Do a character sketch for each of the main characters. Be sure to include each character's main goal, gender, role in the novel, appearance, age, and any other defining characteristics.
Okonkwo is male, and also the protagonist of the story. He is the best wrestler in the village, and also has a significantly high rank there, given that he has three wives. He has been driven to be successful all of his life because of his deceased father, who was very lazy. He is flawed in this way; in his efforts not to be lazy or weak he makes rash decisions that affect him and his family, such as beating one of his wives during the week of peace. He also has trouble balancing his masculinity, and this hinders his interactions with the rest of his family.
Nwoye is Okonkwo's oldest son. He reminds Okonkwo of Unoko, his father, so he often reprimands and beats him for being lazy. This changes when Ikemefuna joins the family and becomes almost an older brother to Nwoye. Through Nwoye's mentor-like qualities his father backs off of him and even starts to like him more.
Ikemefuna is a 15 year-old from the Mbaino village, who came to Okonkwo's village because of a war agreement between the two places. Ikemefuna quickly integrates into the family and is liked by Okonkwo, who likes him even more once he and Nwoye become close friends. Ikemefuma tells the children stories from outside the village, and teaches Nwoye about how to be masculine without alienating people and being really hostile.
Note- I showed you that this was done on time
Monday, November 25, 2013
TFA 1-4 Vocab
Cowries
"Unoku was, of course, a debtor, and he owned every neighbor some money, from a few cowries to quite substantial amounts."
-A species of mollusks with brightly colored shells.
Harmattan
"And it was not too hot either, because the cold and dry harmattan wind was blowing down from the north."
-A dusty wind on Africa's Atlantic coast.
Plaintive
"...And he could hear his own flute weaving in and out of them, decorating them with a colorful and plaintive tune."
-Grieving or suffering.
Capricious
"It was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw."
-Impulsive and unpredictable.
Incipient
"Okonkwo's first son, Nwoye, was then twelve years old but was already causing his father great anxiety from his incipient laziness."
-Starting to be realized.
"Unoku was, of course, a debtor, and he owned every neighbor some money, from a few cowries to quite substantial amounts."
-A species of mollusks with brightly colored shells.
Harmattan
"And it was not too hot either, because the cold and dry harmattan wind was blowing down from the north."
-A dusty wind on Africa's Atlantic coast.
Plaintive
"...And he could hear his own flute weaving in and out of them, decorating them with a colorful and plaintive tune."
-Grieving or suffering.
Capricious
"It was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw."
-Impulsive and unpredictable.
Incipient
"Okonkwo's first son, Nwoye, was then twelve years old but was already causing his father great anxiety from his incipient laziness."
-Starting to be realized.
Note- I showed you that this was also done on time
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Hollow Men Journal
Why do you think T.S. Eliot used the line from Heart of Darkness ("Mistah Kurtz - he dead.") to introduce this poem? How is this poem and Heart of Darkness in conversation with each other (how do they relate to one another?)?
Heart of Darkness relates to the Hollow Men poem because of its characters and what happens to them. Two of the people who could be used as examples are Kurtz and the manager. The manager is incredibly bland, and Marlow sees this in him through the emptiness of his smile. He had been almost completely drained of emotion because he had worked for the company for so long, giving him a sort of hollow quality.
The poem also relates to Kurtz. At the end of the fifth and final part of the poem, it says:
"This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper."
I think this relates to Kurtz' death, which came somewhat abruptly and without a lot of direct dramatic buildup. It is even more fitting to Kurtz' death that this line is at the end of the poem, and one of Marlow's main objectives was to find Kurtz. Once he died, a significant part of the story died with him, and to me (in some ways) the book ended there.
Heart of Darkness relates to the Hollow Men poem because of its characters and what happens to them. Two of the people who could be used as examples are Kurtz and the manager. The manager is incredibly bland, and Marlow sees this in him through the emptiness of his smile. He had been almost completely drained of emotion because he had worked for the company for so long, giving him a sort of hollow quality.
The poem also relates to Kurtz. At the end of the fifth and final part of the poem, it says:
"This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper."
I think this relates to Kurtz' death, which came somewhat abruptly and without a lot of direct dramatic buildup. It is even more fitting to Kurtz' death that this line is at the end of the poem, and one of Marlow's main objectives was to find Kurtz. Once he died, a significant part of the story died with him, and to me (in some ways) the book ended there.
Hollow Men Vocab
Supplication
"Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star."
-To pray or ask for humbly.
Tumid
"In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of tumid river"'
-Swollen or bloated.
Perpetual
"The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men."
-Continuing infinitely or everlasting.
"Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star."
-To pray or ask for humbly.
Tumid
"In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of tumid river"'
-Swollen or bloated.
Perpetual
"The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men."
-Continuing infinitely or everlasting.
Black Man and White Man's Burdens Journal
Explore how these two poems are in conversation with each other. How is "The Black Man's Burden" responding to "The White Man's Burden?" Also, do you think that Heart of Darkness reveals a similar attitude of Europeans toward Africans as Kipling expresses in "The White Man's Burden?" Please find a passage from Heart of Darkness that is evidence for your answer.
The White Man's Burden is the "responsibility" to rise up over the other races. It is written by a british man who is encouraging post-Philippines takeover America to rise over the Philippines because of some kind of empirical right, as the british have done many times before in other places. The Black Man's Burden is dealing with these behaviors, and is pretty much saying that treating a different race of people in the same way the blacks had been treated in the past is no different than treating the blacks in that way again. It is very applicable to Heart of Darkness, because at that time those were the exact feelings that the Europeans had for the Africans. They felt that they had a right to civilize them and lead by example, which is in essence (albeit very saturated and much less intense) what the White Man's Burden Poem is saying. A passage in Heart of Darkness that shows off the Europeans' feeling of necessity to triumph is "They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity-like yours- the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly (49-50)."
The White Man's Burden is the "responsibility" to rise up over the other races. It is written by a british man who is encouraging post-Philippines takeover America to rise over the Philippines because of some kind of empirical right, as the british have done many times before in other places. The Black Man's Burden is dealing with these behaviors, and is pretty much saying that treating a different race of people in the same way the blacks had been treated in the past is no different than treating the blacks in that way again. It is very applicable to Heart of Darkness, because at that time those were the exact feelings that the Europeans had for the Africans. They felt that they had a right to civilize them and lead by example, which is in essence (albeit very saturated and much less intense) what the White Man's Burden Poem is saying. A passage in Heart of Darkness that shows off the Europeans' feeling of necessity to triumph is "They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity-like yours- the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly (49-50)."
Black Man and White Man's Burdens Vocab
White Man's Burden:
Tawdry
"Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things."
-Cheap in appearance.
Sloth
"And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought."
-Lack of motivation or inclination towards action.
Heathen
"And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought."
-To be uncivilized or barbaric.
Black Man's Burden:
Brook
"Hail ye your fearless armies,
Which menace feeble folks
Who fight with clubs and arrows
and brook your rifle’s smoke."
-To tolerate or allow.
Tawdry
"Take up the White Man's burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper--
The tale of common things."
-Cheap in appearance.
Sloth
"And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought."
-Lack of motivation or inclination towards action.
Heathen
"And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought."
-To be uncivilized or barbaric.
Black Man's Burden:
Brook
"Hail ye your fearless armies,
Which menace feeble folks
Who fight with clubs and arrows
and brook your rifle’s smoke."
-To tolerate or allow.
Monday, November 18, 2013
Chinua Achebe Vocab
Erudite
"For did not that erudite british historian and Regius professor at Oxford, Hugh Trevor-Roper, also pronounce that African history did not exist (page 2)?"
-Showing knowledge acquired from books or studying.
Espoused
"The kind of liberalism espoused here by Marlow/Conrad touched all the best minds of the age in England, Europe and America (page 6)."
-To take up or support a cause.
Purport
"How can I stand up more than fifty years after his death and purport to contradict him (page 9)."
-To infer or imply.
Xenophobia
"But even those not blinkered, like Conrad, with xenophobia, can be astonishingly blind (page 10)."
-fear of strangers or foreigners.
Unequivocal
"And all this while the article speaks unequivocally about language(page 11)."
-To be clear or leave no doubt.
"For did not that erudite british historian and Regius professor at Oxford, Hugh Trevor-Roper, also pronounce that African history did not exist (page 2)?"
-Showing knowledge acquired from books or studying.
Espoused
"The kind of liberalism espoused here by Marlow/Conrad touched all the best minds of the age in England, Europe and America (page 6)."
-To take up or support a cause.
Purport
"How can I stand up more than fifty years after his death and purport to contradict him (page 9)."
-To infer or imply.
Xenophobia
"But even those not blinkered, like Conrad, with xenophobia, can be astonishingly blind (page 10)."
-fear of strangers or foreigners.
Unequivocal
"And all this while the article speaks unequivocally about language(page 11)."
-To be clear or leave no doubt.
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