tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83482930688452374142024-02-20T00:32:29.501-08:00HomelandsDr. June Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01401428856944751970noreply@blogger.comBlogger84125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8348293068845237414.post-81308020979160286532015-11-19T19:45:00.001-08:002015-11-19T19:45:16.371-08:00Motherhood & CultureOne of the things that really struck me about the readings was their focus on mother's and how they navigate their world with their children. In "Who's Irish," I was really struck by the prose and how it was written from the grandmother's voice. I thought the grandmother's struggle of how to raise her grandchild as an authentic Chinese girl was very real and interesting. She is constantly at odds with her daughter, who has assimilated to American culture, and her husband on the best way to raise the child. Her understanding of child-rearing is in conflict with the American "progressive" understanding of rearing children. Her headstrong ways result in her being moved out of the home, losing access to the direct raising of her grandchild. She does not know how to bend her ways in order to adjust to her surroundings.<br />
<br />
This reminds me of Okonkwo in "Things Fall Apart" who would rather die than adjust to the changing world around him. Or in "Potiki," the image of the tree that bends, but does not break. It brings to mind for me this image of balance. A balance that the grandmother has failed to find. She doesn't want to relinquish her Chinese heritage, and fails to understand that her granddaughter, though she may not immediately look like it, nor act like it, is Chinese too. Caught between to worlds, the grandmother is still wrestling with expanding her definition of what it means to be Chinese.<br />
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In "Borders," we see another stubborn mother who will not give up her heritage. When asked whether she is American or Canadian, she calmly responds each and every time, even when the stakes get higher, that she is "Blackfoot." Told through the narration of her child, we can see how this bothers the child who would have probably just have chosen a side to get this over with. In this way, I think, we are presented with a different viewpoint that reveals the strengths of holding on to the essential parts of one's identity even in the face of opposition. The way that she chooses to identify herself does no harm to anyone around her, but still the officers insist on her changing her title to the one they have provided her. In this situation, I would argue that the mother is choosing not to let the officers break her.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8348293068845237414.post-28637566701656225162015-11-18T11:54:00.001-08:002015-11-18T11:54:17.371-08:00Nationality vs Culture: The Inconvenience of Individuality in a Nationalistic World All three of these stories discuss the difficulty of embracing a "foreign" culture as part of you personality in a world hellbent on creating titles and divides between people. Nations are the primary offender in regards to these stories because it is the issue of national borders that insist on the homogenization of nation and individual. This issue is deeply rooted in colonial idealism, in particular it seems to be birthed in Enlightenment ideologies of the self. Several Enlightenment thinkers did not think of individuals as truly individuals, but a cog in the nation-state. Hobbes called it the Leviathan with the head of state as the literal head of this monster and the people making up the body. Locke called for people to give up individual freedoms for the betterment of the whole, which is not an inherently negative idealism, but the idea of giving individuality to the nation in order to gain supposed societal benefits has been misconstrued to give the nation far too much power. Rousseau saw this trend of giving freedom of self up to the nation in his work, "The Social Contract", when he said that, "man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains". The Enlightenment developed during the beginning of Colonization and the impact can be clearly seen where "foreign" countries became the feet of the Leviathan, caring the body and given nothing in return. Borders came out of this, and the creation of nations in general, as a trophy to the head of state to show how much he owned, though in actuality these borders are arbitrary. The system of border may work in Europe because there are defined cultures unique to the individual countries and within them even different sections will have divisions, like Italy has Rome, Lombardy, and Sicily which all have different sub cultures, but as a whole they can come together as Italians since these borders have existed for several centuries. This, however, is not the case in many other parts of the world where borders really were not a thing. Take the "Middle East" for example, it use to pretty much all be the Ottoman Empire, but for the most part cultures were tribal dictated from place to place, but they did not have an issue with this for the most part. Then come WWI and Europe decides to carve the Ottoman Empire up as a reward for their supposed hard work and that is when many of the issues of the modern Middle East come into play. How do you simply tell people of hundreds of different sub cultures that they are now Saudi or Pakistani or what have you when they do not have a huge concept of the European national culture. To this day the governments of these nations have little overall influence over the people because they govern themselves for the most part by the laws that have served them for many many years. Coming back to the stories, I believe that it is this forced homogenization that causes the tension in each story because this old world mentality that the nation must control the people instead of the nation being for the people. In "La Conciancia de la Mestiza", we see how someone living on the border of Mexico and the United States handles the idea of nationality. She does not consider herself of either nation entirely, but a breed in and of itself, mestiza, which is a way of embracing Mexican, American, and even Native American culture without compromising the self by chaining self to a single nation. Similarly we have the native american protagonist in "Borders". She refuses to claim either Canada or America as her place of origin, but instead embraces her tribal heritage as part of her being and the border guards cannot fathom this level of freedom as she refuses to chain herself to their conception of self as nation. "Who's Irish" is a bit different than the other two, but still shares a similar strand of choosing ones culture instead of being forced into, or out of, it. The main character believes in corporal punishment as it is more common in China and uses it on her granddaughter and is subsequently thrown out of the house and embraced as an "honorary Irish". She stuck by her heritage because she values it as part of her individuality, but because she refuses to conform to this new country's standards, she is mistreated by the most important institution in Chinese culture, family. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09458552325546567975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8348293068845237414.post-53867559834127683902015-11-18T09:56:00.001-08:002015-11-18T09:56:19.162-08:00Mothers in the Brave New World<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I should begin by stating that I believe I read the works for this week in the wrong order. That is to say, I didn’t read Gloria Anzaldúa’s, relatively less lyrical but bitingly insightful “Towards a New Consciousness” first. Thus, coming to it, as I was with “Borders” and “Who’s Irish” on my mind, I was able to have some questions clarified but inevitably had to return to the King and Jen in order to crystalize the answers. The consequence is that I’m left that undoubtedly the most poignant aspect of these three works is the way in which they deal with feminism, or more accurately women and even more specifically, mothers, in the postcolonial world. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anzaldúa speaks of the internal struggle that accompanies a severely mixed heritage, the guilt, the privilege and the ever threatening limbo one must push back against. However, she addresses the issue specifically as a woman (note her early declaration “I am a border woman” (Anzaldúa 3), something that I have not yet seen in this class. That isn’t to say that women haven’t played an important role but the one instance where a woman is the narrator (Potiki) her internal perspective, by virtue of both her intrinsically aloof nature and the fact that the novel does not set out to delineate Woman’s problem in the postcolonial world but a community’s, is heavily diluted. The reader is not granted access to what she feels specifically as a woman. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That isn’t the case in the two works of fiction read this week. There are no men who are forced to assimilate in these stories and those who mentioned tend to function as distant, influential, white hands that unfeelingly nudge the action one way or another. Their perspective takes a back seat to the women’s and the stories that emerge are richly laden with what it means to be the ever patriarchal, postcolonial universe in a way that is (for this class) unprecedented. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Each story, notably, deals in some significant part with the relationship between a mother and a daughter. Each story is told by a somewhat naive, might I say dopey, narrator who often fails to notice things that directly involve her (and possibly him I’m not sure what gender is narrating “Borders”). Each story features a strong willed female who does her utmost to not capitulate to the demands of a foreign culture. Who is only drawn out of her own by another woman and this is where the two stories diverge. In “Borders”, the narrator’s mother visits Salt Lake City in order to see her daughter but eventually she returns home and there’s really never any question that she will. Her daughter too, remembers her home, doesn’t love Salt Lake City so much (though I have to say there are better places to utilize in order to give mainstream America a shot) and it’s implied that she will return home eventually. The culture remains autonomous. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">By contrast, in “Who’s Irish” the narrator, she who stoically retains her culture in the face of her daughter’s abandonment, doesn’t so much abandon her culture as take on another and blur the lines between the two rendering the notion of cultural purity that are almost sacred in “Borders” seriously blurred. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hence, the portrait of two different women are painted, one who is open minded but unwilling to capitulate, the other who is perhaps narrow minded but absolutely willing to the baby steps of assimilation. This sparks the fascinating question of how the two cultures from which these women hail contributes to their own world views. But, as something that can be applied more universally, I submit that the mothers are able to leave their culture only as their daughter is. They fiercely protect the hearth as long as their young may need a place to return but if the cub flees and doesn’t look back, they then can leave. A poignant example of their dedication and their perception of their role in this, the brave new world. </span></div>
<br />Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12244695982380097205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8348293068845237414.post-43729530133028682622015-11-18T09:29:00.002-08:002015-11-18T11:25:52.434-08:00Cultural Contact Points<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The three readings
assigned for this week illustrate the dynamic of cultural identity under
circumstances where two differing cultures meet. The characters depicted in
these stories represent cultural amalgamation and assimilation. Their
mixed-ethnic composition prompts them to take ownership of their diverse
heritage in spite of their culturally polarized society. The conceptualization
of "Homelands" in these stories consists of locations on the
boarder of two differing cultures. Every character asserts their own uniqueness
and refutes the notion of cultural singularity. Their stories contradict this
notion by demonstrating the ethnic and cultural diversity prevalent at cultural
contact points such as the boarders of a nation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "times new roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The United States/Mexico boarder consists of an integrated rather than polarized group of individuals. Gloria
Anzaldua embodies cultural diversity and proudly expresses her mixed
"mestizo" heritage. The pride she takes in her lineage correlates
with the notion of diversity at cultural contact points. The Native
American characters demonstrate similar degrees of adamant pride in their
cultural roots. After the near obliteration of Native American culture,
surviving Natives were given an ultimatum between opting for American or
Canadian citizenship. Many infuriated Natives refused to give European's
the satisfaction of claiming or "winning over" their Native American
culture such as the protagonist Laetitia’s mother. When asked at the
boarder what side she originated from, she replies, "The Blackfoot
side." Her mother's pride in her tribal heritage in the face of a
white man demonstrates her resilience in the face of the very men who
steadily continued to ravage Native American culture. Sophie's grandmother
demonstrates her cultural confusion and her disdain resulting from
her family's amalgamation of Irish and Chinese cultures. Her feelings are
indicative by her outburst and brutal punishments of
her granddaughter Sophie. Only through Bess does she find solace in her
mixed herratige when Bess calls her an "Honorary Irish." This title
seems to alleviate the family's concern regarding their mixed origins
and further facilitates their cultural assimilation.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13398046441861409586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8348293068845237414.post-37828362077829425402015-11-18T09:13:00.001-08:002015-11-18T09:13:31.037-08:00Borders and Cultural Fluidity <div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The three
readings for this week all touch on one important concept in defining cultural
identity. Namely, that borders do not and cannot act as indicators of a
person's beliefs, nationality, or values. Identity is fluid and has the ability
to transgress all types of borders, both physical and imagined. These
separate readings all contain examples of people who surpass physical borders
and retain his or her own values.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The first reading, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Towards a New Consciousness</i>, sets the
tone for the articles that follow. The author makes the case that a third consciousness
must be developed in order for cultures and identities to merge successfully.
It cannot only be about one against the other; rather, it must be a collective effort
to hone this new way of thinking to establish more peaceful and tolerant
rhetoric between cultures. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mestiza </i>consciousness
occurs when a person stops merely reacting to situations, and instead acts of
his or her own accord: “In attempting to work out a synthesis, the self has
added a third element which is greater than the sum of its severed parts. That
third element is a new consciousness—a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mestiza
</i>consciousness—and though it is a source of intense pain, its energy comes
from continual creative motion that keeps breaking down the unitary aspect of
each new paradigm” (102). This third consciousness can act as a catalyst for
change, but only when this perspective is developed out of a need to keep
moving forward.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The second reading, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Who’s Irish?</i>,<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>by Gish Jen tells the story of an elderly Chinese grandmother who
must grow and change after she is rejected by her daughter. As stated before,
borders do not define a person’s cultural values or identity. The grandmother
in these stories is living in a foreign country after fleeing from China with
her daughter. She and her daughter often clash when it comes to discussing
Irish and English culture, as the daughter believes her mother’s attitudes are
backwards. Things come to a head when the daughter discovers her mother has
been beating her granddaughter. After awhile, the grandmother has to learn to
accept that her methods are no longer tolerated, and she must forge a new
identity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The last reading, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Borders</i>, tells the tale of a woman
attempting to cross the border from Canada into America. She runs into problems
when the guard at the border asks her to declare her citizenship, and she
simply identifies herself as Blackfoot. The guard is unsatisfied with this
response, and the woman is forced to sleep in her car with her son on the
border. She is desperate to retain her sense of identity, and she refuses to
conform to the idea that a border defines the people who live in it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Times; font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>These three readings all deal with
the problem of identity, and how to preserve it when physical borders are removed.
To the characters in the stories, leaving one border to enter another does not
mean that they give up values and beliefs. To them it is the people within a
border that should define the area, and not the other way around. </span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Claire Buchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556345752956585962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8348293068845237414.post-14907790237207492022015-11-18T08:49:00.002-08:002015-11-18T08:49:47.229-08:00The Preservation of Identity<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The characters in
all three works we read this week face the same problem of having cultures
which conflict with their surroundings, but throughout all of their struggles
they remain true to who they are. Anzaldua discusses in her chapter “<i>La Conciencia de la mestiza: </i>Towards a
New Consciousness” the struggle of being a <i>mestiza</i>
and not feeling entirely at peace in any single group. She explains that “the <i>mestiza’s</i> dual or multiple personality
is plagued by psychic restlessness” because of her inability to reconcile the
opposing races to which she belongs (Anzaldua 100). However, she embraces her
mixed heritage, and she declares it to be an advantage in her pursuit for
unity. She sees herself as a potential mediator between two peoples, a
transition from ignorance into understanding, because of her identity.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
In Gish Jen’s “Who’s
Irish?” too, the narrator is out of place in her surroundings, but she
steadfastly holds to her beliefs and her customs. Her daughter Natalie is
ashamed of her failure to assimilate to life in America, but the narrator
insists on keeping her heritage with her. She criticizes the American (and
specifically Irish) way of living and pines for China. She is bitter and mean
to her Natalie and her husband’s family, but she defends her Chinese values at
all costs. She is distressed by her granddaughter’s lack of modesty because it
goes against Chinese propriety, and she corrects it using methods familiar to
her from her life in China. She cannot understand why the others refuse to
accept this, and laments the American culture they try to force on her: “In
China,” she says, “daughter take care of mother. Here it is the other way
around” (Jen 5). Underlying her stubborn and disagreeable nature is a deeply
rooted sense of disappointment at the reversal of her beliefs. In this
instance, her stubbornness becomes a detriment to her, but she adheres to her
values to the end, protecting her Chinese identity from the obstacles of
America.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Finally, in “Borders,”
Thomas King gives us a Blackfoot woman who wishes to cross the border from
Canada into America without compromising her identity. Every time the border
guards ask her to declare her citizenship as either American or Canadian, she
simply announces that she is Blackfoot. She is unfazed by their frustration,
and when they refuse to let her pass until she declares her citizenship by
their standards, she simply stays on the border between the two countries,
sleeping in her car with her son. She is desperate to preserve her identity,
and to nurture her son’s cultural pride. While they are trapped between
countries, she tells him Blackfoot stories about the stars, “repeating parts as
she went, as if she expect[s him] to remember each one” (King 144). She wants
him to feel the same pride she does, so that he too will defend his background
against those who try to define him on their terms. She refuses to have her
identity stamped out by those for whom it is inconvenient.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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From these three
stories, it is clear that identity and heritage are closely intertwined. All
three of these works stress the importance of defending one’s identity. In some
cases, like Jen’s narrator’s, the adherence to tradition can be detrimental,
and in others, like Anzua’s and Laetitia’s mother, it can be positive. In any
case, it is always admirable: they stay true to their convictions, even when
the rest of the world opposes them.<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06676877542153608377noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8348293068845237414.post-3299568804550626602015-11-18T08:32:00.002-08:002015-11-18T08:32:53.414-08:00Borders and Homelands The three excerpts for this week brought all of the reading that we have done together by representing the way in which homelands clash in the United States and the different ways people adapt and assimilate. In "Who's Irish?", a hardworking Chinese immigrant is forced to accept her daughter's rejection of her "old-fashioned" parenting techniques and subsequently her culture and ancestry. "Borders" tells a story of a Blackfoot woman who will not define herself as anything but Blackfoot,even if it means she and her son have to sleep in their car. Finally, the "Borderlands" excerpt by Anzaldua, defines the "alien consciousness" or "la mestiza", that is created by borders. Each of these stories and excerpts comments on the way in which human beings adapt to being in a new place and having a new homeland. In "Who's Irish?", the grandmother must accept that her daughter has rejected her but also must realize that she cannot generalize about Irish people, as her son-in-law's mother is extremely kind and accepting. In "Borders", the young boy witnesses his mother standing her ground for her home and her culture. She refuses to define herself as American or Canadian, even though it is only a formality and attracts so much attention that she is given what she wants. It is interesting to see the story through the young boy's eyes as he does not understand why his mother won't just give in. Once again, this shows the way in which the younger generation can be more willing and susceptible to adaptation whereas for older generations, it is harder to let go of their beliefs and former home. Finally, in the "Borderlands" excerpt, the author sums up what it is like to cross a border and become a new person and create a new home. It is about how at some point, when one crosses a border, one has to leave behind some things that characterized their past. It is hard to let go of some parts of your past home but as Anzaldua writes, "Rigidity means death....La mestiza constantly has to shift out of habitual formations". In addition, i think that the ideas expressed in the readings for this week can be applied and compared with the ideas about home and homelands that we have experienced already.<br />
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Megan Bradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03653214845317107828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8348293068845237414.post-87977628658350793012015-11-17T17:44:00.003-08:002017-03-31T08:35:54.172-07:00Nationalities as Social Constructs<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In
our three readings for this week, we see that home often cannot be defined by the
social constructs that are borders, and that identity cannot solely be
associated with one’s nationality. The three pieces address the concepts of
home and identity in different manners, but all seem to demonstrate that
despite our tendency to classify ourselves based on our countries of origin,
one’s nationality may not always be an accurate representation of how one
identifies his or her self. Today, we live in a world that is segmented by
walls, fences, and imaginary lines. These dividers force us to pick one side or
the other, but this dichotomy does not apply to all and it often alienates
those who fall into the no-man’s land that is created as a result of these
borders.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Borderlands/La Frontera</i>, Gloria
Anzaldua’s account of life along the Mexican/American border is evidence of the
limitations of using nationality as a primary identifier of those whom we
associate with. As Anzaldua describes, the border does not represent a clean
split of cultures. Instead, the Borderland is a place where numerous cultures
intersect—Indian, Mexican, American—and all of these cultures come to be
visible in the people who inhabit this land. Anzaldua does not call herself
Mexican or American. Instead, she identifies as a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mestiza; </i>“a product of crossbreeding; designed for preservation
under a variety of conditions” (Anzaldua 103).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is unfair that Anzaldua must be forced to classify herself as one
nationality or the other, as neither justly represents the hybridity of her
identity, nor accurately communicates where Anzaldua feels her roots are. This
story is indicative of the damage that our global system of nation-states truly
inflicts on the people of the Borderlands, as by being forced into certain
taxonomies, people like the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mestiza</i>
“have never been allowed to develop unencumbered…never been allowed to be fully
[them]selves” (108). <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A
similar situation unfolds in Thomas King’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Borders</i>.
Prior to the arrival of European settlers to North America, Native Americans
maintained unchallenged sovereignty over their own land. However, colonial
powers viewed the Natives as an impediment to their own expansion, and so it
was necessary to relocate the tribes—often forcibly. Native Americans were forced
to forfeit their sovereignty and were “allowed” to become citizens of America
and Canada. However, for some, even claiming citizenship with a country that
was occupying their land was an admission of defeat and submission to the
colonizers. So, when Laetitia’s mother is stopped at the border and asked to
state whether she is coming from the “Canadian side or American side,” it is
only natural for her to respond that she is coming from the “Blackfoot side”
(King 138).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For her, admitting to come
from either America or Canada is to recognize the legitimacy of a country that
has stripped her people of their land and their sovereignty. Her refusal to
capitulate is an incredible example of pride and resilience in the face of an
oppressive system that has deemed her rights and the rights of her people as
insignificant, and is thus a refusal to be a willing participant in such a
system<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> In
“Who’s Irish?” by Gish Jen, the Grandmother is faced with a loss of her own
identity as she begins to realize that her world has changed around her and
become largely unfamiliar. She is troubled by the fact that her granddaughter’s
“nice Chinese side [has been] swallowed by her wild Shea side” (Jen 6). She
knows that in China, she would deal with a problem like this with spanking the
child, but her daughter and son-in-law don’t view this as acceptable. After
seeing Sophie’s bruises resulting from what the Grandmother would call light
punishment, the Grandmother is forced to leave the house and is no longer
allowed to babysit Sophie. However, she is taken in by Bess, who assures the
Grandmother that she is an honorary Irish. In the face of this loss of touch
with her own traditions that she associated with being Chinese, the Grandmother
finds solace in accepted into Bess’s culture, demonstrating again the fluidity
of nationalities and their lack of concreteness.</span><!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971985064636713261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8348293068845237414.post-24804679769518230972015-11-11T18:06:00.001-08:002015-11-11T18:06:26.058-08:00Obstacles to Assimilation<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"> Perhaps the greatest
challenge of adjusting to a new home is the gaining the acceptance of those
with whom you must share it. People who have lived in a particular place for
their entire lives become accustomed to a specific standard of behavior to
which they hold all others. Those who outwardly express differences encounter
the greatest resistance from these people, because they begin as outsiders, and
their transition becomes more difficult as a result.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
A common image of
home is a place where one belongs, and where one is understood. It is difficult
to admit strangers, those who do not fit the mold, into such a place. One
naturally comes to expect what is familiar, and deviations from those
expectations can be jarring. In my New Jersey hometown, which is more diverse
than many, there is a large Indian American population. I grew up with
classmates whose parents moved to America from India, and I became acquainted
with their culture and customs. Most of my peers at home consider this blending
of cultures the norm. Our parents’ generation, however, grew up in a different
context – there was far less diversity in the area when they were young. To
them, people of color remain strange and inscrutable. They still subscribe to
unfair stereotypes, and they treat members of other races with mistrust,
particularly those “exotic” races to which they had no exposure for their
entire lives.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Jasmine wants
desperately to be accepted into American society. She has been so deeply
scarred by her past, which she equates to India, that her only apparent escape
route is complete assimilation in America. In Flushing, where she lives in a
bubble of desperate cultural preservation, she “was spiraling into depression
behind the fortress of Punjabiness” (148). The sameness is oppressive to her.
And yet, when she tries to become fully American, she discovers that others
make it difficult. Wylie and Taylor try to be accepting and unbiased, but
occasionally slip and reveal that they still consider her different from them.
When they she first meets Jasmine, Wylie assumes that Jasmine is “probably
tired of Americans assuming that if you’re from India or China or the Caribbean
you must be good with children” (168). Firstly, Jasmine has never heard this
stereotype, and so by exposing her to it Wylie inadvertently alerts Jasmine to
the differences that native (and Caucasian) Americans perceive between
themselves and foreigners. Moreover, Wylie subtly categorizes herself and
Jasmine, placing herself into the “American” category and Jasmine into the
“other” category. For Jasmine, whose greatest desire is to become completely,
undeniably American, this distinction is a massive obstacle to overcome. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Wylie and Taylor
eventually become accustomed to their caregiver, but they are not the last ones
to ostracize Jasmine. Dr. Mary Webb, with whom Jasmine eats lunch at the
University Club, approaches her under the assumption that because Jasmine is
Indian, she must understand her spiritual dabbling. She says that the idea of reincarnation “can’t
be new or bizarre to [Jasmine]. Don’t you Hindus keep revisiting the world?”
(126). She assigns Jasmine a belief system and personality based on how she
looks. She even comments that she assumed Jasmine was a vegetarian. Jasmine,
even with her Indian background, wants to be considered American, but others
refuse to accept this because of her appearance. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Jasmine is not the
only character to encounter these challenges: Du is also treated differently
because of his race. Though Du is more attached to his cultural background than
Jasmine is to hers, he wants to adjust to America on his terms, and native
citizens do not try to understand or respect those terms. Du’s teacher compares
Du to other Vietnamese children he has encountered, and tries to speak
Vietnamese to him, which horrifies Du and Jasmine. She comments that “this
country has so many ways of humiliating, of disappointing,” because those who
do not understand them assume that they know everything about them (29).
Jasmine observes that all immigrants, legal or not, start letting go of their
pasts eventually, and all at once “the rest goes on its own down a sinkhole”
(29). And yet, it can never go away entirely, because those who do not accept
them and instead fall back on stereotypes will continue to bring them back to
the pasts they have left behind.<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06676877542153608377noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8348293068845237414.post-61850807045831625752015-11-11T11:24:00.001-08:002015-11-11T11:24:24.757-08:00Role of names in JasmineThe role of names in <i>Jasmine </i>correlates with the protagonist's various relationships with other characters as she travels to various places throughout the course of the novel. Jasmine grew up in Punjab India and was originally named Jyoti by her parents. Her name seems to change in accordance with the relationships she fosters with others. Her birth name Jyoti represents closeness and affinity not only with her family, but with her Punjab culture as well. Her father refers to her as Jyoti until his death and eventually Jyoti meets and falls in love with a young man named Prakash. He begins calling her Jasmine as their relationship blossoms and Jasmine's new name signifies her coming of age and marriage. It also represents her new life with Prakash. Years later Prakash is murdered and Jasmine moves to Manhattan with her close friends. Jasmine's friend Taylor affectionally refers to her as Jase, signifying another chapter in her life with new relationships. Jasmine flees to Iowa after encountering her husband's murderer and meets an older banking agent in his fifties named Bud. Her name changes once again to Jane as she lives in Iowa caring for her adopted son Du. Jane seems to derive the least fulfillment from her life with the much older and crippled Bud. Her transition correlates with the prophetic insight provided by the fortune teller in the beginning of the novel. Jasmine's transition from Jyoti to Jane correlates with her gradual loss of self.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13398046441861409586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8348293068845237414.post-22013717119659523522015-11-11T10:05:00.000-08:002015-11-11T10:05:26.425-08:00Jasmine's JourneyMy reading of this book is that it simply wants to communicate that life is a journey. Jasmine goes through a series of life changes and continues to move from place to place, constantly in motion. I think it is very interesting that the story is told i a flashback form. It seems to me that the structure itself is communicating that the current Jasmine is a combination of all the past events that occurred to her, all the past people that she was or became before we meet her.<br />
I was specifically intrigued by the astrologer's prophecy in the beginning of the book. I think that despite Jasmine's protest, his words definitely do color her life experiences. It seems that it does come true in a sense, and that in another sense, some of her actions are propelled by a need to not allow the prophecy to come true. The Jasmine we readers know is not a widowed women, as the prophecy tells her she is to live her life in "widowhood and exile" (3). Yet, this is not the case. The words haunt her, however much she wishes they didn't, as she comments at the end of this reflection, she communicates "I know what I don't want to become" (3).<br />
Following this further, it could be argued that the prophecy did come true when Jasmine was another version of herself, or living another life. Jasmine admits "I have had a husband for each of the women I have been. Prakash for Jasmine, taylor for Jase, Bud for Jane. Half-face for Kali " (197). By the end of the novel, it seems that Jasmine has come to embrace a fluid philosophy of life. she tells Karin "something [she's] an expert on: I see a way of life coming to an end" (229), reflecting that "when [she] was a child, born in a mud hut without water or elecricity,the Green revolution had just struck Punjab [... she asks to] release Darrel from the land. There are different mysteries at work" (229). It strikes m this parallel between the both of them, they are both beholden to a land or custom that they wish to be free of, the only way in which they can truly be free of them, however, is to die. However, Jasmine dies and is reborn as a new person with a new identity, whereas Darrell dies for good.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8348293068845237414.post-91730400131470249922015-11-11T10:03:00.006-08:002015-11-11T10:03:49.081-08:00The Long Shadow of Society: How the Struggle Between Societal and Individual Self Leads to Loss of Identity The protagonist of <i>Jasmine</i> is in a constant state of flux because she never stops to develop the self as she feel the weight of Society's shadow forcing her to prioritize duty over identity. This is true from the chronological beginning to the end, starting with her education. Education is an amazing tool for development of self as it exposes you to many fields of interest through communicable experience, but only if you take the time to introspectively reflect and find the self through that which is not self. She instead simply absorbs life like a sponge and never squeezes out the excess. She instead seeks to define self through how other define her, again without her own reflection and consent, as we see with the constant shift of name. Instead of her naming herself, or upholding the name she was given at birth, she flows with how others define her; Jasmine, Jazzy, Jane, etc. This has her in constant flux as she has no base to come back to, no self, so she is swept up by the current of life. At the very end is when we finally see that she understands the state of things and looks to define the self. She references back to the astronomer told her she would be a widower and exiled, again being defined by others, but now she says she will re-position the stars, thus finally having an active, and not passive, impact on her own life. This speaks to the idea of inner homeland not in the way any others have spoke about it before, as even Rushdie took culture and ethnicity as a major part of inner homeland, because the author talks about self as homeland. Experiences are of course needed to understand self, like culture, but ultimately they are simply a lens used to view self and they do not define what self is, we are the only ones who can truly affect the self homeland, we are the only ones who can position our stars. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09458552325546567975noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8348293068845237414.post-20382687349757460782015-11-11T10:03:00.003-08:002015-11-11T10:03:16.341-08:00Plain Jane or Jasmine?<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">In
<i>Jasmine, </i>the protagonist has somewhat
of a distorted sense of home. What is home to her is a combination of different
places as well as different people. From India to New York and finally to Iowa
she finds herself and begins her journey as Jasmine. Through her many different
experiences readers gain an understanding of what it’s like to be a lost girl
in a new place where you have to start over. Interestingly enough she
juxtaposes her life in India to her new life in Iowa. What she discovers
throughout much of the book is that some of the sufferings which herself and
her family endure in India is kind of similar to some of the suffering many of
the new characters in her life in Iowa experience. This parallel of worlds
begins right at the beginning: “We are just shells of the same Absolute, (15).”
Jasmine sees the similarities as well as the differences remembering this
saying by villagers and recognizing that although Iowa is a somewhat
drastically different environment there are important similarities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">One
of those similarities is when she tries to talk to Mother Ripplemeyer about her
world-class poverty stories. Although Mother doesn’t understand, they do have
similar experiences to share since Mother experienced poverty during the
Depression. In a way she tries to find connections among the people in Iowa.
She does that because she wants a new identity as an American in Iowa and if by
doing that she has to find connections to her roots to feel truly at home. “Jane
as in Jane Russel, not Jane as in Plain Jane. But Plain Jane is all I want to
be. Plain Jane is a role, like any other. My genuine foreignness frightens him
[Bud]. I don’t hold that against him. It frightens me, too (26).” She wants to
belong and feel at home and doesn’t want to be different, or foreign but “plain”
or ordinary. She witnesses racism and sees how Mexican immigrants are treated
and is somewhat connected to them. She understands what it’s like to feel
disconnected and “foreign” in a supposed safe (?) place. “I suppressed my
shock, my disgust. This country has so many ways of humiliating, of
disappointing. (29)” Jasmine addresses Du’s ignorant history teacher and his
comment about “trying a little Vietnamese” on him. The fact that she suppressed
her shock expresses her yearning to belong to the American society. She wouldn’t
dare address the teacher in fear she might upset him and in turn be an outsider
within her new community. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Throughout
the duration of the novel, Jasmine’s detest with America shows more and more. She says phrases like, “I wish I’d known
America before it got perverted (200),” referring to Bud and is misgnostic
ways. Another similarity between India and America would be the oppression of
women. Both Karin and Jane (Jasmine) are kind of victims of Bud’s wounded sense
of self, “Karin and Jane, wives of a wounded god. Who will say a mantra for us?
(215)” This parallel between two of Bud’s lovers/wives also draws a comparison
between India and America. These two women are not so different and have a
person in common. In a way Jasmine is pretty similar to Karin.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">At
the end of the novel, Jasmine is faced with this inevitable conclusion. She
goes to Iowa because it’s safe and easy. She goes there to be Plain Jane. What
she discovers, is she isn’t Plain Jane and she must leave Bud because he
prevents her from truly being free in this supposed free land. “I am not
choosing between men, I am caught between the promise of America and old-world
dutifulness. A caregiver’s life is a good life, a worthy life. What am I to do?
(240)” Her answer is to choose the life of freedom, of discovery. Instead of
settling in Iowa as Plain Jane, she chooses to see the world in America as
Jasmine who is no longer afraid.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254412322481981929noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8348293068845237414.post-83256881771994689342015-11-11T10:00:00.005-08:002015-11-11T10:00:26.477-08:00Dead dogs are not virile<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I feel so potent, a goddess.”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With this musing the reader is introduced by the protagonist to ultimately exhibits itself to be a major (arguably </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">major) theme of the work. That is to say, sensuality is one of the primary driving forces behind the development of Jyoti/Jasmine/Jane</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. It serves as a catalyst for both her triumphs and trauma and by all appearances seems to absolutely color her perception of the world, i.e., the action of the novel (which is driven by her narration) can be interpreted within a framework of eroticism. As e.g., consider the character, Darrell Lutz. He kills himself because of his inability to tend the farm, to grow life, to have a life carried on the frothy foam of sensuality which incessantly propagates the possibility and literal occurrence of creation. The stasis that Darrell falls into, that the Professorjis fell into, that Bud was forced into, is something that Jasmine flees from, quite literally. She attaches herself to whatever opportunity for escape presents itself, even if it requires her to move to Iowa or play the homewrecker or leave a man to whom she is the world and more. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think this restlessness can be traced to the experience described in the very first chapter of the book, in which she encounters the dead dog floating on the river.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> She not-so-cryptically states, “ That stench stays with me...I know what I don’t want to become”.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The dog symbolizes the decay associated with a lack of virility. Thus, Jasmine yearns for something mostly incoherent but can best be hinted at by her sexuality that overpowers her as much as anybody else. Thus, she lives a life of impulse, an exciting life, one that intoxicates those who come into contact with her and inspires a very (post) modern view of what it means live an American life. It’s one that’s intermingled with a bittersweet, highly erotic sense of loss and simulation, running all the while from a strange, inexplicable emptiness that causes succesfull people to kill themselves and seemingly happy men to abandon twenty eight years of marriage for its promise. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The distaste that Jasmine feels for the stale, dutiful existence of orthodoxy is one that stirs yours affectionately and aligns (a little, frustratingly typically) with my own worldview. It follows with the old cliche of youth that calls for something of a surrender to a pneumatically sultry and idealized sense of self that dazzles and dizzies and seeks, constantly seeks. Mukherjee’s work by no means glorifies the nomadic life lived by Jasmine and the protagonist herself doesn’t wander around with a lustful sense of wide eyed wonder and exhilaration. In spite of this, it’s a life Jasmine constantly reaches for over and over again no matter how many alternatives she’s presented with, each one farther away from the world she left behind. It’s a philosophy that yours truly aspires to (so far with little success) and Jasmine is a character that I don’t think it’s unfair to relate to. Yes, material necessity that I could never begin to fathom, were causes in many of the decisions that bore her along but they were never </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> cause. That, I would assign to was her sensuality which buoyed her above contentment and left her filled with a need to constantly transform herself, to constantly move along no matter who she loved and who loved her. Thus, one may take a cue from Jasmine to always carry on the search for something that cannot be found, to remain in a state of constant departure while always arriving. </span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-42a44ee2-f7b4-42dc-3a34-fd19f5a6c03e"><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(For those last 11 words I must cite Richard Linklater and his film </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Waking Life</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> even though I don’t want to).</span></span>Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12244695982380097205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8348293068845237414.post-83012941030705784492015-11-11T09:32:00.000-08:002015-12-16T12:16:09.036-08:00Jasmine's Search for the Real Life
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In Bharati
Mukherjee’s novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jasmine</i>, the title
character seems to constantly be plagued by a longing for the “real life” that
her husband Prakesh attempts to describes to her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a young girl, an astrologer foretells that
Jyoti is destined for widowhood and exile, and after the death of her father
brings a similar fate to her mother, this prediction seems increasingly likely.
She seems to beat these odds upon marrying Prakesh, who dreams of more than the
life that they have for themselves in their small town in India, and hopes that
Jasmine will join him in this pursuit of something more. Perplexed, Jasmine
wonders: “What is this real life? I have a real life” (Mukherjee 81). After
being raised to expect nothing more than the life she was currently living,
Prakesh begins to convince Jasmine that she deserves more than she is destined
for. While this may be true, Jasmine becomes lost in the search for this real
life after Prakesh’s death, leading to a persistent restlessness that follows
her around the United States. In Queens with Professorji, she is greatly
disappointed with the America that she finds, and seems to find credence with
Professorji’s complaint that “America was killing him,” as she feels similarly
because the reality of life in the states cannot possibly match the high
expectations that Prakesh’s “real life” carried (146). The circumstances
provoked by hardships in Iowa similarly depress Jane. This story strikes a
comparison between expectation and reality, and how our own expectations can impact
how we experience the life that we are living in the moment. In this scenario,
the title character’s high hopes actually impact her real life experiences
negatively, as she is often unable to enjoy living in the United States,
despite the fact that it represents an escape from the life of an exiled widow
that she was destined to live in India. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03971985064636713261noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8348293068845237414.post-45928771327561561702015-11-11T09:25:00.002-08:002015-11-11T09:28:34.033-08:00Shifting Identity in Jasmine We have discussed in class the idea of a person changing their personality, tastes, and character to reflect their relationship, their location, or their state of mind. We saw in <i>Eat, Pray, Love, </i>that Liz Gilbert changed herself when she moved from her marriage into her relationship with David, and it took her a trip around the world and back to find who her true self was. Even then, as we discussed, Gilbert falls immediately into another relationship which made us question whether her journey had been truly successful or not. In<i> Sons for the Return Home, </i>the boy becomes more and more involved with papalgi culture because of his girlfriend. He becomes a part of her world in order to be closer to her, which only cause more confusion for him later. It was interesting to see in <i>Jasmine </i>that the main character, as she moves from place to place and encounters hardships throughout her life. Jasmine is also "Jyoti", "Jazzy", "Jassy", "Jase", and "Jane"; as she moves further away from her homeland and Indian culture, her names become more and more westernized. The change of name also represents her changing identity; she begins as a traditional Indian girl, who wants to break free of the restraints of her society by marrying a progressive man, which she does. She learns English and becomes "Jasmine" to her new husband, stating "I shuttled between identities" (Mukherjee 77). This statement also relates to when she is widowed and she is torn between the dream of a new life in the US and what her family in India expects of her. She late becomes Jase when she meets Taylor and Jane with Bud; this seems to be similar to the way Gilbert changed to fit with the men in her life rather than changing to fit herself.<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Her journey in the novel ends with Jasmine leaving for California, which suggests that she will continue to move and "shuttle" both physically and metaphorically. Her identity is in constant flux in this novel; she adapts to her new surroundings and takes on attributes of those who surround her while deciding which aspects of her past to keep and which to get rid of. Jasmine is like a quilt, made of all of the people she has been. She says herself, "Then there is nothing I can do. Time will tell if I am a tornado, rubble-maker, arising from nowhere and disappearing into a cloud. I am out the door ahead of Taylor, greedy with wants and reckless from hope"<span style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.4px;"> (Mukherjee 241). </span></span>The woman she is at the end of the novel, is a blend of all of her past selves, but she is also moving on to continue to search for her one true identity, or home. She cries for all the people she has been and all of the people she has been that she has let go of to create her present self.</div>
In terms of home, this novel gives us a perspective on the post-colonial world that we have not seen before: a woman from India, desperate to leave and find a new life in America. It is interesting to see the shift from previous novels that we have read. Jasmine is a unique heroine, who will stop at nothing to find herself, and when she does, find the place where she truly belongs. The place where, she can shed all of her former selves, and be truly free to be herself.<br />
<br />Megan Bradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03653214845317107828noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8348293068845237414.post-17204408069774983942015-11-11T07:58:00.002-08:002015-11-11T07:58:20.278-08:00The Search for Home and Identity in Jasmine <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">As
we were previously informed, Mukherjee’s inspiring novel, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jasmine</i>, is the polar opposite from Gilbert’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Eat, Pray, Love</i>. It tells the tale of a widow seemingly destined to
spend the remainder of her days alone and unwanted in her small Indian village,
according to the local astrologer. Jasmine, however, refuses to accept this as
she and her late husband had originally planned to relocate to Florida. Through
sheer grit and determination, Jasmine packs her belongings and elects to make
the journey on her own. The story is effective through its use of reflective
narration. Most of the piece is told by a now 24 year-old Jasmine, living with
her husband, Bud, and their adopted son, Du. However, not everything is smooth
sailing for Jasmine as she makes her way from India to New York and finally, to
Baden, Iowa. Jasmine is sexually assaulted by the captain of the ship,
Half-Face, and seriously contemplates suicide. Additionally, Jasmine loses her
identity when she meets Bud and begins to think of herself as Jane. The work is
fraught with crises of identity and the desperate search to find a place where
Jasmine can truly call home. My favorite line from this book comes at the end
when Jasmine challenges the astrologer who predicted she would live alone
forever: “Watch me re-position the stars, I whisper to the astrologer who
floats cross-legged above my kitchen stove” (240). Jasmine defies all odds for
a girl her age and manages to establish herself in a strange land, making her a
truly admirable character.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This novel is a deviation from the
earlier stories we have read in that the main character abandons the homeland
she has always known in favor of a better future. For Jasmine, leaving is
ultimately arriving. Home is defined as one woman’s search for herself, and
America seems to be the one place she feels that this can be accomplished. Home
is described both in terms of geography, but also in terms of identity. Like
Gilbert, Jasmine has to leave what she knows in order to discover what she
needs. It sounds incredibly cliché, but I thoroughly enjoyed this novel as it
demonstrated the unshakable courage of such a young girl willing to take an
incomprehensible risk. Home here is described in different terms, and it was
interesting to read a novel that praised America, as opposed to focusing on its
greed and consumerism. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Claire Buchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01556345752956585962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8348293068845237414.post-68602829704388475902015-11-10T16:27:00.000-08:002015-11-10T16:27:05.318-08:00Eat, Pray, Love
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
Elizabeth Gilbert
wastes no time conveying the magnitude of her depression in the expositional
chapters of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Eat, Pray, Love</i>. She
describes the steady deterioration of her marriage with her husband David and
claims to have “reached infatuation’s final destination- the complete and
merciless devaluation of self.” This excerpt correlates with Gilbert’s
persistent mindset of insecurity and inferiority in the novel’s early chapters.
However, as Gilbert travels abroad she steadily cultivates into a happier
individual with a flourishing sense of value and purpose. Moreover, she
acknowledges the importance of sadness and depression in human development. She
begins to realize that anguish and sadness are just as central to the human
experience as Joy and happiness. This notion of necessary suffering as a means
of cultivating <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">into a fuller person is expressed on numerous occasions
throughout the novel as Gilbert’s emotional state improves. While traveling in
India Gilbert studies the Bhagavad Gita and learns that, “<span style="color: #131313;">it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to
live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection.” She gradually
begins to understand that personal imperfection is inevitable but such
imperfection defines people as individuals and sculpts their personal
identities. Gilbert asserts that traumatic events temper our resolve to
withstand depression, and are therefore necessary. Anyone who bears the burden
of depression will “Someday look back on this moment of their life as such a
sweet time of grieving. They’ll see that they were in mourning and their hearts
were broken, but your life was changing.” Such changes allude to the gradual
development of humanity through fluctuating experiences of sadness and
happiness that are fundamentally necessary for development as an individual.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13398046441861409586noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8348293068845237414.post-49055160356173265152015-11-04T10:46:00.000-08:002015-11-04T11:04:22.546-08:00A Journey of Convenience<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
While I was reading <i>Eat, Pray, Love, </i>I found it difficult to
pin down exactly why I found it as unpleasant as I did. For all outward
appearances, it is an optimistic, feel-good story. And yet, something about it
simply does not sit right. Upon some consideration, I landed on the word
“convenience.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
I do not, of course,
mean to suggest that Gilbert’s adventure is free of inconveniences – she is,
after all, hit by a bus – but rather that her every experience is calculated to
be of use to her. Gilbert’s entire trip is based on personal convenience; she
picks and chooses aspects of the cultures she explores which suit her. Rather
than truly immersing herself in the cultures of the countries she visits, she
settles in with only that which she wanted to get out of her experience –
pleasure in Italy, spirituality in India, and balance in Indonesia. This is
evident in her decision to remain in the Ashram instead of further exploring
India – she limits her experience drastically by focusing only on the religious
aspects of the country. It is not clear, however, that she would have branched
out even if she had continued to travel: as she explains her aborted plans, she
insists that she “had specific temples and mosques and holy men [she] was all
lined up to meet” (170). Even before coming to India, she had decided what her
experience was going to be. In Bali, she focuses all of her energy for much of
the trip on Felipe instead of learning about Indonesia. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Adding to the sense
that Gilbert limits her trip to that which is convenient to her is the
self-centered tone of her account. Throughout her journey, Gilbert’s focus is
entirely introspective. She turns her every experience into a meditation on
herself, and rather than expand her world, she reduces it to herself and her
problems. There is, of course, no problem with self-discovery: in fact, it is
an important part of life. But self-discovery at the expense of fantastic,
vibrant cultures is tasteless, and comes across as disrespectful. In her
retelling, she reduces these nations to opportunities for privileged members of
society to focus on themselves in a foreign context. When she visits Sicily,
she states explicitly that she “[doesn’t] want to insult anyone by drawing too
much of a comparison between [herself] and the long-suffering Sicilian people,”
but her attempt at humility here falls flat as she shamelessly proceeds to compare herself
to the Sicilian people (115). She uses this visit as an occasion for
self-reflection instead of an occasion for solemnity.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The problem I
encounter with <i>Eat, Pray, Love </i>comes
down the fact that it is written from an American perspective, for an American
audience, about foreign cultures (and with the exception of Italy, it is in
fact from a white perspective, for a white audience, about non-white cultures). <span style="line-height: 200%;">The end result is a self-congratulatory variety of superficial cultural awareness: it amounts to an exclamation of "I am emotionally and spiritually fulfilled because I have seen another way of life" which completely disregards actual identity of these regions. </span><span style="line-height: 200%;">There is something unsettlingly dismissive about the way in which Gilbert
treats the cultures she po</span><span style="line-height: 200%;">rtrays. She loves them – but does she love them for
what they actually are, or for what they do for her? </span><br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06676877542153608377noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8348293068845237414.post-92176383916241304272015-11-04T10:14:00.000-08:002015-11-04T10:14:04.242-08:00Eat, Pray, self serve your own deluded sense of exceptionalism by vapidly examining a remarkably nuanced life. <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Back when women were considerably more restricted than they are now, when a member of the fairer sex had to be content with not implicitly being considered property and could forget voting, or choosing her husband, an escape could be found (for those with means) in the travel literature that was gothic and romantic novels. Take as an e.g. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Mysteries of Udolpho</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> whose rich description provide a tour guide across Italy as much as an real horror. Naturally, as some rights were won and the world became increasingly connected, this sort of writing was laid to rest but it’s been resurrected by Elizabeth Gilbert who, in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eat Pray Love</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> puts a 21st century spin on the upper class white woman traveling to somewhere exotic, in this case Italy is only the first stop, and Indonesia is the final destination. However, the narrative form isn’t as dated as the category of the memoir itself. In lieu of pages describing mountains one is subjected to a sort of hardy sleeves-rolled-up-eyes-wide wonder that reaches for a pithy intimacy with which to lead the reader upon a journey to validate her own exceptionalism that simply must exist because she wears out so many men and she has the courage to do what her mother always wanted herself. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.4; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Perhaps the most notable way she propagates this form is by the constant promotion of the inexplicable. She first experiences something so transcendent that it defies description on the bathroom floor where God speaks to her (which, as an aside, inspires a cringeworthy page and a half about what she </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">means</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> by God, inexplicably founded in the supposition that the type of people who would kept </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eat Pray Love</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> on the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">NY Times </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">bestseller list for a few hundred weeks would be so offended by the mention of God that they would put it down). It continues throughout the rest of the book, arguably with yours affectionately favorite moment being the passage in which she states “I walk through the markets of the crumbly town and my heart tumbles with a love I can’t answer or explain as I watch an old guy in a black wool hat gut a fish for a customer” (Gilbert 113) followed shortly by a reference to Plato that begins a justification of the watered down Epicureanism Gilbert ascribed to before getting down to the really serious business of finding herself on a more “profound” level. </span></div>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-6f80ff4c-d3b2-55e1-ef53-6467ad901975"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There’s a lot to say about this book because there’s a lot wrong with it. Where Wendt’s sentiments were a douse of cold water by way of introducing an entirely new perspective into a postcolonial world, Gilbert’s ostentatiously egomaniacal musings bring one’s blood to a boil by sheer drop off of writing ability (see by way of example, “a great lake of tears and snot was spreading before me on the bathroom tiles, a veritable Lake Inferior’ (Gilbert 10) or “What happened was I started to pray. You know-like, to </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">God</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.” (Gilbert 12)). There isn’t though, room enough, for that kind of discussion. The primary point of this essay is to suggest that through her propensity for the inexplicable Gilbert falls into the same trap that got her stuck as an unhappy housewife, stuck in a soulless suburban hell. I.e., there’s a decided lack of nuance. She pretends to be examining her life but takes so many things on sheer faith, waiting for the world to unfold for her (and it does. Thank the heavens she isn’t poor or a minority) that what really seems to be occurring isn’t so much a change in worldview as a change in aesthetic. An aesthetic that’s considerably more palatable to her because, although it’s the eastern version of her decidedly privileged (though justifiably morose) western life, it’s </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">exotic</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, it’s fresh and most importantly it confirms something for her that the whole journey set out to do. That is to say, it confirms how special she is, how remarkable and what a great example she is for all wealthy, discontent, white Americans whose real privilege would seem to lie in the fact that they can take things on faith. They can take wait for the world to unfold for them, in fact, if they spend enough money they can </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">make it</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> unfold for them. And they can ignore the thought that maybe they're an asshole surrounded by other assholes.</span></span><br />
<span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Pardon the profanity).</span></span>Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12244695982380097205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8348293068845237414.post-56608098991196185522015-11-04T09:50:00.002-08:002015-11-04T09:50:34.136-08:00Love and Balance<div class="MsoNormal">
In her novel Eat, Pray, Love Elizabeth Gilbert embarks on
the harrowing journey of rediscovery that plagues the middle age of the modern (wo)man.
Her story starts with the divorce of her husband and the disintegration of the
normalcy in her life. Thrown into a state of chaotic depression, she resolves
to restore the balance in her life. This restoration manifests in the form of pilgrimage.
She travels through Europe and Asia in a 3-part excursion that she separates
into Eat, Pray, and Love.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
ultimate goal for Gilbert is to find the love that was lost to her in the
beginning of her tale. This search for love is quintessential to the journey of
the middle life crisis. Love is symbolic of the balance that Gilbert seeks to
rediscover. It is the cornerstone of one’s faith and it is within this love
that one may find his stasis–his safe haven–and settle under love’s ceiling in
their true home.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The problem
I have with this story is that Gilbert needs a male companion in order to reestablish
the order in her life. I understand that it fulfills the love lost in the
beginning of the book, but it detracts from the idea of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">self-</i>fulfillment. I perhaps harkens on the idea of a complete human
being being the union of a man and a woman (2 heads, 4 arms and legs). I
understand why Gilbert wanted what she got, but I would’ve like this story much
better if she was able to resolve her journey purely by her own power. Still,
the quest for love requires compensation for that love and Gilbert found her
answer when she moved back to the United States with her betrothed. <o:p></o:p></div>
Brypiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10792360167329091711noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8348293068845237414.post-48366804934239589692015-11-04T09:30:00.000-08:002015-11-04T09:30:03.947-08:00Liz-Love the name, Annoyed with the Character<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">For
years, or at least since the movie came out, my mom has been saying how much
she hated this book and I finally understand why. Although Elizabeth Gilbert’s experiences
are relatable in the sense that many people feel the need to explore and see
other parts of the world in order to truly discover themselves, I still get
frustrated with her character and her annoying rationale for most of the events
in her life. I must say I do appreciate her writing, it’s witty and fun, which
for me made her experiences more relatable. Other than that though her
rationale for her adventure to Italy and later Indonesia, seems a bit unrealistic
to me. It happens though I guess. One day you just wake up and don’t want to be
in your life anymore and would rather start over and be someone new. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Compared
to other readings many characters were forced to leave their home due to
colonization or other external forces (war, politics, money etc.). Liz leaves
for kind of selfish reasons. She didn’t really have a true explanation for
leaving her husband and I’m sorry it’s kind of messed up to just decide to
leave because she didn’t want to be a wife anymore and have kids. Did she
consider him? She fell in love rather quickly after their split to, and still
when that fling didn’t work she constantly craved this need to be wanted. And
then she continually has affairs throughout the novel too. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Her
experiences traveling are quite inspiring, but her annoying need to be wanted
is frustrating. I feel you can find yourself and where you belong without
constant affection. The fact that her exploration into the world occurred after
a breakup says something too. For one I feel like a breakup should not be the
event that sparks this exploration. The novel although at parts entertaining
because of the witty writing, I still didn’t like it as much as I thought I was
going to. I guess my mom was right, probably should listen to her more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02254412322481981929noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8348293068845237414.post-49302830564336049232015-11-04T09:16:00.001-08:002015-11-04T09:16:43.153-08:00Eat, Pray, Love: NYC and RomeBefore going to India and Indonesia, Liz experiences the juxtaposition of two major world cities- NYC and Rome. I found the realizations she draws from this comparison fascinating because it proves the theory that in order to really know something you must look at it from all sides. Liz had to leave New York and live in Rome in order to draw her conclusions about her own home.<br />
Her experience in the Italian capital, although overall positive, forced her to open her eyes and in my opinion, made her grow as a person since she was able to look at both realities objectively. For example, on page 61, she calls America an "entertainment-seeking nation" and Italy a "pleasure-seeking nation". While she is awe at the beauty the Italian country and language hold, she is able to recognize the dangers of solely seeking pleasure as a life-choice. With that said, I found her comment on American stereotypes extremely amusing. She talks about the "overstressed executive who goes on vacation but who cannot relax", which is very sadly familiar to most of us.<br />
Most importantly, from the juxtaposition of the cities' focus and essence, she furthers her understanding about identity. That scene with the locals who consider themselves "Romans first, Romans second and Romans third" shows how each person defines their own cultural identity. These people's generations have lived in Rome for centuries and they have chosen to continue fashioning their lives around that tradition. However, this does not make them any more Roman than the woman "fantastically maintained, jewelry-sodden forty-something dame wearing four-inch heels, a tight skirt with a slit as long as your arm, and those sunglasses that look like race cars". This visual encounter triggers Liz's insecurities about not fitting in, which are answered by Giulio's one-word-system to define cities. I think this passage is extremely important in the development of Liz's character and growth because she begins to understands that she is neither all "sex" nor all "achieving". She belongs to New York, and loves Rome, but her adaptability and insatiable travel-crave, while freeing her in many ways, alienate her from fully belonging to one city or identity.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14997371781069325274noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8348293068845237414.post-34473921063632175462015-11-04T09:14:00.001-08:002015-11-04T09:14:08.447-08:00Wanderlust PoliticsI found Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love to be a bit disconcerting. It was an enjoyable read, and truly I do feel that there is a certain charm and glamour in the idea of traveling to different and foreign places. However, I also feel that this is a luxury that not everyone can afford, both financially and just realistically. I found myself thinking bout Nwoye who didn't fit in his own society, or the boy from "Sons of the Return Home," and I can;t help but think that they wouldn't have been able to realize themselves as she did on some worldwide expedition. Or at least, it wouldn't have been some great trying journey that eventually led to some congratulatory self-realization.<br />
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I think the feeling that comes across most strongly is Gilbert's feelings of displacement which I feel every reader can relate to, as well as the desire to travel, wanderlust. This is the great american dream, if not, a worldwide celebrated dream. Everyone wants to go to some new and exotic place. I think that one true thing that Gilbert taps into is the reality that every place we visit has something of value to teach us. I think that Gilbert's journey demonstrates an extreme understanding of home as fluid.<br />
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Perhaps because Nwoye is forced to leave a home that would otherwise never suit him, and because the boy from "Sons of the Return Home," in my eyes, embarks on an inescaple journey to find home, more so than Gilbert. Perhaps that is why I found it difficult to sympathize with her. One idea that did stick with me particularly strong was the words of the Bhagavad Gita "it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection" (95). She definitely takes these words t heart and asserts that she is living her life, "Imperfect and clumsy as it may look, it is resembling me now, thoroughly" (95). This is a theme I think is useful in thinking about the two other characters that I mentioned.<br />
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Gilbert herself is aware that she has achieved the american dream but that it isn't for her; she is daring to extend herself outside of her comfort zone in order to discover herself. Still, a part of me felt that she was belittling the experiences of people who can't just <i>chose</i> to go on a journey as she had. She makes it sound glamorous, but as we now know through some of our readings, that isn't always the case.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8348293068845237414.post-34757603413329801412015-11-04T08:50:00.002-08:002015-11-04T08:50:51.109-08:00AttraversiamoI've always looked at Liz Gilbert's <i>Eat, Pray, Love</i> as a sort of self-help book, about a woman who changes her own life by traveling and finding herself in different places. When I read the book for the first time, I searched for sayings or insights into travel and life and its many meanings, and when I saw the movie, I was in it for the drama, Julia Roberts, the gorgeous scenery, and James Franco. This read through was different, because I was looking at it as a journey to find a place to belong, a home, and oneself. At the very end of the book, Liz uses the Italian word "Attraversiamo", which means let's cross over, as she and Felipe leap into the ocean Indonesia. This is a symbolic joining of the beginning of her journey in Italy, and the end, in Bali. However, I see this word as encompassing her entire journey and her idea of home. We recently read Salman Rushdie's <i>East, West </i>in which a character states that he refuses to choose between his two homes and that he chooses both instead. Like Rushdie's belief that he is a product of two homelands and that he shouldn't have to choose one over the other, Liz finds her home and a piece of herself in every place she visits. She is forever changed in Italy, she writes that she "exist(s) more than she did four months" before and that she gains hope and faith in the world (Gilbert 122). In India, she "chooses" her religion and finds her own inner spirituality and in Bali she finds love and completes her transformation. She "crosses over" all of her experiences and brings them all together to find herself and create her inner home, which means she can be home wherever she is in the world. This is shown when Felipe asks her to build a life in America, Australia, Bali, and Brazil. Liz doesn't think that it's crazy because she knows herself and by being herself she is home wherever she is. The world has become her home.Megan Bradyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03653214845317107828noreply@blogger.com0