"So Long A Letter" by Mariama Ba and "Blood Wedding" by Frederico Garcia Lorca
Thesis: Characters that cause immense pain to another, especially to
their consorts, succumb to death in the texts So Long A Letter and
Blood Wedding by Mariama Bâ and Federico García Lorca respectively.
Death is one aspect of life that prevents a person from being
invincible. It is one of the inevitable occurrences that a man has to
yield to. In the texts So Long A Letter and Blood Wedding by Mariama
Bâ and Federico García Lorca respectively, death is a poignant theme
that has prevailed throughout the course of the text. The question is
whether the deaths of characters in these texts are deserved, and
devised by the authors due to the immense pain dispensed by these
characters to their consorts.
Firstly, So Long A Letter by Mariama Bâ which is a letter cum diary
from Ramatoulaye to her best friend Aissatou depicts the series of
events that have taken place in the past, mainly portraying the
lamentation of three women (Ramatoulaye, Aissatou and Jacqueline) due
to their husbands’ lack of commitment. Moreover, this text outlines
the Senegalese way of living and how the Muslim society accepts
polygamy readily.
As we read the text, we are introduced to Modou Fall, the husband to
Ramatoulaye, who died of an unknown cause. In my opinion, his death
was destined due to the everlasting pain he dispensed to his wife.
This is because of his “abrupt decision to take a second wife” and his
abandonment of his family. This was a very appalling situation as
Modou walked out on Ramatoulaye and his twelve children to go and
improve relations with a girl the age of his daughter. Although he
married her committing polygamy which was sanc...
... middle of paper ...
...trated mood the Mother is
in since she has lost all her family members now including her
ultimate hope of survival: her son, the Bridegroom.
Accordingly, I perceive that the Bridegroom deserved to die as he
dispensed pain and grief not only to the Bride but also to his mother.
All in all, we have seen that the statement ‘characters that cause
immense pain to another, especially to their consorts, succumb to
death’ is apt. Moreover, it can be learnt form this piece of work that
the consequence of the action you perform will be commensurate to the
intensity of that action. Therefore, Modou Fall, Leonardo and the
Bridegroom all deserved to succumb to death. Last but not the least,
it can be noted that all the characters that cause immense pain to
others in both the texts are the male characters while the recipients
of such pain are the female characters.
The autobiography Night by Elie Wiesel contains similarities to A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. These works are similar through the struggles that the main characters must face. The main characters, Elie Wiesel and Lieutenant Frederic Henry, both face complete alterations of personality. The struggles of life make a person stronger, yet significantly altering identity to the point where it no longer exists. This identity can be lost through extreme devotion, new experience, and immense tragedy.
The Madonna and Child, created by Cenni di Francesco di Ser Cenni between 1410 and 1415, is an iconographic painting of the Virgin Mary (left) and a chubby baby Jesus (right). The panel is painted with tempera and the halos around Mary’s and Jesus’s heads are made from goldleaf. La Toilette, painted by Richard Miller in 1910, is an Impressionist painting of a woman putting on her make up. He uses this subject to compare putting on makeup to applying oil paint on a canvas. In order to create the desired impact on the viewer of their paintings, Cenni and Miller use similar stylistic techniques to portray their female subjects.
The Dominican Republic was not a very good place to live in during the 1950s. Dictator Rafael Leonid, better known as Trujillo made an effort to associate the country with white Americans in 1939. This caused a generation of Dominicans to hate the nearby Haitians. He banned many traditional rituals and deplored the Haitian people by rewriting history with Haitians being the villains. Eventually, in 1959, Trujillo blamed Cuban dictator Fidel Castro for the Dominican discontent and was assassinated (Bailey). Julia Alvarez’s poem “Exile” is about a girl and her father’s departure from the Dominican Republic to New York, most likely as a reaction to the political uproar in their home country. In “Exile”, Alvarez uses a flashback, characterization, and symbolism to show the internal conflict of a young girl experiencing the American dream while losing her old behaviors.
The Old Gringo is a fiction novel written by one of Latin America's most renowned and eloquent authors, Carlos Fuentes. Filled with war, adventure, love and more, this novel takes you back to the Mexican revolution fought in 1912. This contemporary fiction is based on many themes found and experienced by the main characters in this novel. The relationship between Mexico and the United States, the drive to find one's true self and the different ways two men need a woman are only a few themes contained in this story. The question: Is he Ambrose Bierce or just an old gringo, is one that I had to answer while reading this book. We all have different opinions, but it is a question that all ask themselves while reading The Old Gringo.
Her family life is depicted with contradictions of order and chaos, love and animosity, conventionality and avant-garde. Although the underlying story of her father’s dark secret was troubling, it lends itself to a better understanding of the family dynamics and what was normal for her family. The author doesn’t seem to suggest that her father’s behavior was acceptable or even tolerable. However, the ending of this excerpt leaves the reader with an undeniable sense that the author felt a connection to her father even if it wasn’t one that was desirable. This is best understood with her reaction to his suicide when she states, “But his absence resonated retroactively, echoing back through all the time I knew him. Maybe it was the converse of the way amputees feel pain in a missing limb.” (pg. 399)
“Like a river flows so surely to the sea darling, so it goes some things are meant to be.” In literature there have been a copious amount of works that can be attributed to the theme of love and marriage. These works convey the thoughts and actions in which we as people handle every day, and are meant to depict how both love and marriage can effect one’s life. This theme is evident in both “The Storm” by Kate Chopin and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman; both stories have the underlying theme of love and marriage, but are interpreted in different ways. Both in “The Storm” and in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” the women are the main focus of the story. In “The Storm” you have Calixta, a seemingly happy married woman who cheats on her husband with an “old-time infatuation” during a storm, and then proceeds to go about the rest of her day as if nothing has happened when her husband and son return. Then you have “The Yellow Wallpaper” where the narrator—who remains nameless—is basically kept prisoner in her own house by her husband and eventually is driven to the point of insanity.
... beloved wife has made the decision for him. After going through this incredible journey of his, not only did he study women but he had to explain what women most desired to the queen. Otherwise he would have been beheaded, but was spared because of his looks. Was this justice? Indeed it would have been justice back in the 1300’s because if you were beautiful you could be spared and do a noble deed for the king/queen as they asked. If you did not complete it who knows what could have happened. But for the knight, he completed what he was told to do and in fact after he raped the woman and he was being prosecuted, the journey of his made him find the true knight inside of him. The old woman choice that was offer to the knight demonstrated that he learned his lesson through his sufficient punishment and redemption for his crime.
In the short stories "The Story of an Hour," by Chopin and "A Rose for
The Yellow Wallpaper and The Awakening were two works written during the Age of Expression. The entire country was going through an era of Reconstruction; politically, socially, culturally and econmically . The Yellow Wallpaper and The Awakening are feminist works aimed at the psychological, social, and cultural injustices during the era. According to Mizruchi, “ Cosmopolitanism aroused dis-ease: depression and disaection were prevalent in a society whose pace and variety seemed relentless. Yet the same circumstances also instilled hope. For it was widely recognized that the burgeoning heterogeneity of a newly global America would be a source of enduring vitality.”(Mizruchi, 2008) The wives portrayed in these works defeated the attitudes of their husbands during this patriarchal culture.
Accordingly, Poe is well responsive to this psychological trait of the human brain. Likewise, Poe employs the perception of perversity and remorse in “The Cask of Amontillado.” The reason of burying Fortunato is not only vengeance, but also a robust reaction that is described in “The Black Cat”. There is a passionate yearning in Montresor to hurt Fortunato even if he has not made any harm to him. Although Montresor asserts that he has been injured several times by Fortunato, he cannot defy calling him “respected, admired, beloved,” admitting his “good nature,” and also calling him “noble” (Little 212). These expressions confirmed that Fortunato is a good quality person and the expression “injuries” used in the first phase of the story is simply a hyperbole that Montresor’s psyche has fabricated. Furthermore, wickedness does not come unaccompanied, but it carries itself a sense of remorse. Even if Montresor reflects himself as the diplomat of his family for deafening down rivals, he suffers remorse while walling up Fortunato. Consequently, Poe’s clasp of unreasonableness and culpability of the human mind is
“The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World”. "Esteban's memory eternal and they were going to break their backs digging for springs among the stones and planting flowers on the cliffs so that the future years at dawn the passengers on great liners would awaken, suffocated by the smell of gardens on the high seas, and the captain would have to come down from the bridge in his dress uniform, with his astrolabe, his pole star, and his row of war medals and, pointing to the promontory of roses on the horizon, he would say in fourteen languages, look it's gone to sleep beneath the beds, over there, where the sun's bright that the sunflowers don't know which way to turn, yes, over there, that's Esteban's Village (Handsomest)" "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World Summary" is a short story written by Gabriel Marquez based in a small fishing village somewhere in Latin America. This is a mystical, mythological story that pulls you into the story of how one man could change a whole village. In this village you had your dull women and you had the sailors who main objective was just fishing. For a while they were content in the monotony of their lives until a mystical larger than life man floated on shore, who throughout the story transforms this village from a dull gray simple village, to a vibrant and bright village that ships of the sea can see from far away; this village is known as "Esteban's Village".
In the stories “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner and “Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin both women suffer through expectations brought on by society and the ideas of marriage. Emily loses her sanity trying to obtain love and live up to the expectations of society. Emily kills the man she loved so that he would never leave, and so that she could maintain her reputation. She was put on a pedestal, and that pedestal would end up being her destruction. Louise is a woman afflicted by heart problems, which could relate her unhappiness. After losing her husband she starts to feel free; however when her husband walks through the door she dies. Louise was a prisoner of societies making, she was never given a voice. She could never explain her unhappiness because women were expected to love and obey their husband’s without complaints. Marriage to these women meant different things, although the idea of marriage damaged both women. Louise and Emily were women damaged by the pressures of who they are expected to be.
In life it is necessary to have fantasy, because without it, life would be dull and meaningless. Life would be so different without dreams, since they are what motivate humans to keep on moving forward in order to achieve their goals. This is what Jorge Luis Borges is trying to explain to the reader in the book Ficciones which is very confusing, but also very deep in meaning. These stories demonstrate a theme of reality vs. fiction which is fascinating because in many of the readings fantasy is required at some point to accomplish a purpose or goal. Each unique story hides a meaning in the text which is a lesson to be learned. The confusion that is caused is similar to a labyrinth in which the reader gets lost. The message is hidden within the story so; it causes confusion to the reader. Events in the story suggest that the story is fiction, because most of the stories have existent scenery. The timing in some stories is from an event or tragedy that has occurred around that date. The reader realizes later on in the stories that unrealistic events began to occur which are impossible to take place in real life. This is when our minds become entangled with facts from our world and others form the impossible.
According to Muslim tradition, which was the dominant tradition in Senegal, when Ramatoulaye?s husband, Modou, passed away, she had to mourn over her loss for three months. During this time, friends and family members gathered in her house to accompany her. One of the traditions, which she wasn?t too fond of, was having to give up her possessions and belongings as gifts to her in-laws, as well as her deceased husband?s personal secrets. This whole process was a way of giving up herself as a person. ?Beyond her possessions she gives up her ...
Mariamma Ba’s So Long a Letter and the role women and impact of western culture on Islamic women in post-colonial Senegal: A critical analysis of Aissatou.