Sheikh Al Junaydi

One of the most overlooked characters throughout The Thief And The Dogs has been Sheikh Al Junaydi. Sheikh is the person who Said immediately goes to for spiritual purposes and he represents the complete opposite of what Said is. Sheikh's characteristics represent optimism and positive, if there is anyone who Said should be like or should try to emulate, he should look no further to the Sheikh as he represents the clean mindset and the harmless creature that Said Mahran should be like. Mahfouz integrates Sheikh in his novel in order to showcase a nice contrast between his personality and Said's personality with the Sheikh portraying the morally correct mindset one should have as he doesn't believe in taking revenge and striking back at others. As readers, we consistently see Said's action as being morally incorrect and envisioning Said as a person who really needs a mental intervention therefore with the way Sheikh is characterizes it adds a nice dimension to show living proof of what Said Mahran should be like. Sheikh offers Said food to eat and a roof to love under, he consistently aims to resuscitate Said and give Said a better understanding of what he has done than what Said even realizes himself. Sheikh is consistently looked upon highly throughout the story and is always looked at by Mahfouz as a possible “higher power” and Said’s superior as he is consistently a problem solver and one who always makes sure to help those around him. Sheikh is a rather flat character as there aren’t so many points in the story involving him nor is there any mentions of him having a darker side but the flat levels that Mahfouz uses to portray him are really able to showcase the good side of people throughout this story while provide another perspective on the behavior of a person with decent morals at the time of the Egyptian revolution.

The positive characterization of Sheikh really helps make the negative and greedy behavior of Said Mahran stand out. Said is desperately wanting to seek revenge and condemn the people who have done him wrong in the past and through showing the differences in the beliefs and ideologies of Said Mahran and Sheikh, Mahfouz really brings out the morally incorrect behavior of Said and lets the readers really dig into the wrong things that Said is focusing on. Said is continued to be characterized as vengeful and blinded into his own pride as he strongly believes what he is doing is correct and through using a very positive and intelligent character like Sheikh by integrating him in moments where he consistently helps out Said Mahran. Mahfouz enlarges the effect of what Said is doing even more and further helps the readers realize that he isn’t going to get anywhere with his attitude and will only get somewhere in life with a positive attitude like Sheikh’s. Sheikh’s positive attitude indirectly sheds more light on the negative characteristics of Said Mahran. Overall, the work of Mahfouz through contrasting 2 different people help in illustrate the theme of revenge throughout the story. Sheikh is highly against revenge and we see throughout the book that he persistently reminds Said about not taking revenge and moving on with life. Said however with his ignorant ego completely cuts off Said’s words and he decides to continue to try to take revenge which in the end leads to his ultimate downfall as he dies at the end of the story. Mahfouz tackles the revenge theme to portray Said as a tragic hero and uses Sheikh as a key piece in the novel to showcase the peaks and troughs of the story while help show the journey of Said Mahran from his release from jail to his death.  Sheikh helps assist Said’s ignorance which is one of the main reasons why he dies in the end.

Thesis Statement

Mahfouz uses the stream of consciousness technique through the main character Said in order to create an open ended ideology on various values and themes, primarily betrayal

Said as a tragic hero

Said's hamartia/flaw is being unable to let go of the past. He holds grudges towards people which is proven through his hatred for Illish. Said is out there for revenge and his inability to let go of the bad things that have happened in his past are what make him a flawed character. His belief in getting back at people is what drives his character's journey throughout the story and eventually proves to doom him as he dies at the end.

Said has excessive pride through being overconfident in his beliefs of getting back at Illish and through his hatred for Illish and Nabawiyya. Said is very stuck up with what he is doing and he believes what he is doing is morally correct even though ideally he should be focusing on a new life rather than bursting back into his past for revenge. His excessive pride takes a big toll on him as he dies in the end primarily due to his ignorance of finding the solution to the problem he was having.

The biggest turning point in the story is when Said sees his daughter Sana but only to be rejected by her with Sana disapproving of what Said is doing. Said had waited for a long time to see Sana with her meaning almost everything to him but the rejection further stimulates Said's desire to strike back at Illish, which turns out to be the wrong thing to do. Losing Sana meant that Said truly lost a huge part of himself. His realizations do occur when he tries to murder Illish. He starts to realize the new identity and the bad things he has done when trying to murder Illish which cause Said to realize how far he has fallen in his life.

His decline was deserved and his demise was definitely bound to happen due to his ignorance. He knew that murder attempts can definitely go wrong and put him in more trouble in his life. He understood the consequences of his vengeful personality but he stuck to those negative characteristics which resulted in a death that was brought upon himself.
 

Stream of Consciousness

Throughout his acclaimed novel The Thief and the Dogs, Naguib Mahfouz consistently utilizes the stream of consciousness technique. This technique is used to illustrate the various thoughts and feelings going through a particular character's mind. This provides a really detailed description on the character's thought process internally and able to contrast it with the way the character behaves externally and how he carries himself in real life. In the Thief and the Dogs, Mahfouz constantly reverts between first person and third person which helps in revealing to the readers how the protagonist of the novel Said feels about many different things throughout the story which helps us the readers with delving deeper into his emotions and beliefs. The novel is based on true events so it helps Mahfouz in integrating his own personal interpretation and beliefs on the revolution itself.

The stream of consciousness technique makes the novel follow a non linear plot which adds a realistic touch to the novel as a whole. When recalling memories, we are barely ever able to remember them sequentially and moment by moment in the right order, we remember them in a random order with moments being split up in our head randomly and coming back to us from time to time. Said barely recalls the memories in a linear order. This manner of non linear memories keeps the reader right there with Said since it is very realistic to remember things like how Said does and it does add a little bit of the element of surprise because it intrigues us in seeing Said put all the pieces together when recalling specific events. 

Mahfouz uses a lot of interior monologues in order for the readers to understand the struggles Said is going through. The use of the flashbacks and the technique help in shaping Said's perspective towards several other characters in the story. It can clearly be inferred from the technique and circumstances that Said does dislike Ilish and Nabawiyya. This helps demonstrate with  the narrative structure how Said is a rather emotional character despite being an expert thief. This adds to helping we the readers in being able to sympathize with Said and see him in a different light despite our initial reactions of not being able to sympathize with him due to his endeavours as a burglar. Throughout the story, the flashback involve interactions with many other characters which helps us understand the revolving people around Said's life and be able to see clearly on what sorrounds the main centerpiece of the novel.

There are several advantages in using the stream of consciousness technique. We can get a new viewpoint on many characters and see them in a different light, be able to relate to the flashbacks and the non linear nature of the stream technique and the context of the novel since it helps us learn more on the conditions of Egypt at thet very time.

Value of Studying Literature in Translation

When looking at books or plays that have been dubbed into another language, it may look like it was a piece of cake to translate something from one language to another...but actually it isn't.

Each language has it's own certain words, expressions, metaphors and meanings which are difficult to translate or gauge its true meaning in another language. There is a clear limitation as some words may be hard to translate so we are forced to subsitute in the closest possible meaning in order to make up for the lack of a visible match. Learning about a book which has been translated does help open doors into understanding different aspects on words and certain things that have a unique meaning.

A great part about studying a translated text is viewing something from a dofferent context and perspective such as viewing Thief and the Dogs from an Egyptian perspective and the revolution in Egypt helps shape our understanding better of the text and of the culture itself. A translated text helps see how the context can shape the writing ability of the author due to looking at the different circumstances the author was living in.

A link can be made to Lost in Translation where Feng Tang's work was translated into English and it appeared that 3 of the 326 poems were vulgar and inappropriate. This clearly shows the limitations on translating but also how understanding thse texts are shaped vis context due to the fact that many generations will view this in the weong light while others will not have a problem with the supposed vulgarity.

Paper 1 perfect

The following extract is a leaflet written by Norman Angell in 1914. The text expresses the desire of avoiding war and the idea of Enhland fighting with Russia in the war. Angell uses several literary devices along with the use of the underlying theme of pacifism to get his major ideas across to the British audience. The text was released in 1914 at a time when England was at the brink of war and had made a likely agreement with Russia. Normall Angell uses literary devices, logos and pathos in order to help convince his audience

The audience is clearly identified as the British people but more specifically people who don't have much of an understanding on the current state of England in their alignment in the war. This can be inferred from the line “What is Russia”, this clearly indicates that the author assumes the audience is unsure about the war and doesn’t really know what is happening. The author also possibly refers to unemployed people as it’s target audience since on the bottom of the leaflet, the author states “Get your local notables to hold meetings of protest against England”, this takes into effect that the author is trying to get some people to take action to stop England fighting with Russia and so unemployed people fit the bill as they do not work or do anything time consuming. The purpose is clearly to convince the audience that fighting for Russia is a bad in idea in the war. The main big writing on the bottom stating “Britain, Stand Clear!” clearly gives reference to the fact that Britain should back away from Russia and change its plans. The author’s main headline “Why Fight for Russia?” clearly refers to the main idea of the daunting possibility of England's position in the war. The author continues to use statistics such as 50 billion pounds spent in Crimea in a way to lure the audience from the likelihood of fighting with Russia.

The content is linked to the the history in World War as in this leaflet, the author Norman Angell talks about the prospects of a war coming up and what is the right ideology for Britain to have in this circumstance. “The greatest enemy of British ideas of liberty and justice”, this directly supports how Angell contrasts the 2 different perspectives of the 2 different nations heading into the war and how that should deter Britain from participating with Russia. “The most opposed to all which we value”, this line from Angell again refers to the different ideology and how that sets the table for the right thing that Britain should do. The theme is of pacifism as Norman portrays Britain in a positive light as he is British himself so there is bias for the British side. He portrays them as peaceful. “It is the Russian Government which has been shooting down workmen”, this is an indirect reference to the peacefulness Britain holds as the author aims to show that Britain is a rather safe nation while Russia clearly isn’t.

The author writes about Russia in a very critical tone. He clearly speaks in a very harsh manner about it using extreme words such as “greatest enemy” and “most opposed to all which we value”to indicate how bad Russia really is. The author then refers to what Russia actually is and what they are supposed to have in a degrading manner as he is trying to play down Russia and indicate the negative aspects of it in order to drive his purpose through. This sets a mood of the British people wanting to take action as the audience has convinced the audience well enough to do something about the frightening prospect of working with Russia. “Write your memeber that you will try and turn him out”, this takes into account the effect of quick action the author puts on the audience as he clearly sends a message to them to do something about this issue.

The author uses logos to convey his message across. “65 million civilised Germans, of our own race and blood”, the use of logos aims to create sympathy towards the audience as in context the author refers to Germans relationship with Russia to make the audience feel bad as the author indicates the closeness of the relationship by stating their own race and blood. The author brings up how Russia is the country in which “we spent 50 million pounds in Crimea”. This demonstrates how Britain did take action and help Russia out but they did not give back to Britain. Author uses pathos when calling Germans part of Britain’s own race and blood to help let the audience sympathize the connection between the 2 nations. The author uses anaphora as he states “Russia is” twice which helps give a great emphatic statement on what Russia truly is and makes the audience realize Russia’s true identity and what it is and what it is not. He always uses a rhetorical question in “Why fight for Russia?” which helps the audience recognize and think for a moment on why are they actually thinking of siding with Russia.

The author uses a large font in saying “Britain, Stand Clear” as a summarization of his main idea but also to get the big message across of staying away from fighting with Russia. The author uses very small font in the bottom in a very sneaky way to get people into taking action about fighting against Russia. The author uses a big font on the very top asking the audience “Why fight for Russia” this helps in emphasizing what the audience should actually do as fighting for Russia may not be the best thing. The author uses big font to strike out his message in a emphatic manner to his audience so that they get what he is truly talking about.

Overall the author uses ethos, pathos and varies his font size in a variety of ways to truly get his points across in convincing the audience on why they should not fight for Russia. The author is very critical and at times sneaky in helping convince the audience.

English propaganda post

I do believe and agree that the term propaganda tends to always refer to something that is negative. The definition of propaganda is information of a biased or misleading nature normally used to support a political view. Propaganda by meaning doesn't necessarily mean something negative as using it to help support a view that one thinks is great could be a positive outcome but when it's used in context, it tends to always refer to something negative. I think this because even though one side is politically supported in a good way, it always comes at the expense of the other party/country/side. A support of one side completely is an insult to the other side as in propaganda that the compliments and the favoritism of one party reveals to the audience that the other side doesn't do and is incapable of doing the things that side itself is doing. It is also negative as political rivalries tend to hold a lot of negative implications and I feel that it is always used to call out the other side for failing or not being able to do something.

I can link this to the documentary Control Room. In the documentary, Al Jazeera was biased in different ways as Iraqis said that they were more in favour of Americans while the Americans said that they were favouring Iraqis.The bias here was with Americans trying to convince the Iraqis how big of a threat Saddam was and another huge use of propaganda was the American official who said the pictures used by Al Jazeera were fake as Al Jazeera would find people and portray them in sadness. This links to the fact on how propaganda can be seen negatively as the bias from Al Jazeera held negative implications as they were providing people with false information by portraying Iraqis in a worse light.

This can also be traced to article by Jessica Lynch. Jessica Lynch was portrayed in the media as a success story and as a hero because of American soldiers being able to rescue her from an Iraqi capture and attack. She was portrayed as shot and then helped by American soldiers which thus results in propaganda being used in the media as a negative means of portrayal since they intended to make Iraqis look more like the "bad" nation. The Lynch story was then scrutinized later on as there was no proof of American soldiers taking Jessica Lynch to hospital and saving her life as doctors and medical workers denied that. There was a claim made that Americans were taking videos to show to the American public how they were on the road to saving Jessica Lynch but however there is so evidence proven that the American's theory of saving Lynch is true. The propaganda here clearly put Iraq under fire and created a lot of negative implications.

Bias Article

http://news.yahoo.com/colorado-suspect-brilliant-science-student-230349806.html

James Holmes, the predator and perpetrator behind the movie theatre shooting at a screening of Dark Knight Rises, hailed from San Diego, California.

His university success by graduating at UC Riverside later turned into a down point in his life and he turned his life into a living mess.

Holmes enrolled last year at University of Denver in a PHD program. The sadistic man ended up withdrawing from the program without any given reason.

Despite his academic achievement, Holmes life was heading nowhere and he never fulfilled his potential. He may have been at the "top of the top" in university but that resulted in no good cause when he entered the real world.

The man ultimately reached his breaking point and effectively wasted his potential by entering into the movie theater under a gas mask, painting his hair red to emulate "The Joker" as the film played in the cinema was Dark Knight Rises and he wore all black.

There is no reason as to why he may have done this as no evidence from social media usage was traced with Holmes but it can be possibly due to depression with his own life.

Runaway IOC practice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TttrnSfLILg

Munro Practice IOC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ixwft89aEA

Hope you enjoy it. Feedback would be nice.

This is Water Analysis

"This is Water" is an essay written by David Foster Wallace. The main point of Wallace's essay is to make us the audience be more aware in general of our surroundings and have more compassion and empathy towards the people who we pass by everyday. He encourages his audience to make decisions on what to focus on and he wants his target audience to focus on life before death.

Throughout his essay/speech, Wallace integrates several real life/realistic examples in order to be able to make that connection between him and his audience. As an example, in the beginning of the story he talks about 3 fish which confuses the audience as throughout the story we struggle to find what Wallace truly means with the example of the fish. I think he tries to show an interaction between 2 average people in life and illustrate to the audience what that average mentality is like. He develops his thesis by characterizing us as being ignorant to our surroundings at times.

Throughout the rest of his essay, he consistently speaks to the audience about how we humans tend to ignore the most basic things in life and how we always tend to brush off some of the most obvious sightings in our everyday lives. I really liked the way Wallace describe the normal everyday settings and the ordinary situations we find ourselves in always and I certainly agree with the point he makes about being unable to look at these situations critically and realize what exactly is going on even though we may be thinking about what is going on around us. He portrays us as always wanting to be in the center of attention and ignoring all the moving parts that surround the "centerpiece" which in this case is us. 

Literature here is able to develop empathy overall because as an example even I started to realize about some of the common everyday situations I've been through and all that has actually been going on opposed to what I think has been going on. Wallace's example of standing in a queue and being ignorant to the lady who tells us to have a nice day after we purchase is an example of our ignorance as we don't know the subtext behind that woman and we just look at these types of situations superficially. It develops emotional intelligence mainly because of being aware of what is around us and also being able to connect with other people's situations as Wallace talks in the story about assuming what that woman working at the supermarket would actually be like. 

Literature Reflection

We read literature to explore more about what the world is like and also be open to endless different interpretations of different works. We read literature to help ourselves create a better understanding of literature. Women's literature is basically a tool used by women themselves to express on how they feel and write about what they have experienced throughout their lives. Women will write about the social issues they have faced in society as they have been consistently been subjected to problems and been on the receiving end of sexism and before things such as having rights to do certain things or even so just having rights in general.

Alice Munro uses a lot of elements in her work which represent the common lives of women. She isn't necessarily a feminist but she does write about the realistic experiences that are very common to women such as being a housewife and living the everyday life of a woman. She doesn't exactly write about all the struggles of women but she does make the character similar in real life to other women. She puts a lot of thought and depth behind her characters and it's of the things that I like about her work. She represents her characters in good detail along with a good plot like Runaway or Family Furnishings. She starts off her stories in the middle of an issue and then lets the story progress which is something unique.

Reading Munro's work continues to make me realize more about the gender divide in society and see the difference between the roles of both women and men. I see how women have always been the ones who have been doing the dishes of the household and when a man does that part, it seems a bit ''awkward''. This is definitely due to the gender divide and some other things I learnt was how literature can make you realize about things like these. I have not read so much literature so therefore by reading her stories I have been more exposed to how people deliver the messages they want to send and why people read literature to a great extent.

Changes is one of the best written songs of the century

Changes by Tupac Shakur is considered to be one of the greatest and well written rap songs ever. Tupac chases a lot of major issues in this topic, he really raps from his heart about the oppression of African Americans in the United States, how they are always depicted to be criminals and how they are always abused by the police for drug use. Tupac does also talk about the hatred and lack of unity among the African American community and it's residents. He talks about how many African Americans are just forced to go into drugs to get by in life and that there is no other choice.

In the beginning of the song, the first verse. Tupac talks about how he sees no changes in his African American community. He sets the stage of the African American community as being one that is filled with poverty and corruption. He notes that being an African American that there is no choice but to go into criminal like habits such as stealing and drug dealing.First ship 'em dope and let 'em deal to brothers. This line signifies how he takes the stance of an African American being forced into dealing. Tupac also talks about how African Americans must see each other as "brothers" and not some "distant strangers" since the community is completely split apart and no one looks out for one another. He continually repeats that there are no "changes" and wants people to change for their own good. He repeats "I see no changes" twice which displays the use of an anaphora. The anaphora helps 2pac try to get into his black target audience on the fact that he doesn't see them moving further from what they are and that they have to change their lives and habits. He also uses an allusion as he refers to a man named Huey and he uses him in the first verse as an example of the disparity among the people in the African American community as he refers to Huey being dead again. The bridge of the song is portrayed as a sort of inner voice as the inner voice states that what Tupac wants to change will not and that we African Americans can't control the disparity in the community.

In the 2nd verse, Tupac brings White Americans into his song and he compares them to African Americans. 'Cause both black and white are smokin' crack tonight he Tupac here shows that white and black Americans are the same and no ethnicity is particularly superior to the other. He continues to bring up that African Americans are really doing things the wrong way and he brings up how the "penitiary" is packed and it is "filled with blacks" which shows that it is the ultimate sign on how they have suffered and what the causes of their actions have resulted into. Tupac also says that the onlt time "we chill is when we kill eachother". This takes into account the negative part of his community and shows how violent it is because people are being shot on the streets in African American neighborhoods everyday. Tupac does have a realistic view as he realizes that some things may not change as a lot of African Americans are into drugs and not even the slightest bit close to realizing their flaws.

The 3rd verse is a sort of motivation as Tupac is constantly reminding his fellow African Americans that our current lifestyle is not acceptable and if we continue to live this way, bad things will keep on piling up. He wants them to really change because he knows that on this path, they will continue to be oppressed, hated on and in the news for all the wrong reasons. The 4th verse, Tupac talks about the government focusing more on drugs than on the poverty in the African American community. He tells the members of the community to stay independent as they are clearly not in safe hands and that white people will continue to oppress them as being the drug deals of society. Rat-ta-ta-ta! is an onomatopoeia in the song that he uses in the end to signify the violence in the community with the simple sound of a gun shot. Overall I believe that Changes is one of the best songs ever written because Tupac speaks out about his own neighbourhood and where he came from and he explains the truth on how his community really has a lot of corruption. He is very realistic as he sees that some of their oppression is a bit overstated but at the same time Tupac realizes how his community is far from perfect and has many issues which need to resolved or else everything could be going downhill. I respect the way Tupac comes out and admits the truth on all that has gone wrong with this community and it is one of the few rap songs that I genuinely like. Tupac really calls out his community for a change and he tackles one of the biggest issues in America.

Losing his identity

Overall, it has been a good summer break for me aside from how fast it went, which annoys me. I went to New York City in July and spent a whole month there. I really enjoyed it there as I did all the usual things like go to Central Park, Rockefeller, Empire State Building, see a play on Broadway and then yeah so many other things as well.

In New York, I was able to see many ads on billboards especially in Times Square where women were being objectified. There I could remember about the objectification of women discussion we were having in class. I was able to see so much cultural diversity in New York as I met people working at different places who emigrated to New York City from India, China, Italy, Zimbabwe etc. This really got me thinking on the cultural emigration of people coming from less developed countries and going to more developed countries and starting a completely new generation and life in a more developed place. I was in a taxi with my family and we were talking to these taxi driver who emigrated from Ghana to United States and how he goes 6 months every year back there to meet his wife and kids living in Ghana. He was explaining how much of a struggle it is for people migrating from one place to another and how he himself has left his culture behind when living in New York. I remember that he stated he is losing his cultural identity of being Ghanaian and how he doesn't like that matter.

New York City really took the cultural diversity I saw too another level and this was really linkable to the first few things I learned in IB language and literature. 

Price Discriminated

When I was in New York. I went to a small flea market in Manhattan. There I saw two separate individuals buying coffee mugs. One was an African American man who was fluent in English while another was a Chinese woman who seemed to have limited English speaking skills as I saw her talk to some of the people working there about the prices and everything. What I saw was that the African American man and that Chinese woman were buying the exact same mug. I don't remember how much that mug cost honestly but I remember that it was pretty cheap of course since it is a mug.

I saw the African American guy purchase it first for a certain price and then I saw the Chinese woman buy it but this time for a larger price as the man running the stall charged extra to her. I realized immediately that he was able to take advantage of her limited English and charge her extra because she would be unable to realize the price difference. He succeeded after all and this moment reminded me about how difficult it is to live in countries that have a heavy emphasis on the English language and how in certain situations it can be a weakness exposed. The woman had absolutely no clue in this instance and I realized how much of a disadvantage not knowing a native language could be.

Since I speak English, I tend to forget how much of an advantage it is to know the English language and I forget often to see the other side of the picture and see how it can be a huge problem if one doesn't know English as they can be taken advantage of in the smallest of situations such as the coffee mug. Learning a language like English, which tends to have a good portion of speakers in nearly every country in the world really does help you be aware of your surroundings and helps us get through the simplest of situations with ease. This also links me back to the power of English over other languages as I have been to China before and been able to get through successfully by just knowing English and not knowing its main language which is Chinese but in places like USA or Australia you cannot get through by not knowing its main language. Really shows the power of the language.

How to Write About Indians

Make sure the Indian people work in  the call center, run a small run down grocery store or work as doctors (that's if you want to portray them as being rich). If you want to portray them as being on the poor end (which is most of the time) then option 1 and 2 are the answers, feel free to use any of them. They have to smell bad and wear dirty clothes most of the time. When they speak, their heads should be shaking all the time as if it is some sort of wobbly bobble head.

Most of the time, make them live in poverty. Make them the people who are oppressed and victims of all the bad things that happen. Don't make them as the center of the attention though, just make them as part of the people who are lost in the overpopulate crowd of Indians. Their language is Indian, no other language there exists. There are in reality 100s and 100s of languages spoken in India but just presume it's just one and it's called Indian (despite the fact that Indian is not even a language itself). Also, let your audience know about their religion. Let them know that each and every single Indian is a Hindu and doesn't eat beef. Not a single one is neither of the two or else they are extraterrestrial.

They only eat curry that's it and each and every single thing they put in their body, it's always going to be spicy no matter what. They are always your tech people who will help out in repairing your laptops. If they can't do that....then I can guess they aren't really Indian right?. If you are looking at Indian the country, make sure that Indians are riding elephants on the streets not cars because that is something that makes them very special. They don't play or watch anything aside from cricket, their national sport is hockey but no.....it's all cricket, make sure they live and breath cricket and that if cricket died, Indians wouldn't exist.

'

They got really tough parents, don't they. If they get 98 out of 100 and top marks in their class, their parents will hit them and not be happy because they missed out on just 2 marks!. They are forced to marry people they have never seen in their life before which makes them unlucky of course. They are always getting the best marks in school yet their parents aren't happy, gotta make sure every young Indian is like that. They all watch Bollywood, make them watch and love the typical Bollywood movies and make them ignorant towards Hollywood and not know what Hollywood even is. They got these strong accents too, their accents are the laughing stock among all accents and make every Indian's accent extremely thick and incorporate the head shaking part to it of course!.

This is how you should talk about Indians, if you don't do it like this then I have no idea what kind of people Indians actually are.

Paper 2 style response, How does Things Fall Apart conform to or deviate from, the conventions of a particular genre, and for what purpose?

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is an award winning and acclaimed novel about the struggles of Africans during the period of colonization. Things Fall Apart does deviate at times away from it's main genre but it also in many stretches of the book, shows the traits of being a historical fiction book or a tragedy story.

Achebe uses realism in his story to create his fictional characters and he uses a realistic approach when illustrating how the characters interact with one another throughout the story. Achebe puts the real and true values of the Igbo culture and components/pieces of the culture to get his message across. The kola nuts, beatings of Okonkwo's wives, crime and it's consequences, harvesting and marriage all show the realistic components of the Igbo Culture. The relationship between Okonkwo and his wives show how in reality people in the Igbo Culture behave with their wives. Achebe makes good use as well of the roles each character has in the film as it adds a very deft touch to the novel and makes the novel flow more towards a realistic historical type of fiction. Differentiating between what Igbo men and women had to do and what their roles were in their respective daily lives shows how realistic this story is. These components make the novel look like a very realistic fiction overall.

On the other side of the story, Achebe makes his novel look more like a tragedy and something that is more fictional overall. Achebe creates a lot of moments which overall affect Okonkwo's personality and he goes on to show throughout the story the decline of Okonkwo and all the problems he is facing. From almost shooting his wife, killing Ikemefuna, Killing Ezeudu's son and to all the way hanging himself at the end of the story, Okonkwo has been portrayed as a very much tragic hero in the story which makes the book look more like a tragedy. Okonkwo starts off being the top man in his town of Umuofia, he is portrayed as the complete person, a man who is a top wrestler and has the most wives which thus makes him to be one of if not the most wealthy people in Umuofia. Okonkwo's demise then starts to begin from internal problems with his family in the beginning to then overall problems with his town and nation. These components make the book seem more like a tragic story as it focuses more on the life of one person and how it declined rapidly compared to focusing on collectively the entire town of Umuofia as a whole.

The novel can also have a view on it's history and historical context overall. The novel does focus soon on the missionaries from England coming to Nigeria and colonizing them. In reality the same colonization period did occur as missionaries came from England to Nigeria and colonized them. Things Fall Apart can have a purpose on showing the effects of colonization and some of the impacts of it on people in Nigeria. Although many of the characters in the novel took the colonization very lightly, Okonkwo didn't and was completely shocked on how Umuofia changed. The novel can show the negative impacts of colonization through the character Okonkwo alone.

There are many different perspectives overall on seeing what is the mian genre of the book Things Fall Apart. Achebe overall doesn't set a particular genre to have in this book but he clearly wants the book to encompass all the various components in his mind from elements of Igbo culture to the colonization and he wants to make the book more suitable to audiences from all over the world so that they can relate to the book in one way or another compared to making it only suitable and relatable to people of his own culture.

Why Things Fell Apart

When I think about how my town crumbled, all I can think of is one word. Okonkwo. My best friend, my brother, he was the reason why Umuofia crumbled. I still love Okonkwo but I feel that he always looked at the negative side of things. I always tried to give him advice about what to do or try to help him think in deeper context but he didn't listen to me very much. I know I am not always right but I knew some of the advice that I gave Okonkwo could have worked out in his favour and I really wish he listened but at the same time one cannot change another person's actions and behaviour. I couldn't control Okonkwo nor anyone.

Our place was colonized by the British missionaries but it doesn't mean all was bad. Mr Brown was a very helpful person, a figure of whom I appreciated.  They built a church for us and they built a school but sure there were the downsides, our religion was lost in the fog as we had to move into Christianity. Okonkwo I feel overreacted, killing himself was way too far. It is a move that is regarded by our culture as a disgrace, killing your own body and soul is a huge sign of weakness and disgrace in our native Igbo culture. Okonkwo should have just realized that we were not the richest nation nor one of the most powerful places in the world and that we would easily been beaten by a Western nation that came to colonize us and rule us. I knew that there was nothing we could do about it, our culture is strong internally, we have formed a great bond and foundation but on the outside we are nothing in power compared to Britain so it was no surprise they took us by storm.

Okonkwo was a great human being, he was the complete man of Umuofia but he never really looked at many things in a positive way. Okonkwo could have seen all the actions in a more positive light but he took things too seriously, he had a pessimistic attitude. Sadly ever since he left us, our inner bond among his fellow people, among my fellow people has just fallen. His death has caused our culture to break into pieces, it is all shattered just like glass. I don't know if our culture can ever be the same again, our pieces are still there but they are broken, they have fallen apart and right now.....I cannot find a solution on how we can attach them and bring it all together.

Social Status in Things Fall Apart

Paper 2 Style Response, Things Fall Apart

The social status is an important theme in the book Things Fall Apart. From the opening of the book, Okonkwo and his father Unoka are both introduced. Okonkwo is shown to be the top of the social class as he is the most famous person in his town, the best wrestler and the strongest. His father Unoka on the other hand is shown to be on the bottom of the social class. Unoka represents a person of negative qualities throughout the book constantly, he was in debt, his life was heading downwards as he was constantly producing failures with his farming and he never seemed to have been able to settle somewhere properly. Unoka was a man who had no titles while Okonkwo was the one who did have titles as he overthrew the undefeated Amalinze the Cat to become the top wrestler of his town.

Unoka’s failures and laziness were the big reasons why he was on the bottom of the social class in the town of Umuofia. The Igbo believed that a person had to work hard, persevere and not be lazy if they wanted to reach the top of the social class. Okonkwo did just that as he worked hard since day 1 and persevered throughout his life as he went through the peaks and troughs of his life but always came out strong in the end. Okonkwo was a very successful warrior throughout the story. A very successful person in the story, one who is on top of the social order was represented to be someone who had won titles, had several wives, was able to farm successfully and be able to have enough money to afford things their wives and children wanted to have. Okonkwo clearly had all of these traits covered which already proves that he was able to be a person who was of very high social class. Social class clearly played a big theme as Unoka’s failures and his presence at the bottom of the social class were clear reasons why Okonkwo wanted to better him and become successful.

Looking at Okonkwo’s relationship with his children, it can be seen that his relationship with Nwyoe is rather negative. This is because he sees Nwoye as very feminine like and he sees him just as a younger version of his own father so therefore he feels that Nwoye is someone who in the future will be on the bottom of the social class. When we see Okonkwo’s relationship with Ezinma, he sees Ezinma having all the qualities of what the Igbo tribe perceives to be of a rather successful person. This plays a part in what makes Ezinma Okonkwo’s favourite as we sees him as someone who will be a top class person in the future.

Another example is Okonkwo’s wife. When his 3^rd wife goes away to get her hair done thus leaving Okonwkwo’s children all alone, this enrages Okonkwo which thus leads him into beating his wife. Okonkwo’s wife gets beaten by Okonkwo himself which overall lowers her social status as she is inferior to her own husband Okonkwo and cannot be seen on the same social platform as Okonkwo. Social status also applies to Obguefi Ezeudu as with his powerful role in the book, he is already viewed as someone very powerful in the society thus he is seen as a person of higher class. Okonkwo views Ezeudu as a powerful person and treats him with a lot of respect showing that Ezeudu is in the same class as him.

Okonkwo’s social power does decline as the missionaries come into Umuofia and overtake the entire village. Okonkwo then starts to experience an emotional decline as he starts to lose control over himself and he accidentally kills Ezeudu’s son. When Okonkwo was once considered to be on top of the social order, he held himself with great pride and was had control over his emotions and was the epitome of “masculinity”. Once he started to lose control over himself and started to lose some of his “masculinity”, Okonkwo started to experience a downfall as his own Igbo values started to desert him more and thus his social status value started to plummet in the end.

The overall social status in the book plays a big part towards the characterization as majority of the characters personality traits and relationship with Okonkwo is defined by their place in the social order. 

Okonkwo Analysis

Okonkwo is introduced in the story as a very powerful and strong willed character. We can see in the story that he is a brave person, he values a lot of important things in his life and he represents the kind of maturity that one would expect from a leader and a top figure of his town. Okonkwo does have a solid personality and he is a brave person but his fear of failing and weak gets the better of him as the story continues, he experiences misfortune as he accidentally shoots his wife, kills Ezeudu's son at his own funeral by mistake and is forced to kill Ikemefuna. Okonkwo is portrayed as a tragic hero as at the beginning of the story, he was portrayed as the person who had everything and then by the end of the story Okonkwo took away his life. The story encapsulates Okonkwo's rise and fall with his own bad luck and doubts which therefore cast him as a tragic hero.

Achebe chose to have a tragic hero in the play as a way to portray the struggles in an African environment and city. Achebe used him as a tragic hero in a way to show that no matter how privileged Okonkwo was in an African place, his status and his life will never be safe in an African place especially in one set in a colonization period.

I think Okonkwo is portrayed as an example of an African person, whose life turned for the worse due to the invasion of Western nations that came to colonize African places. Okonkwo is used to show how colonization really impacted Africans in such a horrible way and the fact that he hung himself in the end really showed that the colonization impact took Africans to highly drastic measures. Okonkwo's fall also sets a function to show how the rest of the characters in the story have fallen victim to the colonization but Okonkwo's decline standing out the most in the story.