Post #9 - ISU Book (1984)

The book that I am reading for my ISU is 1984 by George Orwell. The protagonist is Winston Smith, who is the common man, easy for the reader to identify with, easy to sympathize with. He is thirty-nine-years-old, he is frail and thin, and is employed as a records editor or propaganda officer in the Records Department at the Ministry of Truth. Some of the most important themes in the novel are power, violence, technology and modernization, manipulation, repression, loyalty, and rebellion. This book can connect to The Book of Negroes because it has to do with power, repression, and rebellion. These are three themes that are very important in both books, and show that each character goes through similar hardships.

A very significant quote in the novel is:

"Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious." (Orwell 1.7.4)

This shows that people are so afraid of rebelling due to the power and fear Big Brother has created among the people. It shows that once you rebel, you die. That is why the quote says after you rebel, you can no longer become conscious. The novel follows one of the worst forms of dictatorship that you can have, and this quote does a good job of showing that.

Post #8 - Streetcar Discussion Questions

In A Streetcar Named Desire there are several symbols throughout the play. Some of the most important ones in my opinion were:

Scene 1: "Meat"

Blue Piano

Polka Music

Lack of light

Paper Moon

Bath

Tiara

Fox furs

Shep Huntliegh 

Alcohol

I believe the film version did a very good job in showing the importance of these symbols.

Post #7: Quotations

Quotation 1: "I have escaped violent endings even as they have surrounded me. But I never had the privilege of holding onto my children, living with them, raising them the way my own parents raised me for ten or eleven years, until all of our lives were torn asunder." (Hill 4)

This quote is very significant to the entire book as a whole, and relates to the theme of hardship faced by Aminata throughout the story. This shows that throughout the book, Aminata is faced with so many different challenges in relation to her parents and children. It also goes along with a theme of disparity, which comes up several times in the book. It seems that anything good that happens to Aminata gets taken away from her.

Quotation 2: "I dreaded the big boat up ahead, growing larger with each oar stroke. In size, it dwarfed a twelve-man canoe, and it stank worse than the pen they had put us in on the island. The boat terrified me, but I was even more afraid of sinking deep into the salty water, with no possibilities to return to my ancestors." (Hill 62)

This quote is relevant to the symbol of the slave ship. The ship symbolizes the theme of transition in the book, and is literally a transition from one part of Aminata's life into the next. It is what starts her journey to America, and what starts her new life. We also now know that every time Aminata has Been on a ship, it marks a transition into a new part of her life.

Quotation 3: "At least he had his own people, with whom he could break bread and cry. I had nobody at all." (Hill 245)

This quote is significant to the theme of loneliness. This theme is one that constantly reoccurs throughout the story. Aminata several times throughout the book has nobody to grieve to regarding her losses. She has no more friends, and everyone at this point in the story who she had been close to is now gone.

Quotation 4: "I decided to travel with him in the morning. It would be my Exodus. With a bit of luck, I would never return to the Province of South Carolina." (Hill 259)

This quote is an allusion, and references Exodus which is a passage from the Torah that Solomon Lindo explains to her. This literary device is extremely significant to the book because it foreshadows the fact that Aminata wants to escape from slavery, and does so once she is in New York. It is also ironic that Solomon Lindo speaks of Exodus of his people, but still enslaves Aminata.

Quotation 5: "I despised the Americans for taking these Negroes, but my greatest contempt was for the British. They had used us in every way in their war. Cooks. Whores. Midwives. Soldiers. We had given them our food, our beds, our blood, and our lives. And when slave owners showed up with their stories and their paperwork, the British turned their backs and allowed us to be seized like chattel. Our humiliation meant nothing to them, nor did our lives."

This quote is extremely significant to the book relating to the theme of hatred. Hatred surfaces many times throughout the book, and it definitely shown in this passage. It is shown in many ways. It is shown by Aminata when she says that she can only feel used, and has sacrificed many things for the British, only to get nothing in return. It also shows the hatred between the British and the Americans during the war period. Thirdly, it shows the hatred of white vs. black people, and shows that despite the British' promise of abolishing slavery and giving freedom, they do what seems to be everything but that. They have no problems with taking Aminata's or any other slave's freedom away just because of a claim, despite everything they have done for them.

Post #6: Obstacles

An obstacle that I overcame was a leg injury from the time of November last year, to September of this year. Last year in my fall rowing program, I injured my leg sprinting up a steep hill in rowing practice. With receiving daily care from the school athletic therapy, a month went by with absolutely no progress, and actually became worse. Days, weeks, and months went by with no progress, and absolutely no insight from the multiple doctors that I saw. All of them could only give me possibilities of what happened, but no probabilities or straight answers. I got and x-ray and ultrasound with still nothing to show for. Finally, I got a requisition to get an MRI, which took 2 months to get done and get the result back. The result came back negative which again was no surprise. After seeing a chiropractor, physiotherapist, osteopath, and yet another doctor, there was no relief. Finally, in mid August I saw a chiropractor from my home town who gave me answers. It turned out that I tore my upper-left quad, and by the time any ultrasound or MRI was done, it was too late, and the tear had already been replaced with scar tissue. Since it was torn, my left quad muscle was turned off by my brain, leaving my hip muscles to do all the work, which gave me tendonitis. It was so relieving just to know what caused all this pain. It was one of the most frustrating experiences of my life having to deal with daily pain, and see so many doctors to be told "everything is normal". This experienced changed me in the sense that I learned that if you are patient, eventually results will show. Patience was the main skill I had to use to keep calm, and eventually I got the results I was looking for.

Blog Post #5 - The Zimbardo Experiment

The Zimbardo Experiment was a psychological experiment conducted at Stanford University in 1971. This studied the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner, or a prison guard. It was run by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo, and he even played the role of superintendent. The experiment took place in a mock prison in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. Twenty-four male students were selected at random to take the role of the prisoners, and the guards. The participants became far more engaged than  Zimbardo's expected, and truly became the role. The guards enforced authoritarian measures and subjected some of the prisoners to psychological torture. Many of the prisoners passively accepted psychological abuse and, at the request of the guards, readily harassed other prisoners who attempted to prevent it. As I mentioned before, Zimbardo played the role of superintendent, and even permitted the abuse to continue. Two of the prisoners quit the experiment early, and the entire experiment was abruptly stopped after only six days. This was because the experiment was getting out of hand.

This experiment connects to The Book of Negroes because it shows how once people are in an authority role, they take it way too far. They beat the prisoners and slaves, just because they can, and feel they have the authority to do so. The slaves were beaten and treated like animals, and sometimes even worse.

Blog Post #4

Today in class we discussed Book Two Chapter One, which was short, but very meaningful. It was full of similes, and foreshadowed many events that are about to take place. The thing that was the most meaningful to me after our discussions was something I spoke many times about. This is the fact that it seems Aminata will never be treated as an equal, even by people who are trying to abolish slavery.

An example of this is on page 114.

"Believing I am deaf, Sir Hastings murmurs to his neighbor that I can't expected to grasp the details in their complexity." (Hill 114)

This shows that no matter what, it always seems that there will always be differences throughout the book, and even in todays society between black and white people. Further explanation of this is in Lawrence Hill's essay "Black + White = Black" 

Post #3: The Book of Negroes Title

After our discussion in class, how do you feel about the title The Book of Negroes. Please comment on censorship, the book burnings, and the appropriateness of the title. Based on what you already know about the novel, what other names might be fitting?

I feel that the title The Book of Negroes is the appropriate title for the book. I think that all of the censors that are taking place in other countries is very unnecessary. I definitely do not think that the title of the book is racist in any way, because it was the actual title of a book signed to take a select group of Black-Loyalists to Canada. I think the book burnings were unnecessary as well, because if the word is used in the book, and the Dutch still like it, how is it justified for it not to be allowed in the title. If the book was going to be named something else, I think an appropriate name would be "False Freedom". I think this title would be appropriate because the book talks about a false sense of freedom in Canada, and also how Lawrence Hill states that still in the 21st century, black people are still considered different.