The understanding of the Pacific Islands literature is still a very confusing material for many scholars. Only the indigenous residents can interpret fully interpret their own cultural concept of writing. However, in the “My Urohs” which is a slim collection of poetry published by Emelihter Kihleng in May 2008 as her first collection of poem. It provided a new path for their own people to view themselves differently and add an important element in the Pacific Islander literature. Some of the basic informations about the author was that Emelihter is a Micronesian and more specifically Pohnpeian that was born in Guam and earned a master's degree in creative writing at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 2003.
The book “My Urohs” is divided
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into two section: Likio and Sapw Sarawi. Each section is about the importance of Micronesia, Pohnpei culture and tradition, and western influence on the matter of the change of the islander's perspective on their cultural value. The first section, “Likio” talks about the differences between the author’s homeland and the place where they live now. There are many examples of how there is foreign influence on the island and how it changes the value of the islanders. For instance, in the poem “Pohnpei Outer Space”, it mentioned that the author “I gotta add more pictures pictures Pictures of men and my friend holding Tequila shots drinking straight from the pwotol en sakau”. (Kihleng 2008, 8) This indicated that the indigenous author tried to adopt in the western living style and reveal the connection of how teens act, not only in the island but also around the global.
In addition, the second part of the book, “Sapw Sarawi” is more connected to the migrated Pohnpeian change of thinking and effect at the western area. There are many evidences that indicated the correlation between the Pohnpeian and western style of thinking in term of their similarity in the way they think and the influence on the indigenous islanders. For example, in the poem “Saturday” it talk about how the author need to do so much activities and wand so much of the essential needs in order to satisfy her living. This type of thinking is very similar to the western thinking as well and not really about the indigenous …show more content…
values. While I was reading the book My Urohs, there is one major issues that appeared in the reading, it's the Pohnpei’s cultural value Sakau being obsessively used for drinking and marketing to sell all around the island.
This caused a huge damages to the islander itself as well as to the vast ocean. For example, in the poem “Pohnpei Seringiring” the first stanza mentioned that the “sign of addiction from drinking too much sakau “include a drying of the skin”, “ darkening of the skin”, “loss of appetite”, “weight loss”, “feeling lethargic”, and “sleeping throughout the day”. (Kihleng 2008, 33) This is a indication explain the negative effect of overly drinking too much Sakau. Furthermore, this poem also pointed out that the islanders lush of “over planting Sakau for market” caused to damage their beautiful ocean by “choking the reef”. (Kihleng 2008, 33) This is a very important issues to the PACS108 course and to the pacific island because it explain the Pohnpei’s cultural value in a different perspective and that we get to understand more of their tradition and culture. In addition, the second issues that I noticed when reading My Urohs is the discrimination against islander on islanders. In the poem, “To Linda Rabon Torres”, the author talk about many stereotype people had about the chuukese, “one of those stealers, pugua chewers, heavy drinkers without any indoor plumbing?”. (Kihleng 2008, 3) And also the fact that a woman from Yigo, Guam fired her “.22-caliber rifle” into her
backyard and accidentally killed a 14 years old Chuukese teenager. The case was brought up twice and only at the second time the woman was charged of negligent homicide. This also shows the injustice some of the Pacific Islander had to face because of their ethnicity. This is also an important problem that is related to the pacific island as well as the PACS108 course because it display the fact that not only some region in the pacific island have to fight against discrimination to the western side but also in the pacific itself. This also showed one of the factor that the indigenous immigrant have to encounter in the western culture. Based on the first issues, I personally believe that the Pohnpeian should value the Sakau in a more important figure since it is a symbol that bond people together and it blend into their important cultural style. Furthermore, I think the primary reason that the first issues happen is due to the western influence on the way they drink. The Pohnpeian would drink Sakau regularly in a group and have discussions and would use it in a ceremony or in the reconciliation ritual. The second issues is just another misunderstood stereotype but it lead to the critical damage such as death. It is very difficult to change the way how people view on certain race into a better condition, but it is very easy to manipulate how people think on certain ethnicities into a worsen condition.
Along with encapsulating the culture in her writing, she also documented the effect and growth of globalization. The original goal of Ward was to examine the language, norms, values, and attitudes of this group to obtain survey results related to Pohnpeians’ low blood pressure. Not only did she successfully study her original goals, she also made conclusions about effects of recent colonization on a marine tropical island. Ward delivers a strong foundation from which present-day anthropologists can follow in their
As this poem characterizes the view of a native woman expressing feelings of passion relating to her culture, it also criticizes society, in particular Christianity, as the speaker is experiencing feelings of discontent with the outcome of residential schools. It does not directly criticize the faith, but through the use of a heavy native dialect and implications to the Christian faith it becomes simple to read the speakers emotions.
The books author, James (Sákéj) Youngblood Henderson came to write this book as a result of living with his wife, Marie Battiste (a celebrated Mi’kmaw scholar and educator) in her Mi’kmaq community of Eskasoni (10). It was the community of Eskasoni that compelled Henderson to compile their histories in a form that would not disrupt the Mi’kmaq worldviews, culture and spirituality they represent but as well easily conveyable to non-Aboriginal peoples.
This frustration acted as a vehicle for her to gain a desire to be more
The Hawaiian culture is known throughout the western world for their extravagant luaus, beautiful islands, and a language that comes nowhere near being pronounceable to anyone but a Hawaiian. Whenever someone wants to “get away” their first thought is to sit on the beach in Hawai’i with a Mai tai in their hand and watch the sun go down. Haunani-Kay Trask is a native Hawaiian educated on the mainland because it was believed to provide a better education. She questioned the stories of her heritage she heard as a child when she began learning of her ancestors in books at school. Confused by which story was correct, she returned to Hawai’i and discovered that the books of the mainland schools had been all wrong and her heritage was correctly told through the language and teachings of her own people. With her use of pathos and connotative language, Trask does a fine job of defending her argument that the western world destroyed her vibrant Hawaiian culture.
Duong Thu Huong’s novel, ‘Paradise of the Blind’ creates a reflective, often bittersweet atmosphere through the narrator Hang’s expressive descriptions of the landscapes she remembers through her life. Huong’s protagonist emphasises the emotional effects these landscapes have on her, acknowledging, “many landscapes have left their mark on me.”
An important theme in Potiki is the enduring idea that creating and sharing stories as a central part of being human is important. It is a significant theme because the novel is heavily imbued with Maori culture, in which the stories and spoken teachings are given prominence, and also because it is a popular belief that people need narratives to give meaning, structure and value to their lives. This theme is displayed resolutely and poignantly in Potiki’s plot, characters, setting and symbolism, as the people of a small rural New Zealand community rediscover themselves through stories spoken and found in Maori carvings. The idea that humans need narratives is the core theme in Potiki, and it is used also to link other themes and aspects of the novel; it is in this way that we know the idea of storytelling is an intrinsic part of the novel’s structure.
What is the difference between effective or ineffective communication skills when working with children, this essay is determine to find out the appropriate ways to communicate with children by analyse, the video clip ‘Unloved’ by Tony Grison, where a young White British girl aged 11 was taken into care, due to her father being abusive towards her and mother not wanting to see her.
John-Jin by Rose Tremain is a short story with two main characters. We have John-Jin himself, who was Chinese and born with a disease that held back his growth. He would only grow in minute little bursts. When John-Jin became older his adopted parents took him to Manchester to see a specialist who then started him on treatments of growth hormone shots. Things started to look up but after ten years when John-Jin was 12, the shots took a bad affect on him and he developed Creutzfeldt and Jacob disease. This disease is more commonly known as Mad-Cow disease.
Kualapai, Lydia. "The Queen Writes Back: Lili'uokalani's Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen." Studies in American Indian Literatures. 17.2 (2005): 32-62.
Sahlins work provides in a depth-analysis of the Hawaiian culture and how it developed through past events. Sahlins was able to show how paying close attention to culture can be helpful when studying the past. With a detailed tale of Captain Cook’s importance in the Hawaiian culture, the cultural interactions with the British and how it led to dynamic changes in the Hawaiian culture.
According to Webster’s dictionary, a tragic hero is a protagonist that is otherwise perfect except for flaws that are intrinsic to his or her character, which often leads to his or her demise. In Chinua Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo, the protagonist was unlike tragic heroes such as Oedipus, Iago and Beowulf, because he was not born into nobility, but had to rise to fame and earn respect through his exceptional stamina, hard work and his historic unrivaled success at defeating the famous Amalinze the Cat. Like Beowulf and Oedipus, Okonkwo shares traits that are characteristic of a tragic hero. These traits exposed his mortal fear of failure, his fear of weakness and his fear of becoming like his father who was lazy and poor. Okonkwo also possesses an unwavering pride and an irrepressible anger. Fear, pride and anger are some of the traits of a tragic hero that were inherent in Okonkwo, and this paper will seek to explore how these traits contributed to his downfall Okonkwo’s connection of manliness with rage, ferocity and recklessness eventually leads to his downfall. Okonkwo finds it difficult to accept the changes the Missionaries have brought to Umuofia. The missionaries changed the way the people of Umuofia think, leading to an irreversible division among the people.
The struggle between custom values and conversion is a universally applied theme to Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. The fable like, tragic tone of the work was set off from the very first page. The verb FALL APART has 4 senses to lose one's emotional or mental composure, go to pieces, break or fall apart into fragments, and to become separated into pieces or fragments. These are all exemplified in the novel Things Fall Apart. Okonkwo is a tragic hero in the traditional sense. His fate was decided for him and was unavoidable. Okonkwo’s inability to act rationally and express his feelings in a anthropological manner leads to his inescapable demise. Okonkwo exhibits the characteristics of a tragic hero not only by encompassing an unexceptional flaw. Okonkwo not only developed this flaw because of his erroneous equivalence of masculinity with being filled with relentless fury, vehemence, and impetuousness, but also because he leads to his own self-annihilation.
In American Indian Stories, University of Nebraska Press Lincoln and London edition, the author, Zitkala-Sa, tries to tell stories that depicted life growing up on a reservation. Her stories showed how Native Americans reacted to the white man’s ways of running the land and changing the life of Indians. “Zitkala-Sa was one of the early Indian writers to record tribal legends and tales from oral tradition” (back cover) is a great way to show that the author’s stories were based upon actual events in her life as a Dakota Sioux Indian. This essay will describe and analyze Native American life as described by Zitkala-Sa’s American Indian Stories, it will relate to Native Americans and their interactions with American societies, it will discuss the major themes of the book and why the author wrote it, it will describe Native American society, its values and its beliefs and how they changed and it will show how Native Americans views other non-Natives.
• AW’s work is deeply rooted in oral tradition; in the passing on of stories from generation to generation in the language of the people. To AW the language had a great importance. She uses the “Slave language”, which by others is seen as “not correct language”, but this is because of the effect she wants the reader to understand.