Invisible Man Prologue- Ambivalent America and Dreams

Dr. Schmidt

English 131

26 April 2012

Dreams of an Invisible Man

Dreams are an important motif in the novel Invisible Man.  They are clues about the state of the psyche of the protagonist. They reveal his fears, his expectations, and his interpretations of reality.  It is in his dreams that the protagonist allows himself to ask questions which he suppresses awake.  They explain the actions of his waking life.  They reveal the contradictory feelings which afflict the protagonist.  The dream he has in the prologue of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man serves as a summary of what will take place in the novel as well as serves to reveal the ambivalence the protagonist experiences towards America and towards himself.

Experts suggest that dreams and nightmares serve functional purposes, such as to warn us that something is wrong in our lives and is hurting us.  They say, “Nightmares are your wake-up call to problems you need to solve in waking life.  They point out to you areas in your life that need to be healed, or worked upon” (DreamEmporium).  The invisible man’s reefer dream in the prologue serves the purpose of warning the reader that something is wrong in the mind of the protagonist.  His dreams are more honest narrators than even himself.  The dream he has during the prologue is a journey into his psyche.  He says, “I not only entered the music but descended, like Dante, into its depths” (Ellison, 9).  The fact that he compares the depths of his soul with Dante’s inferno shows that he is internally troubled and tormented.  The first dream is an old woman singing a happy and sad spiritual.  This image reveals that even at the most superficial

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level is optimism and hope filled with realistic pessimism represented by the spiritual “as full of Weltschmerz and flamenco” (9).  It is the first internal struggle with opposites and serves as an interpretation, not only to his dreams, but also to his life throughout the novel: optimism is at odds with reality.  Immediately, this vision shifts to one where a Black woman, screaming like his mother, is being sold as a slave.  This image represents how the protagonist interprets his reality.  Even as he hopes and believes in the freedom of the spiritual, he is also aware of the contradicting reality that is exactly the opposite of that hope- the reality of the oppression of his people.  These dreams are a summary of what will occur to him in the novel.  He starts off optimistic because he ignores reality, but that reality refuses to be ignored and continues to haunt him until the invisible man acknowledges it.  The battle between his optimism and his understanding of reality introduces his first internal, dualistic struggle.

 The protagonist also struggles with conflicting ideas about who he is as a Black man, setting the stage for upcoming events in the novel.  The next dream represents this conflict with the contradicting words of the preacher, “Black is and black aint… Black will get you and Black won’t… It do and it don’t… Black will make you and it will un-make you” (9-10), meaning that his Blackness is in itself a contradiction.  Sometimes he knows that “Black is” and sometimes he feels that “Black aint.”  Throughout the novel, there are times where he feels proud of being Black and many other times he is ashamed.  Before he can figure out exactly what Black is, his own mind prevents him from doing so by the shouting of the trombone that tells him to get out of there before he commits treason.  This vision is a foreshadowing of the guilt and fear that the invisible man will feel later in the novel of betraying white people by “yessing them to death” as his grandfather had done.  What the speaker does understand, however, about Blackness is that

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“in the beginning… there was blackness… and the sun… was bloody red” (9).  This allusion to the darkness that existed before creation in Genesis means that the Black American experience was birthed in struggle.  He does not know what exactly his identity as a Black man is, but he sure does know that whatever it is, it has caused him much suffering.

  Experts say of dreaming, “Nightmares are usually your deepest fears symbolized by frightening, horrifying images.  The images are symbols that help you figure out what you are afraid of ” (Dream Emporium).  The next vision serves that purpose: to reveal the narrator’s deepest fears.  He encounters an old lady who tells him of her love and hatred toward her master who gave her several sons.  The master represents white America, the old lady represents himself, and the sons represent his ambitions and his bitterness.  She tells him, “I dearly loved my master, son,” and he replies, “You should have hated him” (Ellison, 10).  The protagonist is struggling with guilt because he remembers how he also loved “his master” and looks back now with shame at having done so.  The lady loved the master because he gave her several sons, who represent the things the invisible man was after: opportunity, status, the American Dream; but because he never fulfilled those pursuits, he now fosters bitterness.  That is why his experience is the same as that of the old lady who says, “I learned to love their father though I hated him too” (10).  The boy then states a phrase which accurately interprets his dream and his life: “I too have become acquainted with ambivalence… that’s why I’m here” (10), again revealing his internal conflicts between love and hate for America, and ultimately love and hate for himself.  

Comedian Chris Rock said that America for black people is like that uncle who paid your way through college but molested you (Bigger and Blacker).  This joke is a good summary of the protagonist’s contradictory experiences with America.  The lady moans because her master was

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dead, meaning that for the invisible man his American dream was dead.  While she mourns that death, the sons rejoice in it, which reveals again the dualistic struggles of the speaker.  He is both relieved and disappointed that his pursuits are gone.  He is disappointed because, just as the old lady loved her master, he also loved what America could promise; but just like the old woman hated the master because she loved freedom more, so did the invisible man realize that he needed to choose one or the other but could not have both.  As the scriptures say, “You cannot love two masters, for you will hate one and love the other” (Holy Bible, Luke 16:13).  In this way, he loved freedom more.  Yet it is clear that he has never known what freedom is.  He has an idea that maybe freedom comes from loving not hating, though he is unsure.  He wants to know the answer so he goes back to talk to the old lady and ask her what it is- but the lady is unable to answer his question because she is a product of his imagination and he himself does not know the answer.  At least, the answer he does know he is not ready to accept.

Earlier in the prologue, the invisible man had gotten into a violent encounter with a white man and then regretted it.  In the dream, the sons of the old lady are upstairs laughing and moaning as the old lady tells the boy that they are prone to violence.  “They woulda tore him to pieces with they homemade knives” (Ellison, 11) she says to him.  These “violent sons” are the bitterness and resentment the protagonist has toward America and the White man (which are one and the same in his mind).  This explains his earlier violent encounter.  When he approaches the lady to ask her what is freedom one of the bigger sons impedes him.  His bitterness and resentment prevent him from finding out what freedom really is.   He cannot accept what the lady tells him about how freedom comes not from hate but from love.   The dream finally ends with him getting hit by a speeding machine as he tries to cross over, representing his failed

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attempts to heal and to forgive- to “cross back” to a normal life.  The speeding machine- his anger and bitterness- do not allow him to accept the freedom that comes from loving, a summary of his life in the novel.

This scene in the prologue is consistent with the novel’s importance of dreams.  It is through these that the author reveals the deep secrets of the protagonist’s psyche.  The reefer dreams in the prologue serve as a summary of the internal, dualistic conflict with which the speaker will struggle throughout the novel.  Through this dream, the author describes the speaker’s life and thoughts through symbols that reveal his fears, confusions, and his ambivalent experience with America and ultimately with himself.   

Works Cited

Bigger and Blacker. Perf. Chris Rock. DVD. Dreamworks, 1999.

Dream Emporium. How to Interpret Dreams, 2010. Web. 24 April 2012.

Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. 2nd ed. New York: Vintage International, 1995.

Holy Bible: New Living Translation. CO: International Bible Society, 1984.

Copyright Benderas (2013)

Reality Versus Perception in Othello

Ana Benderas

Dr. Chapman

Shakespeare

12 December 2012

The Honest Battle between Reality and Perception

In Othello, like in most of his other work, William Shakespeare relies heavily on the use of puns to illustrate his observations about human behavior, a popular literary theme during the Jacobean period.  Though the manipulation of multiple meanings in a word might seem initially confusing, this tactic actually serves to clarify absurdities and incongruities within the minds of readers.  This play clarifies how imagination and reality work together in the human mind and how they shape perceptions.  In Othello, Shakespeare uses the multiple meanings of the word “honest” to reveal the discrepancies between reality and perception, challenging readers’ expectations and mocking the arrogance with which they sustain them, to suggest that ignoring reality only actualizes fears.

Iago embodies one of the most obvious disagreements between reality and perception when he manipulates Othello’s expectations of Iago, who considers this foe a friend, advising us about the advantage of facing the truth with courage rather than deceiving ourselves at a greater cost.  When Cassio offers to ensure that Iago will carry out Othello’s orders accurately, Othello expresses this trust for him saying, “Iago is most honest” (2.3.7), assuring Cassio that he does not need to go behind Iago and double check his work.  The basic definitions of the word honest include “commendable” and “creditable.”   Without even having to rely on the word’s multiple meanings, Shakespeare

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highlights a discrepancy between reality and self-deception right away.  Othello wants to believe that Iago deserves trust, yet Iago himself says that he has no intentions of being loyal to Othello.  The play offers enough evidence against trusting Iago, and yet Othello never seems to accept any of the hints.  He wants to believe that he can trust the man he appointed because he cannot admit his own failure in making the wrong choice.  Or perhaps he does not want to bother with the task of finding someone to take Iago’s job, so he lies to himself that he made a good choice hiring the fiend.  Whatever his motivations for this self-deception, clearly his illusory ideals guide him: the honesty Othello forces himself to see in Iago does not exist.  Shakespeare (as he tries to warn us) tried to warn the protagonist- but Othello allowed his own expectations, insecurities, fears, and desires to blind him into his own perdition.

Iago commits this same mistake of denying logic in order to believe what he wants regarding his failed expectations for his future- an almost comical example that Shakespeare uses to highlight the danger of holding this mindset of denial.  In an arrogant speech Iago recites to Roderigo, bragging about all that he intends to do in his future, he says to him, “Whip me such honest knaves” (Shakespeare 1.1.51), telling Roderigo that any honest slave is foolish and should get whipped.  Shakespeare, however, uses this statement to mock his expectations, revealing to readers the foolishness of trusting many of our assumptions.  The word “knave” can refer to either a slave or a crafty, dishonest person (Oxfard).  The term “honest” can mean “a person holding an honorable position”- the complete opposite of a slave.  Shakespeare thus mocks Iago’s statement and turns it into a logical inconsistency: a slave who has an honorable job.  This contradiction cannot logically

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actualize, indicating that what Iago expects and sees can also never actualize.  Shakespeare furthers this idea by allowing the use of the second definition of honest: “Having honorable motives and principles” or “sincere; not cheating; free of fraud” (Oxfard).   A knave, meaning “a crafty, dishonest” person cannot be “sincere and free of fraud-” an incongruity that also reveals a lack of reality.  Since there is no such thing as an honest dishonest person, nor a as a slave with an honorable job, then an “honest knave” cannot get whipped because it cannot exist.  If so, then no consequences await him, and therefore, no consequences await Iago either.  This conclusion, however, proves false for him at the end of the play when he gets sentenced to torture.  Iago thinks he represents the opposite of the “honest knave” who should get whipped, but in reality, that statement foreshadows his own fate.   Shakespeare assures his characters and readers that things do not always happen as we expect.  It points out the foolishness of people’s expectations and the arrogance with which we assert them.  In the end, reality has final say over our lives.  Understanding him also gives insight to answer the questions this text poses:  What does Iago understand about the human tendencies of processing reality?  What does he understand about innate fears and ego and selfish motivations?  How does he manipulate them, and ultimately, what do his devices reveal, not only about Iago, but about human nature in general?  An explanation of Iago’s character serves as an analysis of human nature.  In her article, Lucinda Birtciel analyzes him saying, “[he] holds power over the fate of his victims and his audience,” implying that even readers experience deep bewilderment by this character and respond as entranced by his deception as the characters in the play.  This idea suggests that

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our response to him and his actions reveal something important about the way that we, the readers, interpret reality through our own lenses as well.            

Brabantio’s expectations of Desdemona also set him up for failure when the plans he has for his daughter go in the opposite way he would like, revealing the foolishness of placing expectations on people whom we cannot control.  In the beginning scenes of the play, Roderigo and Iago barge in Brabantio’s home to inform him that his daughter has run away with “an old black ram” (1.1.88), meaning Othello.  Brabantio, surprised and skeptical, responds defensively saying, “In honest plainness thou hast heard me say/ My daughter is not for thee…” (1.1.100-101), reminding Roderigo that his sweet daughter had refused a romantic relationship with him.  Brabantio, fixed on the image he wants to have of his daughter, refuses to accept her actions and gives Roderigo an aggravated response.  To call attention to this behavior, Shakespeare again exploits the multiple meanings of the word “honest.”  Denotatively, Brabantio indicates that he wants to be clear about something.  By saying, “In honest plainness thou hast heard me say” he means, “I am plainly telling you;” however, the expression in Shakespearean times to “make honest of someone” meant to marry them.  At the moment of this conversation with Roderigo, Desdemona gets married to Othello without Brabantio’s knowledge, yet he feels defensive and protective against Roderigo’s accusations of his daughter, which he badly wants to believe as lies.  So he responds to Roderigo saying that honestly, Roderigo will never make honest of Desdemona; but the joke turns on Brabantio because all along, Othello is making honest of his daughter (in quite a dishonest way).  If Brabantio wanted to be accurate he should say, “In honesty I have told you that you will not make honest of my daughter because she is

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already making honest dishonestly with Othello.”  To add insult to injury to Brabantio’s self-deception, yet another meaning exists to the word “honest,” turning him into another one of Shakespeare’s examples of fools who so badly want to see what they want, that they deceive themselves to their own detriment.  “Honest” can also mean “being chaste” (Oxfard), but Roderigo’s very topic entails Desdemona’s lack of chastity with Othello.  When Brabantio says, “In honest plainness” (1.1.100), reality tells him (through his own words) something like, “in an honorable way I am telling you that my daughter is not being honorable because she is having sex with Othello this very moment.”  Shakespeare mocks the disparity between how Brabantio wants to see things and the actual truth.  Reality is hardly ever what it seems or even what people would like.   In her article, Elizabeth Evans states: “the characters experience reality through the filter of their imagination,” suggesting that people can never quite trust or understand anyone else’s point of view because they understand that they themselves also skew the truth to see what they want.  In her opinion, this dynamic accounts for much of the relational conflicts in the story.   She continues, “[the characters] attempt to compensate for and protect themselves from this uncertainty by assuming the worst, and their conviction that such assumptions are justified lead to disaster” (Evans), meaning that what these characters fear the most actualizes because of their failure to accept the evidence around them and see the truth.  Her observation that the characters’ failure to see reality becomes the cause of most of the play’s conflicts offers wisdom to readers about the way that we also create or allow tragedy by distorting our reality.  

           

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This play contains important warnings about the dangers of believing what we want instead of adhering to the evidence that could lead to finding truth.  To see or not to see becomes the decision these characters confront, and their response to that question leads them to each of their destinies.  Shakespeare teaches us that when we face similar situations, our decision should be “to see”- to deny our fears and insecurities and to face truth with courage.  The alternative to that decision, to choose “not to see,” has the tendency to lead people in the exact direction they attempt to run from in the first place.

Works Cited

Birtciel, Lucinda. “The Problem of Appearance and Reality.” Texas Technological College.

(1963). Web.

Evans, Judith B. “The Rush to Knowledge: Perception and Interpretation in Shakespeare’s

Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, and The Winter’s Tale.” Georgetown University. (2008). Web.  

Shakespeare, William. Othello. New York: Signet Classics, 1998. Print.

Beauty: an Ugly Agent of Fate in the Tale of Genji

Ana Benderas

Professor Lago

ISAC 102

1 March 2013

Beauty: an Ugly Agent of Fate

The enjoyment of beauty, a Heian value, prevails throughout the episode of The Tale of Genji; but beauty can have an ugly side if people fail to express it and enjoy it with balance.  Lady Murasaki Shikibu’s episode “The Festival of the Cherry Blossoms” reflects the Buddhist influence prevalent in the Heian culture of Japan that “everything beautiful must die,” admonishing the search for balance between the appreciation of beauty and its prejudicial potential to create desire. 

The episode reflects a Heian value of beauty, exposing the power and influence it can have over human beings in either a balanced or unbalanced manner.  Not coincidently, the Emperor holds the great festival during spring, the most beautiful season of the year, under a cherry blossom tree which produces gorgeous, red leaves.  The impeccable reciting of poetry, the graceful music, the garden worth boasting, and the moon and water create an enchanting scenario.  Genji’s own poem performs an ode to beauty, reading: “Were I but a common mortal who now am gazing at the beauty of this flower,/ From its sweet petals not long should I withhold the dew of love” (Shikibu, 2), reciting that beauty influences the decisions and actions of people.  This stage and Genji’s poem serve as a foreshadowing of the protagonist’s dilemma and to expose Genji’s character.  By placing him in the middle of such grand beauty, fate tests and invites him to begin a search for balance.  Will he acknowledge the ephemeral nature of beauty by noticing the shortness of the spring season, realizing that the red leaves will soon turn

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brown and wither?  Will he notice the short length of the poems and dances and remember to appreciate beauty because it will soon die as will he?  Or will the glamour fool him and birth in him desire, which, of course, can only lead to suffering?  Genji performs poorly in this test, as the beauty around him lures him to pursue more of it, allowing it to consume him.

Beauty works as the main agent of fate that leads to Genji’s suffering, since it creates in him desire.  Beauty brings the lovers together both times in the episode.  Genji, mesmerized by the beauty of the festival searches to enjoy more of the moon’s loveliness. This leads him to find the nameless woman who becomes his main object of desire and tells her, “That both of us were not content to miss the beauty of this departing night is proof clearer than the half-clouded moon that we were meant to meet” (2), verbally acknowledging the power of beauty to lead human beings to their fate.  The second time beauty works through the pretty fan to bring Genji to the lady.  Their mutual pursuit to fulfill their desires leads to the suffering and anxiety they feel after their first meeting ends.  As the text reads, the desire for Genji plunges the lady “into the depths of despair” (5) and “turmoil fills her brain” (5).   This desire in Genji also prevents him from finding contentment with his wives and leads him to continue his desperate search for the nameless lady.  Insufficient it had seemed to them both that beautiful night, and failing to find a balance in their appreciation of beauty, they allow desire to overwhelm them.

The ending of the episode reflects the Buddhist influence in the text, claiming that desires never lead to happiness; quite the opposite, they lead to suffering because people can never satisfy them.  Gijan thinks he is delighted, but he is not.  The Heidan influence of the text admonishes even American readers to find balance in the enjoyment of beauty, for alas! beauty creates desire that makes us suffer.  In our Western society, which understands marriage as

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monogamous, applying this principle can keep us away from trouble outside of marriage.  A lovely poem, a beautiful face, a luring song can tempt us to desire a person in a most afflicting way.

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References

Shikibu, Mirasaki. The Tale of Genji. “Episode 8: The Festival of the Cherry Blossoms.” Class

handout.

Copyright Benderas (2013).  

Conquest for Dinner: Recognizing the Relationships between Conquest in ancient Mesoamerica and Consumerism Today

Ana Benderas

ISAC 102

Professor Lago

19 April 2013

Conquest for Dinner: Recognizing the

Relationships between Conquest in ancient Mesoamerica and Consumerism Today 

When I was growing up, my sibling and I had the habit of eating, or rather gulping down our food and, with a quick sleeve swipe over our mouths, stumbling out of the table and back outside to play.  My mother in her frustrated attempts at raising us well would tell us, “You should show more appreciation.  Your food does not magically appear on the table.”  Over the years I meditate on her advice.  Far from my food appearing magically, she labored to prepare it, she and my father labored to purchase it, and people labored often under incredibly unjust conditions to produce it.  The history of consumerism, in fact, makes the same argument as my mother that food does not magically appear on our tables.  A survey of politics and power structures surrounding food in ancient Mesoamerica reveals that much of what people consume has origins in injustice, colonization, and domination, serving as a motive for responsible consumerism in our society.

Even before the colonialism of ancient Mesoamerica, the elite have used food as a tool to gain dominance and preserve power structures, a tradition currently undying.  Cacao, for example, began as a food reserved for the Maya and Aztec elites (Danien 4) who used it to distinguish their superiority over the masses.  When the Spaniards introduced chocolate to Europe, the drink undertook some changes, such as the addition of sugar and replacement of spices.  These variations served to characterize the indigenous away from

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the Spaniards who considered their preparation methods superior.  In the words of a conquistador: “The Spanish, more industrious than the Savages, procured to correct the bad flavor of this liquor, adding to this cacao paste different fragrances of the East and many spices of this country [Spain]” (Norton 660).  He emphasizes, or rather creates, a class barrier distinguished by the preparation methods of cacao.  With this mindset, European cacao consumption overturned power structures, switching dominance from the elite hands of the indigenous to their now “European superiors.”  Norton claims:

During the early history of chocolate among Europeans, the transmission of taste did not accord with the top-down structure of society.  Instead, it flowed in the opposite direction: from the colonized to the colonizer, from the "barbarian" to the "civilized," from the degenerate "creóle" to the metropolitan Spaniard, from gentry to royalty, (Norton 670)

thus describing the process of taste as emerging from the lower classes upwards.  However, history better supports an understanding of taste as flowing in circles, starting from the elite down to the masses then back up to the elite and vise versa. The variations of enjoying chocolate today, which continue distinguishing between class and status, support this understanding.  Now, the accessibility of chocolate, a product for the elite many times before, makes it a commoner’s food (though of course, dark and pure chocolate carries more social weight amongst the upper classes than the more processed, commercial milk chocolates).  Responsible consumers understand that the wide availability of chocolate has origins of injustice and consumes with this knowledge in mind.   

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A cultural-functionalist model considers that taste in food develops, not only out of a biological attention to the palate, but also from a cultural association to a particular socio-economic class or other status.  During the sixteenth centuries, for example, sugar owed much of its global widespread to the commonly accepted association between this food and the upper classes.  Norton argues:

Sugar use traveled down to other classes in large part because their members accepted the meanings of their social superiors… the simultaneous control of both the foods themselves and the meanings they are made to connote can be a means of a pacific domination. (663)

 According to Norton, controlling the associations society holds about foods in order to control that food supply works as a method for colonization and dominance.  Bourdieu articulates this idea:

…taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier. Social subjects classified by their classifications, distinguish themselves by the distinctions they make, between the beautiful and the ugly, the distinguished and the vulgar, in which their position in the objective classifications is expressed or betrayed. (Norton 663)  

He mockingly explains that taste develops more out of convenience and opportunity for power than out of pure biological receptiveness.  Perhaps if the native peoples had this understanding that taste forms sometimes from cultural associations, they would have resisted developing a taste for the foods whose production culminated in the demise of their civilizations. Those with an understanding of this relationship protect themselves

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from consumer victimization, such as paying high fees for foods which, lacking intrinsic health or pleasurable value, only cost money because of the elitist associations they carry.

Consumerism history recalls that conquistadors and exploiters used foods in Mesoamerica to take control of the economy, usurping the indigenous’ systems for their own profit.  The indigenous people throughout all Mesoamerica relied on cacao seeds as currency.  Norton describes, “That cacao beans functioned as currency throughout the region underscores their pan-Mesoamerican embrace. From Nicaragua to northwest Mexico, there was a fundamental sameness among the modes of consumption, ritual contexts, and symbolic resonances of chocolate[1]” (Norton 671).  Much of their economy, their way of life, and their culture depended upon this fruit.  Colonizers plundered this system using a “divide and conquer” model to control the economy.  Soleri records, “Prior to the Spanish invasion, the Aztecs in central Mexico were trading cacao and collecting it as tribute from production areas in Chiapas… and other areas of present day Mexico” (Soleri 108), meaning that Spanish invasion interrupted the Aztecs’ functioning economy.  Disturbing the intercultural exchanges of cacao as currency eliminated a uniting force between peoples, which enabled conquistadors to control the system for their own benefit. Once they overtook the system, Europeans sought to produce the cacao fruit as much as possible.  Norton describes, “Colonial policies ensured the continued cultivation,

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commerce, and consumption of cacao, because the Spanish rulers' immediate ability to proftt (sic) from the conquest depended on their usurpation and maintenance of the tribute system organized by the Aztec rulers” (Norton 676).  The production, trade, and consumption of food embody a bloody, money-hungry business.  Those at the top of the power structures control the taste, quality, and quantity that they want people to consume.  This historical example of manipulation of an economy through food only serves as a didactic tool for today’s consumer.  Understanding that what we purchase fits into the plans of a business that, historically has proved, will make money at the expense of human beings, empowers responsible consumers to determine for themselves what they think they need to consume and how, instead of allowing the industry to think for them. 

One of our society’s most essential and commonly enjoyed foods traces its origins to exploitation, conquest, and slavery.  The production, proliferation, and widespread consumption of sugar uncover a grimy past.  After the European occupation and monopolization of the cacao industry in Mesoamerica, and with the growing need for sugar in Europe (especially now that they needed it for the new cacao drink), European colonizers wanted large-scale production.  This project required more labor than they could handle, as well as more space than they had with a climate better than what Spain could provide.  Their solution: the exploitation of humans and the plunder of Mesoamerican territory.  The Spanish, having stolen the natives’ land throughout Mesoamerica, kidnapped Africans and local peoples and, at their expense, made the production of so much sugar possible.     Brandes explains, “The Spaniards introduced sugarcane production… in the sixteenth century and imported African slave labor to work

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the fields… But the slave population that drove the economy… was overworked, underfed, and downtrodden” (290).  Consumers, however, apathetic and ignorant of their consumption’s origins, continued enjoying sugar unaffected for centuries (it was until the late 18th century that groups began organizing serious, anti-sugar protests).  The European mentalities that colonizers brought to Mesoamerica, which value the individual over community and sees the self as disconnected from the others, has not completely left.  In his article, Brandes analyzes the prevalence of food during the major Mexican holiday of the Day of the Dead.  He points out, “With virtually no disposable income among the slave population and with single-minded exploitation of slave labor, sweet bread and sugar candy would hardly have gained a culinary foothold in such societies” (Brandes 290).  In his evaluation, he recognizes clear connections between the foods so commonly used today and the origins of injustice that they carry.  Knowing the history of sugar allows for an important enlightenment to take place: understanding the origins and processes of what we consume has significant implications and comes with important responsibilities.  The injustices that historically have taken place in order to put sugar on the tables of billions of people around the world are not necessarily over.  Further discovery should take place in order to better understand how the historical injustices have morphed and what faces they take on today.

Consumers, especially of color, who have a thorough understanding of history and globalization hold a responsibility to question what we consume and how much.  As a Mexican woman I realize that I eat sugar due to the plunder and monopolization of my predecessors’ land and resources.  I understand that the chocolate I drink has traces of

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kidnap, slavery, and conquest.  A continual culture of careless, blind, and uncontrolled consumerism not only disrespects and undermines the complex and valuable history of our people, it also continues to endanger the many people who suffer injustices in order to provide for our consumption.  And while the solution does not necessarily dictate to boycott everything, it compels us to consume with awareness, with sharing, and with activism on whatever level we are most equipped to help. 

Works Cited

Brandes, Stanley. “Sugar, Colonialism, and Death: On the Origins of Mexico’s Day of the

Dead.” Comparative Studies in Society and History. Vol. 39. No. 2. 1997. (270-299).     Web. 13 April 2013.

Danien, Elin. “Yom Yom Cacao!” Vol. 45. No. 2. (4-6). Web. 13 April 2013.

Norton, Marcy. “Tasting Empire: Chocolate and the European Internalization of

Mesoamerican Aesthetics.” American Historical Review. June 2006. (660-691). Web. 12 April 2013.

Soleri, Daniela. Cleveland, David. “Tejate: Theobrama Cacao and T. Bivolor in a Traditional

Beverage from Oaxaca Mexico.” Routledge Taylor and Francis Group. 2007. (107-118). Web. 13 April 2013.

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[1] The use of cacao seeds as currency has survived colonialism in some indigeno

us towns.  Many communities still rely or incorporate this system of economy. Of modern-day Oaxaca, Soleri tells, “It was also a required part of the meal that comprised part of the “payment” to day laborers helping with tasks… and is still expected as payment in some communities” (Soleri 116).

Copyright Benderas 2013

How Languages Die: A Case Study of the Wampanoag

Running Head: LANGUAGE DIES

How Languages Die:

A Case Study of the Wampanoag

Ana Benderas

Linguistics 145

Dr. Devney

4 April 2012

LANGUAGE DIES                                                                                                                   2

At the time of the film, Jessie’s daughter May was the only native speaker of Wampanoag.  This situation points to a historic problem as well as serves as a glimpse of hope for the Wampanoag language and tribe.  This situation reveals that, since May was the only native speaker, the language was in serious danger of extinction at the time.  It means that at that point, nobody else was speaking it and the Wampanoag traditions and dialect were unknown to its own people. The hope that this situation provides is that if a language is alive in one person, it can be revived in others. May represents this hope for the continuation of the Wampanoag dialect.  Knowing the process of the loss of a language can help linguists revive endangered or “dead” languages.  In the case of the Wampanoag tongue, understanding the factors that contributed to its death was vital in the process of its resurrection.     

When most of the native speakers of a language die or are killed, it is in danger of extinction. Some remaining Wampanoag texts revealed that many of the tribe members were massively killed by colonialists.  The Europeans had brought yellow fever, for example, that killed many; and of course there was also the massive deaths that occurred as Europeans invaded the Wampanoag land.  The extinction process is made complete when, after many native speakers have died, no children learn the language.   If May was the first native speaker of Wampanoag at the time of the film, that means that May’s ancestors had not taught their sons and daughters their language, and neither had May’s peers’ ancestors.  In past generations, the children grew up speaking only English, so that when their parents and grandparents died, the language died with them.  With native speakers dead and no

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new speakers, the language cannot continue.   Fromkin, Rodman and Hyams (2011) explain: “In each generation, fewer and fewer children learn the language until there are no new learners. The language is said to be dead when the last generation of speakers dies out.”   This particular language of Wampanoag was able to be saved because a group of people began to reverse these processes.  A group of non-native speakers began to learn and “revive” the language and the traditions that were lost with it.  The film showed young children speaking Wampanoag and participating in the traditions.  If children as young as four or five begin to learn and use this language at home, they would be considered almost native speakers. If these children marry when they grow up and teach their spouses the language, they would be giving life to the language by replacing all the native speakers who had died; and if these couples have children and they raise them speaking Wampanoag, then the language can been “resurrected.” This is exactly what the Wampanoag community in the film hoped to accomplish.         

Acculturation is another reason that languages die.  It is especially true in the history of Native Americans that speaking the dominant language was used so as not to appear as natives and to blend better with the oppressive majority. This often meant better treatment and avoiding trouble.  Though the movie does not mention this specifically, there is a strong possibility that the Wampanoag people, like many other Native American tribes, lost much of their language and culture this way- through acculturation.  Many Native American children were coerced into attending white, missionary schools in which they were forced to assimilate to white culture by cutting their hair, for example, taking a new white name, and speaking only English.  In fact, even as late as the 1960’s many schools in

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America prohibited the use of non-English languages. The Chicano experience, for example, is very similar to the Native American in that both groups were coerced into assimilation.  Their schools, not only demeaned their culture and language, but prohibited their expressions of it.  Though the actual Spanish language itself was not lost (this would be difficult, seeing how Spanish at one point was a conquering language that is now spread throughout the world), many Latin-Americans lost their use of it, and as a result, many generations of Latin Americans would not know Spanish.  Right before the Civil Rights wave many Latinos were scared to teach or even allow their children to speak Spanish because, in their experience, English meant opportunities and less discrimination and punishment.  Wampanoag was similarly lost because “Languages [become extinct] when they are in contact with a dominant language, much as American Indian languages are in contact with English” (Fromkin, et al. 2011).  The modern Wampanoag community in the film was working to reverse this process of acculturation. The same way their ancestors had been submerged into assimilation, so was this group hoping to expose their children and peers to explore the ancient language and traditions of the Wampanoag tribe.  They were involved in their own process of acculturation and if it continued, the language would have a good chance of revival. 

With immigration, languages change and dialects are born.  In the film, the Native Americans had lost their Wampanoag language, but many words and expressions had stuck around so that they grew up speaking a dialect different from the Standard English, unheard in other parts of the United States.  The film did not comment on how much immigration had affected the loss of this tribe’s language, but many Native American

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languages have been lost this way, such as the Ocracokers.  “[The dialect] is in danger of extinction because so many young Ocracokers leave the island and raise their children elsewhere, a case of gradual dialect death” (Fromkin, et al. 2011).  With the dispersion of people of the same language, the dispersion of that language also follows. The modern Wampanoag group was working to reverse this process, not by dispersing and being far from each other, but by creating a close-knit community.  They met often and shared their lives with each other. They made music, they ate together, they danced and worshipped, and they spoke Wampanoag to one another. In this case, the dispersion of these people would actually reverse the process of the death of their language because, provided they each had gained a strong foundation and knowledge of the Wampanoag ways, they could go out and teach it to the other regions and revive the language. 

The Wampanoag people were able to revive a language considered “dead” because they reversed the processes which had caused it to die in the first place. They reclaimed their language that got lost with the death of many Wampanoag people and the fact that no children were learning it. They did this by teaching new people and young children the dialect- through acculturation, keeping a close community, and finally dispersion. In this movement, they were able to find a part of their identity that had been lost and in this movement is a hope that the Wampanoag language will continue in the next generations. 

References

Fromkin, V. & Rodman R. & Hyams N. (Ed. 9th). (2011). An Introduction to Language. New

York: Wadsworth. (pp. 518-520).

Makepeace, A. We Still Live Here (As Nutayunean). [Film]. Boston:Makepeace Productions. 

Copyright Benderas (2013)

A Man’s World: A Response to Things Fall Apart

A Man’s World:

A Response to Things Fall Apart

Things Fall Apart and “The Second Coming”

William Butler Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming” is an appropriate parallel to Chinua Achebe’s book Things Fall Apart.  The speaker of the poem represents a member of the conquered tribe (a tribesman much like Okonkwo). The title of the poem alludes to the Biblical prophecy of the end of the world. Achebe’s book describes the end of the world as Nigeria knew it.  The line “turning and turning in the widening gyre” (line 1) can be interpreted as a description of the process of globalization in Nigeria. A gyre’s thin point denotes the tribes, isolate in their own world before the conquest, but as the world turns with its natural cycles, that world is widened, as the imagery of a gyre demonstrates; because of this turning, “things fall apart. The centre cannot hold” (3).  The world that Okonkwo’s tribe knows cannot remain the same. His world is inevitably shattered by colonialism.  “Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world” (4) because the tribespeople must break their own values (of peace, for example) in order to maintain them. The poem’s lines, “the best lack all conviction, while the worst/ are full of passionate intensity” (7-8) accurately describe the reaction of the tribe during their conquest.  The “best lack all conviction” (7) was the way Okonkwo felt the powerful tribesmen were reacting to the Christian influence. He thought they were being passive and had no strength to defend

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their tribe.   “The worst/ are full of passionate intensity” (7-8) describes the way the outcasts of the tribe defended and loved Christianity because, unlike before, they were now accepted and embraced.  These “worsts” were the ones with most Christian zeal.  The second section of the poem gets more intense as the damage of this conquest becomes more apparent.  “A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun” (15) describes the tribe’s confusion and fear of what they do not know. It voices the feelings of Okonkwo as he senses upon his return to his fatherland that something is about to happen. The line “the darkness drops again; but now I know” (18) shows that the speaker now understands just how gone his world is. “Twenty centuries of stony sleep”  (19), meaning all the generations of Okonkwo’s peaceful world are turned into a “nightmare by a rocking cradle” (20). The “rocking cradle” is the Christianity that challenges, not only Okonkwo’s tribal cultures and traditions, but also “rock” the internal issues he personally struggles with, like his ideas of manhood and self-worth. The lines “And what rough beast…/ slouches toward Bethlehem to be born” (21-22) are ironic because as the “beast,” symbolic of the conquest, is born, Okonkwo dies, first figuratively, then literally.

Challenges to Okonkwo’s Belief System

There are many events that illustrate challenges to Okonkwo’s personal belief system.  Throughout the book, many events challenge his beliefs about the inferiority of womanhood and his definition of manhood. When an oracle decides that Okonkwo’s adopted son, Ikemefuna, should die to restore justice, a wise man, Ezedue, advises Okonkwo to have nothing to do with the death of the boy who calls him father. Okonkwo was never asked to be the one to kill him, but because of his fear to be seen as weak, he kills

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his adopted son himself.  The belief that Okonkwo holds is that a man should not be afraid to kill, as violence, aggression, and lack of affection defines masculinity. He is challenged with the idea that manhood can also be defined by loyalty and love.  Okonkwo reacts to this idea by rejecting it and going into a deep depression.  His actions caused the death of his adopted son as well as the death of the relationship between him and his other son, Obierika (who grew to love Ikemefuna deeply), which speeds the dissolution of their relationship. The same challenge is presented when Chielo takes Okonkwo’s favorite child to be offered to the goddess.  His belief that affection and love are a womanly weakness is at odds with his feelings and his reaction to the threat of losing his daughter and seeing his wife in pain.   Instead of feeling indifferent, as Okonkwo might think is the proper reaction for a man, he feels deep concern and follows his wife in her pursuit of her daughter.  This event offers a special opportunity of bonding between him and his wife, as he finds great comfort in that affection.  The challenge presented again is that even the strongest of men can feel love. He also experiences and enjoys the warmth and goodness of his wife as well as her determination, strength, and protection, suggesting that women are not as worthless as he might believe. He is presented with this idea again when he returns to his motherland after being exiled from his tribe because of his accidental killing of Ezedue’s son. He reacts to this struggle once more with a deep depression and disappointment. He shows contempt to the land of her mother. A return to his motherland would symbolize the return to the safety found in a woman, but Okonkwo never embraces that return.  Okonkwo’s uncle tells him:

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It is true that a child belongs to its father. But when a father beats his child, it seeks sympathy in its mother’s hut. A man belongs to his fatherland when things are good and life is sweet.  But when there is sorrow and bitterness he finds refuge in his motherland. Your mother is there to protect you (Achebe 138-139).

 Okwonko is encouraged to find that comfort in his motherland (in womanhood) and enjoy the good that femininity can offer. His reaction is to ignore this wisdom and continue with his contempt toward his motherland and toward women.  He is never able to embrace these ideas about manhood and the value of women and dies in despair and discontentment, with a sense of powerlessness that leads him to his grave.   

Another important belief that Okonkwo holds is challenged throughout the book. He believes that his high position in his tribe is what gives him value as a person, and that as long as he maintains it, he feels in control of his own life and his family, but when he accidentally kills Ezedue’s son, a member of the tribe, he is driven out for seven years to his motherland.  Everything he has worked for is lost in the blink of an eye.  He reacts by falling into depression because he does not have the energy to begin from scratch as he had done in his youth. He is encouraged by life’s circumstances to embrace his worth for being a human being, not by his accomplishments and titles.  His need to feel in control over his life comes from his belief that that control gives a man worth. This is challenged when his son, Nwoye, rejects the traditions of his people and converts to Christianity, abandoning his upbringing completely. Okonkwo had believed that, despite his past disappointments, his son could still become a great clansmen. When Nwoye rejects this, Okonkwo denies his son

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and diminishes his manhood, hence his worth. Upon his return to the fatherland, he feels the same way toward the men who, according to him, are passively accepting the Christian conquer. Their peaceful reactions make them seem weak and his belief that the Umofia tribesmen should do anything, even if it takes violence, to avoid being conquered is tested.  Should the Umofia people go against their values in order to preserve them? He reacts to that challenge by breaking those peaceful values. He begins to foster a hatred and defensiveness toward the Christians.  It is because of his personal belief system that a man's value comes from his high positions and accomplishments that he rejects the Christians with a special passion. If Christianity is accepted, not only does he lose any justification he held for killing his adopted son, he also loses the high position amongst the tribe.  If all men are valuable, as the church seems to believe when they accept and embrace the tribe’s “undesirables” and men with no titles, then he is nothing special. His worth as a man is gone. An analysis of the book summarizes this dynamic: 

Moreover, men of high status like Okonkwo view the church as a threat because it undermines the cultural value of their accomplishments. Their titles and their positions as religious authorities and clan leaders lose force and prestige if men of lower status are not there—the great cannot be measured against the worthless if the worthless have disappeared (Sparknotes).

If Okonkwo thinks that his personal value comes from his high position, then the church’s idea that all humans have value simply by being human poses a big threat to his belief system.  This threat is apparent when Okonkwo’s return did not ignite the excitement he expected. He thought his return would be celebrated and exalted and that he might even

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take the highest title, but as the Christian leader, Mr. Brown, fosters a message of equality, the rejection of titles and the acceptance of the undesirables, his view of power is challenged by a feeling of impotence. The church is a threat for him, not only because of the loss of the tribe’s values, but because he feels it is robbing him of the glory he is due. The final blow for him is the humiliation of Reverend Smith to all the respected elders of the clan. He reacts by rejecting the notion that humans have inherent value regardless of accomplishments by killing himself. It is this feeling of impotence and powerlessness that never leaves him that ultimately drives him to commit suicide.

Progress in Things Fall Apart

A prominent theme in Things Fall Apart is the idea of progress.  This book fosters an ideal for progress in many areas that are relevant, not only in Nigeria then, but also in America now.  The book favors the respect and value of all human life. While the church made many mistakes, there are things they did which the author seems to praise. The tribe’s religious ideas made them afraid of twins. They responded by discarding them at birth and throwing them in a forest to die alone.  The church challenged their beliefs by rescuing those babies and raising them.  The tribesmen also valued accomplished men of high titles but rejected and ostracized men they considered lazy or worthless. They valued some people and rejected others, while the church accepted anyone, including the most despicable rejects. The tribesmen did many things that undermined the intrinsic value of humans.  This caused them to treat women disrespectfully, often in abusive ways, and to see them as unimportant. They were not considered equal to men and did not have the same rights because they were seen as weak. The Christians also came in with a

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misunderstanding of human value, as they undermined the achievements of the tribes and disrespected their culture, especially Reverend Smith. He sought to abolish all of their traditions as if they had no value, and came to the tribe with a feeling of superiority because of his ethnicity.  The book encourages the reader to look at human life for its intrinsic value and to disregard gender, economic status, ethnicity, and personal achievements as measurements of value.  Through this respect for life, the book encourages progress in the area of gender equality and highlights a need for understanding and respect of other cultures. 

The book also touches on the importance of education in a globalized world, as when Reverend Brown encourages the tribeschildren to learn to read and write because he knew they would be unable to defend themselves as the world globalized. This praising of education was also emphasized in the folktale of the tortoise and the birds when the tortoise, symbolic of the White colonialists, took advantage of the birds, representing the tribes. To defend themselves, the birds appointed the parrot to translate between the tortoise and his wife and tricked him into self-destruction. The parrot symbolizes an educated tribesman, and the story touches on the importance of education. 

My Interpretation of the End

I interpreted the ending as having to do more with Okonkwo’s internal struggles than with what was happening in outward circumstances. He displays feelings of impotence and powerlessness throughout the book. His suicide at the end is the culmination of those feelings of powerlessness and years of depression, emotional disattachment, resentment, and his inability to foster close relationships. So strong was his

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belief that his manliness and power to control his own life were attributes of self-worth, that he was more willing to die by his own hand than to be conquered and seen as feminine. He was never able to adapt his belief system to the circumstance that gave him many opportunities to see himself as he truly was: a valuable, important human being who deserved love and respect regardless of his failures or accomplishments.

Works Cited

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. USA: Haddon Craftsmen, 1959.

Sparknotes LLC. Sparknotes Things Fall Apart. 2012. 21 Feb. 2012. 

Yeats, William Butler. “The Second Coming.” Michael Meyer. Poetry- An Introduction. 6th

ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010. 655.

 Copyright Benderas (2013)