makes many references to slavery in her novel and also emphasizes that although slavery has ended, racism and discrimination have not. Parchman is a living reminder of slavery and of the atrocities that occurred (which primarily affected African Americans) during the time of Pop's youth. Singing was an aspect of both slavery and life at Parchman, bridging the time gap. Whether in the past or in the present, singing brings people together. It feeds off of people's inner spirituality, so to speak. Singing can be melancholy, or it can be hopeful, but singing ultimately unites people on a deeper level. It provides a kind of universal escape for the groups who are singing and creates a sense of community among the individuals. 

I dug a little deeper so I would be more informed (and so you would be as well) on this topic. 

• Why did slaves create a culture in which song was so important? 
• The majority of American slaves came from Africa, so they brought their "musical traditions" with them. 
• Slaves sang work songs while they toiled away in the fields and sang religious songs while they worshiped. 
• Many slaves also added "field hollers" to their musical repertoire, which involved call and response chants. 
• Songs often involved drumming and dancing.
• Colonists viewed many of the slaves’ musical traditions as “idolatrous," so the slaves performed within in their own community.
• Slaves passed these musical traditions down orally, as many of them were illiterate.
• Their cultural musical practices continued in times of continued oppression after slavery.
• According to the Smithsonian, “Music was a solace, a community-builder, and voice for hope during enslavement and afterward, in the days of Reconstruction and then Jim Crow."

Music was an important aspect of African American culture in our country, and it still functions as a powerful unifier. Music transcends human life in the novel—the dead continue to sing.

Sources:

https://www.si.edu/spotlight/african-american-music/roots-of-african-american-music

https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200197451

Foreshadowing: Sing, Unburied, Sing

I remember starting Sing, Unburied, Sing and immediately being drawn in by the descriptions in the first paragraphs. I think the first few pages in and of themselves could act as a separate story as they are so poignant and depict different themes with vivid imagery. In the first paragraph, we see Pop through Jojos eyes, which allows us to realize the influence he has on the way in which Jojo tries to portray himself. He is trying to fill the shoes of a man at thirteen - a task that Pop acknowledges as difficult. We learn that Pops opinion is crucial to Jojo, at one point he says, "I want Pop to know I can get bloody", a clear indication of his continual insistance that he is grown.

On page 6, the reader is given insight into a deeper tension hanging in the air when Jojo says "This smell is worse; it's the smell of death, the rot coming from something alive, something hot with blood and life." After reading the novel and coming back to this section, I realized it was not only the slaughtering of an animal that seemed to dwell in the air, rather it was the pain of the past and the recent death of Given. In reflection of the novel, there is a lot of foreshadowing that I didn't at first recognize.

Michael's Tattoos

On page 10 of "Sing, Unburied, Sing", we get a description of Michael's tattoos. He has a grim reaper, a dragon, a scythe, and Jojo's name and baby feet. In class, we talked about how he is a constant reminder to Mam and Pop about Given's death, as well as a reminder and connection to Given for Leonie. I think this is heavily represented in his tattoos. The grim reaper represents death. The Scythe represents killing and taking life; I think its placement along his arm is important. It is on his arm like he has the power to take life; this connects to his own guilt about Given's death and his blood connection to the ones who did kill Given. The dragon is a monster; again, with his guilt, he may feel he is a monster and that his family members are for their actions and views. Part of his reason for being with Leonie is defiance. Jojo's name and baby feet tie everything together; its a reminder that he, who is related to those who killed Given, is Jojo's father. Mam and Pop can't forget the connection, and they feel resentment towards him. Leonie can't forget, but she wants some sort of connection to Given. He himself can't forget what his family member did and he can't foget his own guilt in connection to Given's death.

The Idea of "Home" in Sing, Unburied, Sing

Throughout the novel, every character is in pursuit of a "home", and Ward allows the characters to explore what "home" really means and how far one will go to keep or find it. The first and most obvious example comes from Richie, who during his incarceration at Parchman, finds a home in River (Pop). Before, he had lived and poverty and had to take care of the rest of his starving siblings by stealing food. But at Parchman, even though he was miserable and abused, he found a home with River. For the first time, Richie was the one being taken care and found a father figure in River. That is why when he dies, he cannot move on until he gets an explanation for his death from Pop. There is a connection between the two even after death, representing the power of this concept of "home" and the love and care both of them felt for the other. Next, you see Leonie search for a home in Michael. After Given's death, she felt lost and the family and house she once knew as her home now felt barren and sorrowful. An essential piece to the equation was missing, so she went out in search for a new home, which she found in Michael. His cousin was the one to kill Given, yet he apologized and seem to care for her. As a result, she latches on to him. Michael is a constant reminder of Given and his death, yet is makes Leonie feel closer to Given in that way. He also offers as a sort of a replacement, he, like Given, was an older male figure that was there to love and protect her. Michael fills the hole Given left and completes her concept of home, but not in a healthy way. Since Michael allows for Given's death to forever loom over her, their relationship doesn't allow her to move on and keeps her in constant grief. Their relationship is also not a loving one, but more of a selfish, obsessive one where each looks for things in the other to take so that they can fill holes within themselves. She goes on to have children in order to create the family unit and home she lost when Given died, but since she has yet to move on from his death, this does not work and she cannot properly love or take care of her children. Then there is Jojo and Kayle, who find a home in each other and their grandparents. Since their own parents, Leonie and Michael, have abandoned them, they turn to their grandparents and each other. Jojo takes care of Kayle like a father because he knows that his parents won't, and Kayle sees him as more of a father figure and calls for him whenever she needs comfort. There is unconditional love between them and they rely on each other, and this is where they find a home in each other. But, Jojo is still too young to be a parent, even to his little sister, and therefore looks for guidance in his grandparents. He looks to Pop to see how to be a man, and is always trying to earn his respect, and in Mam he seeks motherly affection and tries to learn from her their heritage of the supernatural. Finally, there is Pop and Mam. After Given's death, like Leoni, they were lost. Their family unit was broken down, and their concept of home died with it. Then, Leonie pulled away from them and found a home somewhere else, only exasperating the wound. But, with the birth of Jojo and Kayla, they saw a second chance. They saw new children to love, on older brother and younger sister, but this time they could guide them differently through life so that what happened to Given and Leonie would not happen to them. Mam and Pop in this way found a replacement for Given and Leonie and a new family unit to replace the old one, and through that a new home. Home is an important concept in Sing, Unburied, Sing, that is shown through the journeys of the novel's characters as each seeks their own home.

Jojo's Birthday

In the first chapter of "Sing, Unburied, Sing", it's Jojo's birthday. In class we talked about Jojo's desire to please Pop and be a grow up, but we hadn't really talked about his birthday. He turned 13 and wanted to be able to handle death, but it still made him uncomfortable to watch Pop kill the goat. He seems to sort of think that just being older means he is more mature, but it's a blend of experiences, not just the number. Ritchie had much more violent experiences at his age and was forced to grow up quicker, for example; Ritchie also views Jojo as innocent for this reason. On Jojo's birthday, Mam can't make him a cake since she is very sick. Leonie buys him a cake instead, but it is a baby shower cake. She sees Jojo as a child still. She also doesn't really care about singing him happy birthday or letting him blow out his candles; she rushes to the phone when it rings, thinking it might be Michael. Pop's attention is on Mam because she doesn't feel well, and Mam can't pay much attention to the birthday either. Jojo feels alone and like he still needs to prove himself. A mosquito bites him and he slaps it; he describes the mosquito thinking of him like a cake. The bug followed him from Mam's room, where it probably bit her too, and I think it represents the things that are tearing at their family and eating away at them.

Who Was Bukka White?

You may remember from the Parchman Documentary that Bukka White wrote the song "Parchman Farm Blues." Before you read this post, check out the song!

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM23S12LXaEE

You might be wondering (as I did), who is Bukka White, and how did he end up in Parchman?

Bukka White was born Booker T. Washington White in Houston, Mississippi. His father bought him his first guitar, and his relationship with Delta Blues Legend Charley Patton shaped his musical style. Bukka White recorded some tunes, but before his song "Shake 'Em on Down" could become a hit, Bukka White landed himself in jail.

Bukka White occupied a prison cell in Parchman from 1937-1940, serving time for assault. But what was White's side of the story? White claimed that he shot a man in self-defense. White shot the man in the thigh, probably so that he could injure but not kill. But we'll never know what really happened! Although White ended up in prison, he managed to make the most of the experience. He was well-liked by the inmates and the prison guards and recorded some music during his stay. Immediately after White served time in Parchman, he released "Parchman Farm Blues" and other Delta Blues' classics.

Calling all music critics! What do you think of "Parchman Farm Blues"?

Source:
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/bukka-white-mn0000527379/biography

Angola: Another Nightmarish Prison

After we watched the Parchman Documentary in class, I started wondering how Angola (a brutal Louisiana Penitentiary) compared. Here's what I found out:

ANGOLA

Common Nicknames: "Alcatraz of the South" OR "The Bloodiest Prison in America"

Facts:

• In the 1880s, a former Confederate solider bought a plantation called Angola and transformed it into a brutal prison, where prisoners lived in former slaves' quarters.

• The State of Louisiana took control of the prison after hearing of the brutal conditions in the prison. However, the brutality continued when the State took over.

• Angola, like Parchman, is a high-security prison farm.

• Like Parchman, 20th century inmates consisted of many young, African American males, many of whom were arrested for petty crimes. 

• In the 1940s, a former prison wrote about how a warden used to whip prisoners with a leather strip.

• In 1953, "31 inmates sliced their Achilles tendons to bring attention to their poor treatment."

• Like the "trustee shooters" of Parchman, Angola had "khaki-backs," or gun-wielding prisoners.

Overall:

Like Parchman, Angola continued a form of "slavery" in Louisiana after the Civil War ended. With the loss of slave labor, the Southerners tried to find a loophole in the system by establishing these prisons on farms for mainly males of African descendance. 

Sources: 

• https://www.thedailybeast.com/locked-up-in-louisiana-inside-americas-bloodiest-prison?ref=scroll 
• https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/from-a-slave-house-to-a-prison-cell-the-history-of-angola-plantation/2016/09/21/7712eeac-63ee-11e6-96c0-37533479f3f5_story.html?utm_term=.43704446ae67
• http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/caseconsortium/casestudies/54/casestudy/www/layout/case_id_54_id_547.html

Help Me Beat Ritchie's Views Record! (MUST READ POST!)

When it comes to Leonie and Michael, their characterizations can largely be summed up in one of two ways: are they characters whose negative circumstances are merely a result of their own bad decisions or are they characters whose unfortunate lives are simply a direct consequence of their impoverished upbringings? Personally, I believe the answer to this question is quite complex and naturally requires a larger sample size than Leonie and Michael, and, on the whole, a very thorough analysis.

Regardless of political views, I think that, from a purely mathematical point of view at least, everybody can agree that poverty is often associated with drugs; or, in other words, children who grow up in low-income homes are statistically more likely to experiment with drugs. To back up this statement, I quote an article examining the relationship between "Economic Status and Abuse:" "Substance abuse is more prevalent among families living in poverty... Around 20 percent of people on welfare in America reported using some kind of illicit drug in the year prior to being surveyed."

Still, this far from answers my original question. I think far too many would see these aforementioned numbers and be ready to deem Leonie and Michael entirely blameless. I appreciate this sympathetic viewpoint, but I fear that this outlook is, in fact, a bit too sympathetic. My heart by all means goes out to low-income families; I can't even begin to imagine the struggles they face on a day-to-day basis. However, at the end of the day, people are human and have the power of choice. People (reminder: Leonie and Michael are people) are in control of their lives. It is the individual who makes the choice of saying 'yes' or saying 'no' to drugs. Will saying 'no' be harder for people of a lower economic status? Of course; this is exactly what the numbers show, but that is all that they show. The numbers are in no way an excuse for one to engage in drugs, nor are they a complete explanation of why one partakes in drugs. These numbers merely show that more people of a lower economic status engage in drugs than their wealthier counterparts-- a fact that has become blown out of proportion in America, and a fact that far too many use to justify the prevalence of drugs among low-income populations. Dismissing drug-abuse as a complete result of one's low-economic upbringing is no better than, say, giving up in a football game for being too small or completely giving up in school because of feeling too stupid. This is not to say that there are not some extreme situations in which a child grows up in such harsh conditions that drug abuse is simply bound to happen; I'm sure there are thousands of children in America who face such a tumultuous upbringing. On the whole, however, this is not the case-- the large majority of drug-addicted individuals, though they may come from a low economic background, made a choice at some point; a choice that they continue to make each time they pick up their drug; a choice that they continue to make every time they refuse help.

Getting back to Leonie and Michael, these characters in no way fall in the 'extreme' category I mentioned above. From what we are told in the book, both Leonie and Michael have a rather poor upbringing; however, both also went to a respectable high school and both seemed to have (at the very least) decent parents. We get a much closer at Leonie's childhood, and it is quite apparent that Pop and Mam were very loving parents-- parents that consistently looked out for both Leonie and Given. Accordingly, I categorize them as drug users who use their poverty as an excuse or justification for partaking in drugs. With this in mind, I think I can finally answer the question I initially posed: yes, Michael and Leonie had far from perfect upbringings, but they are indeed characters whose negative circumstances are a result of their own bad decisions.

Do you agree with me? Awesome, leave your comments below! Do you disagree? Even better, leave your comments below!

Ghosts and the Past -- Viewed Two Different Ways

Both One Hundred Years of Solitude and Sing, Unburied, Sing feature ghosts of the past haunting the people of the present. I find that we can view these ghosts in two ways.

The ghosts are reminders that the characters can't escape the past (and their guilt). Although Jose Arcadio Buendia killed Prudencio Aguilar at the beginning of his long life, he is haunted by his ghost for the rest of his life. Even at an old age, he talks to Prudencio's ghost like an old friend, who has, strangely enough, aged like Jose Arcadio Buendia even in ghost form. Jose Arcadio Buendia can't escape the ghosts of his past just as Leonie can't escape the ghost of her brother Given. Leonie only sees Given when she gets high; she feels guilty about doing drugs, which Given wouldn't have wanted her to do. Leonie also can't escape the past--the vicious cycle of drug use is entrenched in her community.

The ghosts can't move onto the next world because of the violent nature of the society they live in. Prudencio Aguilar is killed simply for implying that another man is impotent--one hasty sentence, possibly said in jest, ended his life at a young age. Given, a teenager, was killed because he beat a white kid at shooting; Richie, only thirteen, died at the hands of another teenager trying to save him from being skinned alive. The worlds these young men live in are very much flawed; people use violence as a tool to assert their pride. Marquez and Ward include restless ghosts who can't move peacefully into the afterlife in their novels to highlight the social issues their characters face.

Reality in her characters: Ward's authorial purpose

The conversation that Ritchie sparked in class having to do with the decisions of Ward's characters in Sing, Unburied, Sing, got me thinking a bit more about Ward's purpose behind building her characters. Ultimately, she has built them as people destroyed by their own decisions.

So, continues the conversation with the question: why did she choose for her characters to be reflected in such a negative light? As a writer, I know that there is a purpose in mostly everything written in a literary work, specifically in fiction. Such decisions in Ward's characterization reveals the themes of both the past affecting the present and the cyclic nature of Southern misfortune.

It is, as Ritchie argued in class, easy to feel negatively towards characters that make the choice to be a part of abuse, specifically drug abuse. However, I believe that by creating Leonie and Michael as psychologically, racially, and economically shot characters, Ward creates a mood that begs for the reader's empathy. The reason that the story she tells is so intriguing is largely due to the humanity Ward instills in her characters.

After all, if Leonie and Michael were good parents, not drug users, and not stuck too deep in the South, would the novel exist in such a profound way? Rhetorically, the answer to that question is no. The reader is drawn to the imperfections of such characters because they are loudly HUMAN.

Living fortunately, in an educated, informed reality, it is easy for us to forget that people like Leonie and Michael exist beyond the pages in Sing, Unburied, Sing. Speaking for myself, it is difficult to imagine the tragic reality that is faced just a state over from my home.

Luckily, by indirectly calling on her readers for empathy, Ward has not just made a point about the region of the United States from which she is from. She has also further educated a demographic of readers not initially familiar with the reality of much of the South.

Who is Equiano?

Prior to the first page of the novel, Ward includes three passages that set the tone for the rest of the book. The second and third are straight forward; one tells of the influence of memory on the present, while the other reflects on the undertones of the South. However, the first excerpt requires a second look. A Kwa chant, it tells of the disappearance of an African boy, Equiano. Upon further research, I found that Olaudah Equiano was 11-years old when he was kidnapped from his home and became one of the 10 to 12 million Africans who were sold into slavery from the 15th through the 19th centuries. Equiano was lucky to survive the 1,000 mile trek that merchants forced potential slaves to walk in order to transport them to coastal forts as only half of the people lived through these marches. He later acquired his freedom (in 1789) and wrote one of the first slave narratives published in English, an autobiography titled The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. 
As for why Ward decided to include the chant is open for discussion. I personally think it's almost eerie in that the people are seemingly unaware of the changes occurring around them - instead of realizing that Equiano had been kidnapped and forced into slavery, they question wether or not he simply wandered to a stream or to the farm. This holds parallels to the novel as it portrays the idea that many people remain blind to the issues that are still relevant and widespread today. Furthermore, including this chant acknowledges a moment in history that inevitably influences the setting of the story.

Mississippi Blues Race Revisited

Last year, I participated in a road race called the Mississippi Blues Marathon (I only ran the half marathon) and really enjoyed the unique atmosphere of the race surrounding Blues music. Runners from nearly every state and almost a dozen countries participated most likely because they similarly enjoyed the Blues atmosphere or wanted to say that they went to the birthplace of Blues music. I looked at the race website today and found a short link titled “About the Blues.” The article suggested that runners (or tourists) go to the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi which is a three hour drive from the race location is Jackson. I imagine that very few tourists are willing to spend their limited time in Mississippi driving a total of six hours with no internet access most of the way (since the route is extremely rural) to see the museum that happens to be very close to Parchman or the actual birthplace of Blues music. Therefore, they could never discover the true origins of Blues music. I always associated Blues music with joy without recognizing that it was an escape from the post-Civil War slavery at Parchman Prison. I imagine that almost every other participant, running in a race that should commemorate the history of Blues music, shared my ignorance to history.

"Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?", Parchman Prison, and Other Connections

This evening, I was watching the movie "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?", and noticed some connections to what we have been studying in class. The movie opens with a scene of prisoners working in the field, tied together in chains, singing the blues. The setting is Mississippi, and the prison is none other than Parchman. This opening reminded me of the documentary we watched in class as well as "Sing, Unburied, Sing." The movie showed the brutal work the prisoners were forced to complete, and they had their striped outfits, as well as armed guards. More than this, the movie highlighted the music and culture from the prison and surrounding area of Mississippi. The prisoners sing as they work, and the main characters even become big hits with a recording of a folk song they preform. Also as it did in the book "Sing, Unburied, Sing", the topic of racism came up in the movie; the political candidate running against the current mayor is racist and even a part of the KKK. Tommy, one of the members of the band and friend of the three escapees, is almost killed just because of his race. This reminded me of Given's murder. Lastly, the movie had elements of magic that reminded me both of "Sing, Unburied, Sing" and "One Hundred Years of Solitude". At one point in the movie, two of the characters think they are seeing their friend that they have lost when looking at a group of prisoners; this is due to their worry for his life and their guilt at having possibly left him alone in danger. This moment was almost like seeing a ghost, and I was reminded of the presence of ghosts in "Sing, Unburied, Sing". There are many events in the movie that are out of the ordinary and magical, yet are seen as normal and just a part of the setting. For example, a group of worshipers appear and walk through the forest, sirens trick the three prisoners, one character is the devil himself, to whom Tommy sold his soul for guitar skill, and there is a blind prophet whose end prophecy reminded me of the one in "One Hundred Years of Solitude". Overall, these instances and the characters' reactions to them reminded me of the magical realism in "One Hundred Years of Solitude" as well as the general air of magic and history that is present in the shared setting of "Sing, Unburied. Sing".

¿Trustee Shooters?

In the novel, "100 Years of Solitude," and in the documentary from class, we catch glimpses of how the prison/farm of Parman was run. One astonishing function of the prison was the fact that it was prisoners that were the watch guards. They were known as the trustee shooters.

These select individuals were prisoners who had gone through a process to become a guard, and once a guard they patrolled the perimeter of the prison searching for escapees. The most mind-boggling aspect was the fact that these individuals had access to rifles and would shoot down anyone who tried to run.

Why would these people who have committed heinous crimes to be allowed guns? The benefits. Imagine being provided with a personal room, better food, and healthcare all for free. Now add on the fact that conjugal visits were established. The power of being able to take lives with no punishment was also an added psychological benefit that added to their conscious.

Why would they ever give that up? In the outside world, they were probably poor and struggled just to stay afloat. Frankly, at Parchman, they were given the opportunity to do nothing at no expense. Which sounds rather appealing to someone who doesn't want to work and/or is a criminal.

The administration at Parchman knew how good of a deal it would be and they were willing to take the risk, and it mostly paid off. No guards had to be hired for twenty for seven watches and all it costs them was the payment for building a place for conjugal visits.

Delta Blues

While watching the documentary in class on Friday, I was intrigued by the segment on the Delta Blues. According to Brittanica, the delta blues are described as, "emphasized solo performances by singers accompanying themselves on guitar or relying on a host of distinctive techniques, such as the sliding of a bottleneck or metal object (such as a knife) along the fingerboard to bend notes." The songs also display a pattern of call and response, which was popular in songs of slaves working in the fields. Music was an escape from what was the reality at Parchman, which as we saw on Friday, was pretty harsh. Music was something they could make of their own that was not something tangible that could be taken away. I looked up some of the most popular songs that fall into the genre of Delta Blues, and I'll leave them below so yall can check them out too.

Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/art/Mississippi-Delta-blues
https://www.npr.org/2011/05/05/106364432/mississippi-delta-blues-american-cornerstone

Songs:
Cross Roads Blues by Robert Johnson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsB_cGdgPTo
Parchman Farm Blues by Bukka White: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM23S12LXaE
Cool Drink of Water Blues by Tommy Johnson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o808EmOukDQ

RIP Mac Miller

In Sing Unburied Sing, by Jesmyn Ward, Jojo’s mom, Leonie, is addicted to cocain, heroin, and more. She smiles, shoots, snorts all through her adult years even in her pregnancy (terrible, right??) ever since her brother Given (aka Given-not-given). She does this to fill the void of her brother’s death. One interesting thing that I’ve thought about whilst reading this novel and discussing it in class is that there weren’t many realistic life repercussion’s, like overdosing or miscarriages. Yes she does experience her visits with Given when she gets high but no real life conditions take place. I guess it was just good luck that Jojo and Kayla both survived through their times in her womb because it was certainly not due to good healthcare. It also comes as a surprise to me (though not as much) that she didn’t overdose at any point in the story. I think this would have been a good opportunity for Jojo to experience another type of death or grieving experience. Obviously being it was his absentee mother, that would resonate differently than the death of Richie or Mam. Overdoses are a real life situation that take place hundreds of times per day. It’s sad that the world has come to that point of addiction, really. One specific and more recent instance is the death of rapper Mac Miller. He overdosed earlier this month and his autopsy for what specifically caused the overdose has yet to be released. Mac Miller was an icon to the rap and music industries. He was the first rapper I personally had ever experienced. And it is a true shame that he left the world the way he did. RIP Mac.

Sharecropping vs Parchman

Learning about the conditions and what went on in Parchman Penitentiary in Mississippi during the documentary on Friday was very eye opening to me. I was shocked by how young many offenders who were sent there were, the intense labor they were forced to go through, the various sewage problems and wooden barracks, how long this was allowed to go on for, and how this is went on in our recent history. These horrifying things didn't occur in the 18th or 19th centuries, but well into the mid 1900s. And, if we allow ourselves to take a closer look at Parchman , the parallels to slavery are blatant. Parchman throughout it history was inhabited by a majority of black prisoners, who were forced to work long days in blistering heat as they tended to crops. They were also beaten regularly, their living quarters were overcrowded and unkept, and they were killed on sight if they made a run for it. Parchman was even founded on an old slave plantation. But, sadly, this recurrence of slavery after the civil war was not an isolated event, but occurred throughout the South in a system known as share cropping. Once slaves were freed, most had no where to go, nor the means to travel elsewhere or to even buy a house. As a result, their past owners would "lease" them a portion of their property and in return, they would owe the leaser a large portion of their crops. The land owners would also lease them equipment and housing, again for another fee. All these different fees would add up and the recently freed African Americans would be in crippling debt to the land owners, and be obligated to work the land. It was extremely hard to get out of debt and in the end their lives under sharecropping wasn't so different then their life as a slave. Also similar to Parchman, the slavery-type conditions these African Americans were forced to work under didn't end until the mids 1900s. In Parchman, there were many reforms and as a result the inmates are treated much more humanely, and with sharecropping, various laws were passed that eventually ended the institution.    

Did the Civil War Really Bring an End to Slavery?

We are often taught that Abraham Lincoln ended slavery at the culmination of the Civil War; accordingly, very few realize that institutions just as cruel and malignant as slavery existed far after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1865. Prior to watching the Parchman Documentary in class on Friday, I was fully aware that certain practices intended to suppress blacks (e.g. Jim Crow Laws) still existed decades after 1865. I was not aware, however, just how inhumane and similar to slavery many of these practices were. Essentially, all throughout the South, in order to maintain the free labor and high crop yields achieved by slavery, whites exploited the criminal justice system by sentencing blacks to years in prison for minor crimes like theft; or, even worse, law officials would frame blacks for crimes that they entirely did not commit. Upon being framed and/or given an outrageously lengthy sentence, blacks were sent to a prison and were forced to work brutally long, labor intensive hours in the stifling heat of the South. One of the largest such prisons was the Mississippi State Penitentiary, otherwise known as Parchman Farm. In Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward does a marvelous job of bringing to life the inhumane conditions of Parchman: children as young as 12 being worked to near death, prisoners at the constant threat of armed guards, and regular beatings of inmates. It's sad to think that this practice lasted well into the late 20th century-- as far as 100 years after the end of the Civil War, prisons in the South were still getting away with slavery.

Everything happens for a reason.

In the last chapter of the One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Aureliano finally deciphers the prophecy. In doing so we see the story of the Buendía family come completely full circle. It tells the story from the past and the present, becoming apparent that they were destined the fate they’d been handed all along. Everything was predestined. Predestination is defined as “the divine foreordaining of all that will happen.” I personally do not believe in predestination; I think we are all in control of our lives and actions, however I do believe that everything happens for a reason. I think based off the choices we make in life, certain events happen. However I think that fate is fate and destiny is destiny, so we all will ensnared up exactly where and how we belong, and our actions in life will come full circle. Take the college process, for example. We all got in our heads about where we want to go and where we might get in. We worry and stress about how this is “the biggest decision of our lives” and how it “determines our futures”. And yes, it will obviously effect how certain parts of your life play out, there never is a right or wrong. Wherever we all go is where we’re meant to be, and if it’s not and let’s say you transfer, you’re still ending up where you belong anyway. Let’s say you don’t get into your dream school, yes it may be sad, but it may just be exactly what you need to get to where you actually belong. Maybe you wouldn’t have been able to graduate from that dream school, or something horrible went wrong. Yes we are in control of our actions in life, from simple things like what we were in the morning to who we marry. But all of our experiences wrapped up together play hand in hand to provide us with are true destiny and purpose in this life.

Trees in "Sing, Unburied, Sing"

As I was reading the novel, I noticed a reoccurring emphasis on trees. I remembered our class discussions about the history of the southern setting and the significance of the past in both of our summer reading books. I think that the trees signify history; they grow and have roots buried deep, and remain an influential piece of the world. They don't disappear. On page 63, the trees in the area are described as tall, thick, and strong. This, I think, is a reference to the history of the South, and the culture. There has been a history with racism, and as we talked about in class, this past has not just disappeared; past actions and events still influence and have shaped the present. The ghosts in the end of the novel are sitting on tree branches; they are also pieces of the past and though their may be dead in body, they are still a part of the present, just in a different way than before. The trees also line the roads and surround them, even while on their road trip. The past is everywhere and can not be escaped, despite characters' attempts to do so.

Jojo's Coming of Age

Although Sing, Unburied, Sing is not just a bildungsroman, Jojo's coming of age is an important aspect of the novel. First of all, Jesmyn Ward chooses Jojo as one of her narrators, and she begins her novel with the line, "I like to think I know what death is" from Jojo's perspective. This quote reveals very early on in the novel that Jojo wishes to become an adult. One aspect of adulthood is the understanding of death, which Jojo thinks he already has achieved. Furthermore, Jojo is coming of age sexually as well, which Ward reveals when Jojo is riding in the car and stares at Misty's bra strap. Jojo also takes on a quasi-parental role when he takes care of his little sister Kayla in Leonie's absence.

Jojo wants nothing more than to be seen as an adult by those around him, yet he is still a child. He tries to "be a man" and help Pop clean the goat for eating, but Pop realizes he's not ready yet and gently sends him back to the house. Jojo doesn't truly understand the meaning of death yet, although his visions of Richie and the death of Mam cause him to mature significantly. Although he tries to be Kayla's substitute parent, he's still just a child searching for comfort and love.

Leonie: Guilty or Innocent? YOU Decide.

For starters, I wanted to let everyone know that in this blog post, I'm going to give some of my opinions on Leonie's actions.
But, I'm really interested to hear what y'all think!

I think we can all agree that Leonie is a dreadful parent! Not only does she hit her children for no apparent reason (not that she should hit them at all!), but she also neglects them. In my eyes, neglect can negatively affect children just as much as (if not more than) physical abuse. 

An example of her irresponsibility: One of the few times Leonie is charged with watching Jojo, she takes off, and he ends up getting injured. Her parents take care of her children for her, and she can’t bother to take over for one night!

Despite Leonie's immoral behavior, Jesmyn Ward decides to make Leonie a narrator so that we can understand her character on a deeper, more emotional level. The reader learns that Given’s death sends Leonie into a downward spiral. In a way, Given was the glue that held Leonie, Mam, and Pop together. As we discussed in class, once Given dies, the family begins to crumble; instead of unifying to deal with their pain as a unit, they isolate themselves and never fully recover. They handle their pain in solitude.

To an extent, Ward justifies Leonie’s actions. She conjures (some) empathy for Leonie. Leonie abuses drugs, but she gets high to escape her pain. As tempting as it may be to shame Leonie for her drug use, it’s impossible not to feel bad for her. The despair she feels every day is so extreme that she feels she must use drugs to counter the effects. Furthermore, Mam mentions that Leonie lacks “maternal” characteristics. I understand what Mam means, but I don’t exactly agree. Ok, I acknowledge the fact that not every woman is “maternal”; each parent’s situation is unique. But to me, it’s not about being maternal. It’s about having respect for other human beings. You don’t need a “knack” for kindness or basic human decency. Leonie was “raised right”; Ward indicated throughout her novel that Mam and Pop did their part to teach Leonie good values and morals. Leonie doesn’t need to win any sort of “Parent of the Year” Award. She just needs to recognize that children are impressionable and innocent, and they need maternal love (because we know Jojo and Michael are not going to get any sort of genuine paternal love). Of course, Jojo and Kayla are lucky to having such strong, loving grandparents, but having a mother who’s in your life but at the same time not really present is undoubtedly confusing. 

Leonie obviously doesn’t understand the distinction between adults and children. When she is forced to “grow up” too quickly when Given dies, I think she loses sight of the meaning of childhood.

The last thing I wanted to mention was the connection between Leonie’s relationship with Michael and the way she treats her children. When Michael and Leonie are together, she completely forgets about her children. Ward portrays Leonie’s love for Michael as borderline obsessive. Leonie becomes enslaved by her passionate love; it completely envelops her, and she never changes. Instead of focusing on bettering herself, she focuses solely on Michael. At times, she lets Michael define who she is—perhaps because it’s easier than forging a unique identity. Another of way of looking at it involves recognizing that Leonie feels inferior to Michael. In my opinion, race is a factor that plays into her feeling of inferiority. Because he’s white and she’s African American, she often feels like she has to prove herself “worthy.” I think there may be some racial insecurity involved in her “addiction” to Michael. He is by no means a more respectable or capable person than she is, but she lacks the courage to define herself.

Still, Leonie’s traumatic upbringing and obsessive relationship with Michael give her no excuse to treat her children the way that she does. At some point, actions are no longer excusable.

Drawing Personal Parallels: Growing up in the Deep South

Like Jesmyn Ward and much of our AP English IV class, I've grown up in the Deep South. While reading Ward's novel, Sing, Unburied, Sing, I consistently questioned how the plot, characters, and overall vibe of the novel could be different if it was, in fact, not set in Mississippi. I decided that the story would not be as developed and well-written if it did not imitate the economically shot, rural surroundings in which Ward's characters exist: those of the Deep South.

One significant parallel I drew between my growing up in New Orleans and Ward's novel was that of supernatural intervention. I remember being around 10 years- old when my grandmother brought me to see the infamous Marie Laveau's tomb in St. Louis I cemetery. There were marks all around it with fresh paint, where people had just asked for some sort of voodoo salvation. That, among the seemingly thousands of ghost tours held in the city I'd learned about soon after, evoked an eerie feeling in me. Therefore, since my childhood, I've come to understand that New Orleans and therefore, the South surrounding it,  has an eerie tone unlike anywhere else. This strangeness and uniqueness is deeply rooted in its (our) history, just as Jesmyn Ward reflects throughout her novel.

Don't Stray Too Far from Reality

Jesmyn Ward's Sing, Unburied, Sing is loaded with supernatural elements. While it can be easy to get caught up in the magical realism of the story, we have to remember and be mindful of the fact that the tragic events in this book are a sickening reality for far too many. The most disturbing aspect of the book for me is the struggles that Jojo and Kayla have to face on a daily basis at such a young age. In addition to being the victims of a negligent, abusive mother, they have to grow up with an incarcerated father. Furthermore, both of their parents are so addicted to drugs that Kayla and Jojo have to live with their grandparents. Far too many children face similar circumstances in real life; according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse, "25 percent of American kids grow up in households where substance abuse is present." Among other hardships, these kids are more susceptible to low self-esteem, behavioral problems, and depression/anxiety. While we should enjoy the mystical aspects of the book, we must still recognize that many of the unpleasantries of the novel actually happen in real life.

Source: https://americanaddictioncenters.org/guide-for-children/

5 year old mother??

A while back I was reading up on some Daily Mail, Buzzfeed News, and publications of that nature when I came across an article about the youngest pregnancy in history. Lina Medina was a 5 year old living in Peru when strange things began to happen to her body. Suffering from premature puberty and getting her period at the age of two, Lina was different than most. In 1933 Ticrapo, Peru it wasn’t uncommon for town celebrations to come to an end in orgies where rape often occurred. Lina and her family didn’t realize that she was in fact pregnant until she was already 8 months along. Having her son by C-section was a dangerous and difficult process but when Lina lived through it the relationship she had with her son was kept a secret. They were simply labeled as brother and sister since they we’re only 5 years apart. It’s facts and history like this that I can really connect with stories like what the Buendía family went through during the decades. They experienced relationships of incest, vast ages, and more obscure things. It’s really similar to the type of things that took place back in the time Lina lived and the fact that her story is true is fascinating.

Septimus in Mrs. Dalloway and Aureliano Buendia

As we discussed some in class, Aureliano Buendía began to deteriorate as the war progressed. Marquez writes that as the war became more intense, Aureliano Buendia “[gradually] was fading away into a universe of unreality” (161) and his speech gradually began to lose meaning. Aureliano Buendía’s deterioration reminds me of Septimus Smith in Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. As a “bellringer” for those that do not remember, Septimus fought in World War I for the British, suffered from post traumatic stress disorder, and ultimately committed suicide. Marquez and Woolf use Aureliano Buendía and Septimus, respectively, to show the psychological effects of war on those that fight and to criticize their society’s value on war. Both authors raise the question of whether or not the consequences of war are worth the potential positive implications of winning a war.

China's "new colonialism" in Africa

  China might be participating in a form of “new colonialism” in Africa. Last Monday, the Chinese president, Xi Jingping, announced that China will be investing $60 billion in financing for projects in Africa. This includes money for financial assistance, investments, and loans. Also, the president said he is going to encourage Chinese companies to invest at least 10 billion dollars in Africa in the next three years. President Xi declared their initiative to construct ports and other infrastructure projects. They claim that this will help the world achieve a “common prosperity” in a world filled with trade protectionism. Most of these investments will most likely be going towards transport and energy. Already, China has invested lots of money into Nigeria’s railway, and now Kenya, Ethiopia, and Zambia and also into drilling for oil. The Chinese government is completing all of these projects at no cost to the African nations. They are expecting to be paid back at a later time, so these weak and under developed nations are slowly going into more and more debt. Chinese companies have also established private contractors into the region who under-bid all local businesses on building projects, putting constriction companies in Africa out of business. It seems as if China has taken part in a new form of colonialism in Africa these past few years. China is infiltrating these nations’ economies and completely pillaging the continents resources. For example, in Sudan, they bought hundred of miles of arable land. The Chinese used this scarce farm land to grow crops using their own seed, fertilizer, and machinery and then exported all of the crops back to China. The African population received no benefit from this at all. The corrupt African leaders tell the media that China is leading them on a path to eventually become a dependent and developed nation. On the other hand, I predict that China will suck every ounce of resource from these countries and export them back to their own country. They will also cause Africa to go into such large debt that they will essentially be forced to do whatever China wants because of how much money they owe. Lastly, the opening of new ports into Africa will lead to a dramatic flow of businesses from China into these nations, where labor and resources are a lot cheaper. This situation, that I heard about in the news, reminded me a lot of the United Fruit Company in Macando. This American company entered foreign lands and completely took over their resources and exported the locals who worked as their labor. I hope China does not end up doing the same in Africa, but we shall see what happens in the future. 

The Scandal of the Century

While looking on the AP's app, I saw an article that said a book of Marquez's journalistic wok will be published in May. It will be called El Escandalo del Siglo or The Scandal of the Century in English. The novel will cover over 35 years of his time as a journalist, from around the 1950s to the 1980s. In reading an interview conducted by The Paris Review, Reporter Peter H. Stone interviewed Marquez about his time as a journalist. The interview was done in 1981, just around the time the new book will end.

When asked the question if novels can do something journalism cannot, Marquez gave a very interesting answer, “Nothing. I don’t think there is any difference. The sources are the same, the material is the same, the resources and the language are the same. The Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe is a great novel and Hiroshima is a great work of journalism.” This is interesting because I never thought of those two writing styles in that was. If you want to write a novel on Vietnam, for example, you would do research and find information just like a journalist would. 

Sources:

https://apnews.com/ea771fda4ac1439f9ef6ab9174f02872

https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3196/gabriel-garcia-marquez-the-art-of-fiction-no-69-gabriel-garcia-marquez

"Groundhog Day" and "One Hundred Years of Solitude"

Aureliano Buendia makes gold fish and melts the down, only to make more again. This is a pointless cycle; he has lost his sense of purpose and belonging in life. Jose Arcadio Buendia thought he was living the same day over and over. These instances remind me of the movie "Groundhog Day". However, the character in "Groundhog Day" tries to escape his cycle. The characters in "One Hundred Years of Solitude" isolate themselves and retreat into their destructive cycles; they are destroyed by them and fail to escape. Everyday, the character in "Groundhog Day" tried new techniques and learns from his mistakes. The Buendia family, however, does not learn from past mistakes or from their family history. Marquez included this in his book intentionally; he wanted to emphasize the importance of keeping history in mind as well as highlight the dangers of forgetting it. Ursula is the only one who keeps the family history in mind; she is the one who often fights against tyranny and repeated mistakes. When she is gone, the family is destroyed by the build up of repeated mistakes.

Cultural Isolation: Precious but Subject to Corruption

Class discussion caused me to reflect upon the realities that we, comfortably situated within Westernized society, tend to neglect. I was particularly interested in the message Marquez was portraying through the fact that the citizens of Macondo seemed to be blind to the rapid progression that was occurring around them - instead of revolting initially, they seemed to be numb or rather immediately accepting of the drastic measures taken to advance the town. This made me consider the contrast between our adaptability to modernization and the reality that many cultures remain in primitive environments, surviving and seemingly decades in the past.

It reminded me of something that my mom, who travelled and took photographs for NatGeo, told me about a village that she went to in Africa and the startling beliefs that they held. She spoke to a woman who believed that the Earth was flat. She taught me that cultural preservation helps maintain the diversity of the world, though as was demonstrated in Macondo, these fragile societies are vulnerable to being taken advantage of. This is what happened as the banana company dictated over thousands of villagers and aggressively showed their power. The precious sense of wonder that the people had when the gypsies came into town with their foreign concepts (eg. ice) morphed into a fear that paralyzed them from taking action when the banana company took over. 

Fernanda: The Begining of the End

Though it has already been established in class that the Buendia family tends to follow cycles of ups and downs, it can be argued that it was the introduction of Fernanda into the family that marked the beginning of the end. At the start of the novel, Macondo was seen as a sort of utopia, but as the years went on the town was slowly corrupted by the invasion of outsiders. The gypsies brought magic and inventions that distracted Jose Acardio Buendia from his obligations to his family and the town, Moscote plagued the Macondo with politics and war, and the American banana company invaded and took over the natural landscape. But, it wasn't until Fernanda that the Buendia family itself was infiltrated by a foreigner. When she arrived, she pushed onto the family pompous traditions from the mainland, a section of Colombia Marquez himself despised. When Ursula fell into ill health, she took over as matriarch of the family. Ursula through the family's history had always been the most grounded member, keeping them afloat and constantly fixing the disasters of the others. She is also the one that keeps the family history alive, she remembers the beginning of Macondo and she keeps their history alive. Ursula was the only one left to warn them about the curse of the pigs tail, thus delaying the Buendia's tragic fate. This is all lost once Fernanda takes over. She erases their history and instead replaces it with the corrupt values and traditions she grew up with in the interior. She is the one who banished Meme away into exile, resulting in her not raising the child herself, but sending it back. As a result, no knew of his parents except Fernanda, he slept with his cousin, and the incetious baby with the pigs tale was born, brining on the hurricane that finally killed the town and the Buendias for good. This can also be seen as a critique of Colombia by Marquez. What he is essentially implying is that of Colombia and its people allow themselves to forget their past and be corrupted and invaded by foreigner, they will lose their history and identity. Without that, they are nothing and like Macondo, will be blown away by the winds of the next passing storm. It is a desperate plea from Marquez to Colombia to not forget its past, to heed the warnings of their ancestors , to learn from past mistakes and move forward into the future.