emilybrocar

[emilybrocar]

Reflection 2

In each of my blog posts I chose to focus on the construction of gender and the ways in which women are subjected to patriarchal oppression. The Persepolis post discusses the Islamic Revolution, Marjane Satrapi and her family’s experiences during that corrupt era. The fractured fairy tale post deals with women and gender representation in video games. In this review I will discuss how Angela Carter’s “Bloody Chamber” relates to the damsel in distress trope. During the last post I discuss Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” and Susan Glaspell’s “Trifles”. I will talk more in this reflection about how those short stories have changed over time, yet can still be connected to society today.

In the first post about Persepolis I talk about the inner and outer conflicts that the author struggles with during the graphic novel. The key issues in the novel are the Islamic Revolution, the war between Iran and Iraq, and the oppressive regime that sought control and power through fear. The gradual changes made by the radical Islamic government affected Marji in several different ways. As a child she is very religious, speaking with God on a regular basis, and wants to be a prophet when she grows up. When the more negative aspects of the regime start to manifest in her life, Marji begins to pull away from her previous notions of religion and adopts a more radical way of thinking. Marji’s mother plays a critical part in her development and thinking process when it comes to politics. When Marji is young, her and her mother argue a lot because Marji has trouble understanding the things her mother is trying to teach her. Marji’s grandmother is an important part in her graphic novel as well. When Marji is preparing to leave for Vienna her grandmother comes to spend the night with her. She tells Marji “In life you'll meet a lot of jerks. If they hurt you, tell yourself that it’s because they’re stupid. That will help keep you from reacting to their cruelty. Because there is nothing worse than bitterness and vengeance... always keep your dignity and be true to yourself” (150).

My second post discusses the idea of fractured fairy tales and female gender representation in video games. I wanted to draw a bit more attention to the negative aspects that are still alive in the gaming world, while discussing the advancements that have been made. I detail Anita Sarkeesian’s mini-series about the damsel in distress trope but here I would like to discuss Angela Carter’s “Bloody Chamber” and the ways it fits into my topic of female gender roles and the fractured fairy tale criteria. We see the role that women are expected to play in marriage again when the young woman in the story marries a man who is much older than her. At seventeen years old, the young woman was raised by a single mother and comes from a lower socioeconomic class than the man she marries. He lives in a castle and has all of the finest clothes, jewelry, and furniture so naturally this life would appeal to the young woman. She has never had a lot of finery in her life and she finds herself looking forward to beginning this new life. The story seems to be a perfect fairy tale until we start to realize that this new husband has some very dark secrets. His young bride eventually discovers the hidden bodies of his past wives, when he realizes what she discovers he attempts to behead her but her mother rides in on a horse and saves her life. It’s important that Carter chose to make the young woman’s rescuer her mother instead of a boring male character. This is one aspect that shatters the idea of the traditional fairy tale, creating a fractured version.

In my last blog post I delve into the topic of marriage again and what it means to the women in the stories we read, but also what it meant to the women who were alive when the stories were written. Although “The Story of an Hour” and “Trifles” are over 100 years old, the women in the stories can still be related to today. I think both Louise Mallard and Minnie Wright felt trapped in their marriages, regardless of whether their husbands were kind or not. We know that Louise’s husband was a lovely man who cared deeply for her and yet she is thrilled when she believes he was involved in an accident. I do not think she was necessarily happy that her husband was dead but she was clearly overjoyed to be in control of her future. Minnie Wright’s husband on the other hand, was not a very nice person. Even her neighbors knew that he was prone to violence and that Minnie was probably miserable with him. In both stories we can see these women filling their roles as wives out of duty and circumstance. We can also how the construction of the wife is viewed by the other male characters. The doctor’s assume Louise died of a heart attack because she was so happy to see her husband alive. It would be inconceivable to other men that she could have been so disappointed to see her husband alive. The same can be said for the husbands in “Trifles” when they laugh at Minnie for being concerned about her jars of canned fruit and how to finish her quilt while she is in jail for her husband’s murder. I don't know if it occurs to them that she couldn’t care less that her husband is dead.

[emilybrocar]

Short Stories

The female role in the institution of marriage is a central theme in Kate Chopin’s short story, “The Story of an Hour” and Susan Glaspell’s one-act play, “Trifles”. Marriage symbolizes a large and important transition in a woman’s life. When these stories were written, marriage marked the growth from childhood to adulthood for a woman. “The Story of an Hour was originally published in 1894, during a time when women had no choice but to be married. To remain unmarried was socially unacceptable and women who neglected to marry before a certain age became the pariahs of society. Kate Chopin explores the complex emotions that came with marriage and the societal boundaries of the late 19th century during her short story. 

Mrs. Louise Mallard has heart complications and so her sister, Josephine, must be very careful when she delivers the terrible news about her brother-in-law. Louise’s husband’s friend, Richards, has just come from the train station where he found Louise’s husband on a list of people killed in a railway accident. When Josephine finally reveals the awful truth about Brently, Louise begins to sob and goes upstairs to her bedroom. Once she is alone, Louise sits down at the open window and begins to describe the senses she is experiencing from outside. She sees trees, smells rain approaching, and hears someone singing. She notices the clouds in the sky and the birds singing and realizes she is still young. Louise begins to feel apprehensive and attempts to swallow the feelings that are rising in her throat. She starts to repeat the words Free! Body and soul free! out loud to herself over and over. 

Louise Mallard remarks to herself that she will likely cry again when she sees her husband Brently’s body. She remembers the tenderness of his hands and the loving way in which he always looked at her. But at the same time she begins to imagine the years ahead of her. Years that belong to her alone now. Louise becomes increasingly happier as she thinks about her newfound sense of independence. Chopin was attempting to convey several emotions here. One, that Louisa loved her husband very much and would miss him dearly. Two, that she was thrilled to be able to make every decision for herself and her future. The late 19th century was not a time where women could handle their own finances or even dictate their day to day lives. As a 21st century reader, we can sympathize with both of Louise Mallard’s conflicting emotions. 

At the closing of the hour Josephine comes to Louise’s door, begging her to come out. Louise tells her to go away as she fantasizes about all the days she has ahead, hoping to live a long life. Then she opens the door, and she and Josephine start down the stairs where Richards is waiting. The front door opens unexpectedly and Brently strolls in, he hadn’t been in the train accident at all. Josephine screams as Richards attempts to block Louise from seeing him. She drops dead and when the doctors arrive, they pronounce that Louise died from a heart attack brought on by ‘happiness’. The doctors are correct in their cause of death, however they misdiagnose the emotion that caused it. When Louise Mallard saw her husband walk through the door very much alive, it was disappointment that stopped her heart, not happiness. Chopin’s short story exposes the darker side of marriage, the feelings that creep in at the edges and can't be brushed away. Louise thought that all men and women oppress one another, even if they do it out of kindness. 

The one-act play, “Trifles”, by Susan Glaspell also explores that dark side of marriage. Written in 1916, this is still the same society that regards marriage so highly. The play opens on the scene of an abandoned farm house that is in disarray. Dishes have been left unwashed and there is bread prepared that has not been baked. Five people arrive at the house to investigate the scene of a crime. John Wright has been found murdered, strangled with a rope in his bed. Two of the gentlemen who are there to investigate have been accompanied by their wives, Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale. The men discuss the discovery of Mr. Wright’s body and the strange way in which his wife, Minnie Wright, had announced that her husband was dead. She claimed that she hadn’t woken up when her husband was strangled. Minnie is arrested for the murder of her husband and held in jail until her trial.

While the men barely look around the house, they do notice Minnie’s canning jars of fruit have frozen and shattered. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale discuss how worried Minnie was that her canning jars would explode in the cold, and the sheriff jokes that only women would be worried about such a thing while being held for murder. The men begin to criticize Minnie’s poor housekeeping because of the mess in the kitchen, This is a perfect example of how women are reduced to a single identity by their husband or partner. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters begin to collect some things that Minnie requested be brought to her at the jail. The women discover an empty birdcage and Mrs. Hale begins to express regrets about not visiting Minnie more often, admitting that she knew John Wright to be a hard and difficult man. She recalls how happy Minnie was before she got married just as the women uncover a beautiful red box, inside is the dead bird with its broken neck. The women come to the realization that John Wright must have murdered Minnie’s bird in a fit of rage. Mrs. Hale understands what happened to John Wright and why, as she begins to berate herself for not visiting her neighbor Minnie enough. She feels that Minnie’s fate could have turned out differently if she had had a friend to keep her company.

[emilybrocar]

Fractured Fairy Tales & Women in Video Games

Fairy tales are typically stories that have been passed down orally from generation to generation. They are meant to give guidelines for ideal behaviors, rules, and values. Often the tales are meant to teach lessons to children about desirable and undesirable traits by using brave heroes and nasty villains. Fairy tales have shaped societal norms for the behavior of boys and girls, and not necessarily in a positive way. Your typical fairy tale teaches boys to be chivalrous and brave, while girls learn to be lovely and helpless. These expectations have fostered the idea of the “damsel in distress”. However, now there are men and women attempting to re-write these stereotypes. A fractured fairy tale is a story in which those expectations are broken; instead of a typical prince and princess or “happily ever after”, we get stories with new plot developments and unexpected points of view. 

I’m choosing to focus on gender discrimination in video games because it is something I’m passionate about; I really love playing video games. The video gaming field is dominated by men, with only 3% of women making up video game programmers. Most available game companies notoriously underserve people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and other minorities. Video games with female protagonists are rare and being able to play as a female character is often still considered an optional extra by game developers and publishers. In 2018, the International Journal of Mental Health determined that 1 in 3 female gamers report experiencing harassment while playing online. I have personally suffered from verbal harassment when using a microphone in order to communicate with the people I'm playing with. Many women choose to play online games without using a microphone at all because male players assume that a female gamer cannot play as well as men can. This video is an excellent example of the discrimination and harassment women experience when playing online.

Anita Sarkeesian is a female gamer who runs a blog called “The Feminist Frequency” where she published a three part mini-series titled Damsel in Distress. It explores the “damsel in distress” trope and how it became one of the most widely used gendered clichés in the history of gaming. Sarkeesian discusses tropes, patterns, and plot devices that commonly represent women in video games but she focuses on the idea of the “damsel in distress”. The distressed damsel is a woman who is in desperate need of saving because she has found herself in a situation that can only be solved by a man. This trope has existed throughout history as a very popular theme in Greek Mythology and was highly perpetuated in the 20th century film industry. The theme seemed to stick with video games however, creating the plot line for some of the bestselling video games of all time like Super Mario Bros and The Legend of Zelda. Sarkeesian goes on to explore the normalization of violence towards women in video games and how the damsel in distress trope perpetuates the idea that women are somehow inferior and incapable of defending themselves. Sarkeesian has also done a series of videos called Tropes vs. Women in Video Games in which she explores the way female characters are designed. The over-sexualization of female video game characters is extremely popular. Women are shown wearing minimal clothing in hand to hand combat games while men are fully clothed and armored. The Mortal Kombat game series was notorious for their scantily clad female characters until the release of their newest edition, Mortal Kombat 11 in March of 2019. 

Anita Sarkeesian’s Damsel in Distress mini-series was posted in 2013 and it is true that video game developers have made great strides towards inclusivity since then. One game developer stands out specifically for its effort to create a game that was highly inclusive; Blizzard Entertainment released Overwatch in May of 2016. The game has a lineup of thirty one characters, fourteen of them are female. Out of those fourteen women, five of them are women of color and only two are from the United States. While some of their costumes are still slightly problematic, Overwatch was one of the first games to feature female characters in full suits of armor and wielding a range of weapons. The GIF below is one of their female characters, Brigitte. She wears full body armor and her weapon is a large hammer. There are several other games that have made efforts to create more female characters as well. The third installment in the popular series Assassin’s Creed featured a woman of color as the main protagonist. Lara Croft: Shadow of the Tomb Raider was released in 2018 with a complete revamp that saw the main female protagonist wearing more sensible clothing. The game series Destiny has several female characters that you can interact with during gameplay, as well as the option to choose a female avatar.

Another issue facing female gamers today is their consistent under-representation in the ESports professional league. Kim “Geguri” Se-yeon was the first woman assigned to a professional Overwatch league in 2018. Although groundbreaking, Kim suffered serious discrimination from her male peers. While she was just getting started in the league in 2016, Kim was accused of using automatic aiming software during gameplay. If the allegations are proven, players are removed permanently from their league. Blizzard Entertainment opened an investigation into the accusations and Kim was cleared of the charges. When Kim was finally assigned to her professional team in 2018, it was a team with a 42-game losing streak. Since her placement on the team the Shanghai Dragons have made a huge comeback with 6-6 record for the current Overwatch season. She is the 24th highest paid woman at $28,000 a game, while the 24th highest paid man made 2.2 million.

[emilybrocar]

Persepolis

Persepolis: The Story Of A Childhood is an intensely written and magnificently illustrated graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi. The novel is the first half of a two-part story that details the author’s experiences while growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Satrapi’s memoir illustrates the story of her childhood in Tehran from ages six to fourteen. Her black and white comic strips are brimming with humor and heartbreak as seen through the eyes of a young, impressionable girl. Persepolis follows the overthrow of their Shah’s regime, the violence of the Islamic Revolution, and the war with Iraq. Satrapi’s graphic novel is immediately relatable because as the reader we learn about the revolution and war along with young Marjane. 

Called Marji for short, she is the only child of devoted Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran’s last emperors. Satrapi’s graphic novel makes it clear that the Islamic Republic, and the following gender oppression of the time, had little to do with religion and more to do with mass control. Instead, Satrapi chooses to outline how the political revolution affected her transition from childhood to adulthood and later, how her family fought back against their government. At the beginning of the story we can see the contradictions between Marji’s home life and public life as she is taught to differentiate between power and religion. As a ten year old, Marji struggles to separate religion and politics. Often comparing Karl Marx and God, Satrapi writes “At the age of six I was already sure I was the last prophet” (6). Marji tells us she has a conversation with God every night but as she begins to learn more about the revolution and experience the effects it has on her family, we see God appearing less frequently in the panels. Marji soon learns of her grandfather’s imprisonment by the Shah, and in the chapter titled “The Heroes” she learns about the awful torture of two family friends during their imprisonment. These realizations devastate Marji and she seeks comfort and safety with God. She is able to hold onto her faith until the regime executes her uncle, with whom she had grown quite close to. Marji yells at God -- telling him to get out of her life and that she never wants to see him again (70). This marks a turning point in her understanding of the difference between religion and power as Marji begins to develop her own opinions about the Islamic regime and its affects in her life.

As Marji enters her teenage years the war between Iran and Iraq begins and aspects of her life begin to change more drastically. Bombings begin to happen in the cities, travel to the United States is closed, and the universities are shut down. Marji’s mother is threatened by fundamentalist men and soon afterwards all women are required to wear the veil in public. We begin to see the war less as an effort to implement religion and more as a tool to exercise power over an entire group. The regime used religious oratory to justify the radical changes, yet Satrapi’s illustrations show us these policies are about societal control. Marji begins to dwell on these changes and the way they will affect the hopes she has for her future. One day she leaves her house to buy tapes and is stopped by the women’s branch of the Guardians of the Revolution. They accost her about her shoes, her denim jacket, her Michael Jackson button, and for wearing her veil improperly. The Guardians let her go but in the next chapter her neighborhood is bombed and the Satrapi’s neighbors are killed in the explosion. These events force Marji’s parents to make arrangements for her to attend a French school in Vienna in order to ensure her safety. The graphic novel closes with Marji learning that her parents will not be joining her in Vienna. The last panels show Marji at the airport as she says goodbye to her parents. She turns just in time to see her father carrying her mother away. “I couldn't just go. I turned around to see them one last time. It would have been better to just go” (153).

There are layers of discrimination laced throughout Persepolis that manifest as gender inequality. I want to focus on some of the important women in Marji’s life because they set the stage for her to navigate the changes happening in her world. Her mother is an extremely intelligent and strong character who uses her position to essentially push back against their patriarchal society. On several occasions she utilizes her position as the wife and head of the household to keep Marji's father out of trouble. When the family is stopped by Guardians of the Revolution, Marji’s mother and grandmother use their positions as women to maintain their safety. Marji’s father is accused of drinking and her mother says to the Guardian, “Forgive him. Listen I could be your mother. How old are you? Sixteen?...my daughter is twelve...forgive him” (109). The Guardian replies, “You're lucky to have this woman for your wife, otherwise you'd already be in hell!” (109). Marji’s grandmother buys the women some time to dispose of their illegal items such as alcohol and playing cards by telling the Guardian: “I have diabetes, my boy. If I don't drink a little syrup, I’m going to faint” and he replies, “Diabetes, just like my mother” (110). These panels illustrate how these women utilize their positions in society as mothers to rebel against a corrupt system. Marjane Satrapi uses her graphic novel to foster the idea that Iranian women are not simply submitting to patriarchal institutions, but that these women fight back using the positions they have been forced into.

As a side note, this novel has been adapted into a movie!

[emilybrocar]

Reflection 1

In each of the novels we have read I chose to focus on Chimananda Ngozi Adichie’s explanation of the “danger of a single story”. Adichie tells us that by placing people inside a box based on preconceived notions, we fail to understand the complexity of human beings. Everyone is defined by their experiences and choices, so the danger of a single story is that it gives us an incomplete and narrow minded view of someone. By furthering an incomplete story of someone, it makes it hard to empathize and relate with their situation.

In my first post on The Hate U Give, I discuss how a single story shapes the outcome of Khalil’s trial. When the media portrays Khalil as just another ‘thug’, they are dehumanizing him. They are making it hard for the public to relate to him by circulating a single story of his life. The officer who murdered Khalil wants to further this single story by turning him into a monster, a kid just trying to survive becomes a violent drug dealer who would have killed that police officer the first chance he got. As the reader, we know this is simply not true, Khalil was a good person who was just trying to take care of his family, no matter the cost. We can also see another single story in play with Iesha, she is portrayed as just another young, single mother who couldn’t care less about her children and lives to get high and drunk. This is also an example of a cultural issue that shapes social stratification in the construction of gender. Why would a young, black, mother of three care about her children when she can live the fast life with her kingpin boyfriend? This single story is shattered when Iesha risks a severe beating from King in order to get her children, Starr, and DeVante out of King’s house. She knows that she will be the only person around for King to take his anger out on but she accepts this and as Angie Thomas begins to paint a more complete picture of Iesha, we realize that we have judged her based on her situation because she is a poor, young mother.

In my second post about Home Fire, I delve a bit deeper into the idea of a single story and the damage they can have. Kamila Shamsie’s intricate plot shows the reader that there is always more to someone’s story than meets the eye. Karamat Lone has enforced the idea of a single story, when it comes to Muslims in order to further his political campaign. I touch on the consequences this has on the Muslim population in Britain, but specifically the repercussions the Pasha’s feel, as well as Karamat himself. In the end he unintentionally pushes away his only son, Eamonn, who very much looked up to Karamat. In the beginning, Eamonn defends his father’s statements and decisions to Isma, becoming angry when he realizes that she is one of the Muslims who greatly dislikes his father. Karamat’s narrow view of the Pasha’s, assuming that their father’s decisions influence Isma and Aneeka. He neglects to understand that Parvaiz was taken advantage of and ultimately made a mistake. He refers to Aneeka as a whore for sleeping with his son, assuming that she never had any true feelings for him but instead was using him as a tool to bring her brother home. Gender classification is also extremely apparent in Home Fire, Shamsie draws attention to the way in which Karamat sexualizes Isma when she comes to his home to speak to him. At the same time, he claims that Muslim women should stop wearing hijab in order to better blend in as British.

Finally, in my third post about Station ElevenI wrote mostly about the connections between characters through the past and present. Readers must look more closely at Emily St. John Mandel’s story to see the gender classifications but they are present. We can clearly see the prophet does not have much respect for women, except in their roles as wife and mother. He is fully prepared to take a 12 year old as his fifth bride because he is ‘chosen’, he views himself as better than most because he was chosen for a reason to survive the Georgia Flu pandemic. Yet, we can also see the danger of a single story coming into play with the prophet’s character as well. It is certainly true that the prophet, Tyler, had a difficult childhood being raised mostly by a single mother and halfway across the world from his absent, busy father, Arthur Leander. Forced to live the bulk of his childhood inside an airport with his mother, Elizabeth, as she begins to lose her grip on reality. Turning to religion to explain why a terrible disease has killed 99% of the globe’s population, he adopts the motto that “everything happens for a reason.” Nevertheless, he is responsible for the choices he makes once he leaves the Severn City Airport, as the reader we don’t get the full picture of his childhood until the end of the novel. As the story climaxes, we see Kirsten shed her single story of the prophet as she realizes that there must be a reason he acts the way he does.

[emilybrocar]

Station Eleven

This dystopian fiction by Emily St. John Mandel takes readers on a journey between the past and the present. Opening on the evening when a catastrophic flu pandemic arrives in Toronto, within weeks, 99% of the world’s population is decimated. The main narrator of the present is a woman named Kirsten Raymonde, just 8 years old when the pandemic hit, she will never forget the night it happened for more than one reason. As a child actor in a production of King Lear, Kirsten witnesses famous Hollywood actor, Arthur Leander, suffer a fatal heart attack onstage. Fast forward 20 years, we meet Kirsten as she travels between the settlements of a world that is much changed. Her companions are a small troupe of actors and musicians, calling themselves the Traveling Symphony they have dedicated themselves to keeping the arts and humanities alive. Mandel creates a fantastic timeline that weaves her characters together in both the past and present, Station Elevenis a story of fate and luck, tenderness and violence. “Equal parts page-turner and poetry” (Entertainment Weekly), as the reader progresses through 9 carefully titled sections, it becomes apparent just how deeply each character’s futures are connected.

I’m going to attempt to outline this complex story without making things too confusing and still doing Mandel’s fantastic plot justice. As the novel gets going, we follow Kirsten and the Traveling Symphony on their journey to entertain the few people who are left on Earth with Shakespeare’s plays. They arrive in a settlement called St. Deborah by the Water, the Symphony has been here before and in fact, this is where they left two of their members, Charlie and Jeremy. Everyone quickly realizes, however, that something is very different about St. Deborah by the Water. It’s inhabitants are reluctant to talk to Kirsten about her friends and they soon discover what everyone is so afraid of, a man who calls himself “the Prophet” and digs graves for everyone brave enough to leave their settlement. After putting on a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Symphony makes a rushed departure from St. Deborah on the Water, hoping to put some distance between their troupe and the strange prophet. They quickly discover that a young girl named Olivia has stowed away in one of their caravans and when she reveals that she was to become the prophet’s fifth wife, the Symphony understands that they must take her with them. As members of their troupe begin to disappear into thin air it becomes apparent that the prophet is following them and he is not happy that Olivia is gone.

The more the story unfolds, we begin to realize that Kirsten is almost obsessed with piecing together Arthur Leander’s life. Her most prized possesions are two volumes of a comic book called Station Eleven that Arthur gave her during their time on the production of King Lear, as well as a paper weight that she received on the night he died. We experience the journey of a character named Jeevan Chaudhary, paparazzo turned EMT, who is present at the theatre the night Arthur dies and attempts to administer CPR to no avail. We see the night the pandemic hits through Jeevan’s eyes as he frantically stocks up on supplies and rushes to his brother’s apartment. Jeevan watches his brother lose his grip on reality as the newscasters say their final goodbyes. Eventually setting off on his own to walk South where he will become a doctor. Spanning decades, moving back and forth through past and present, as Arthur falls in and out of love and Kirsten finds herself caught in the prophets crosshairs. Time flashes back to Arthur’s first marriage to a woman named Miranda Carroll, we discover that she is the author of the Station Elevencomics. We meet one of Arthur’s oldest friends, Clark Thompson at a dinner party that takes place 31 years in the past. This is the same evening that Miranda realizes Arthur is in love with another woman, Elizabeth Colton. She becomes his second wife and the mother of his only child, Tyler. At the party Clark brings Arthur a gift, the beautiful paperweight that Kirsten cherishes so much. There are so many channels that connect the characters as the story comes to head at the fabled Museum of Civilization inside the Severn City Airport.

The overwhelming theme of fate that sews intricacy through Station Elevenis most apparent as the story draws to a close. The Symphony’s ultimate destination is the Severn City Airport, rumored to house the Museum of Civilization, is also home to Clark Thompson. He narrates much of the end of the novel as we begin to understand how he, Elizabeth, and Tyler ended up stranded there. He describes the mother and son’s descent into a kind of madness, Clark finds a young Tyler reading from the Book of Revelations to a quarantined plane full of dead people. Tyler tells them they died for a reason, that everything happens for a reason, the Georgia Flu happened for a reason, and those who survived did so for a reason. As the Symphony closes in on the airport, Kirsten and the prophet are thrown together in the most shocking twist of fate yet. She realizes he is Arthur Leander’s only son, Tyler, as he points a gun at Kirsten’s head yet one of his own followers shoots him before he can kill her. Just as Kirsten begins to understand why Tyler became the man he did, she sheds that single story she knew of him as the prophet and realizes his life after the pandemic must have been traumatizing for him. Another example of a single story comes in the form of the Museum of Civilization. Clark chose items that he felt reflected life before the flu, yet the items tell only a single story of who people were. A toaster oven, several pairs of stilettos, an American Express credit card; all items that tell a privileged story perhaps, but what about the rest of humanity?

[emilybrocar]

Home Fire

Kamila Shamsie’s novel Home Fire is both heartbreaking and thought provoking. Divided into four sections based on the character who narrates those chapters, the story is set in London, Amherst, Syria, and Istanbul.

First, we meet Isma Pasha, the eldest of three, who has put her life on hold to raise her younger twin siblings in the wake of their mother’s death. Aneeka and Parvaiz have recently turned 19 and set off on their own paths. This leaves Isma free to travel to America and continue her PhD in Sociology at the invitation of her mentor, Dr. Hira Shah. While in Amherst, Isma meets the character who will narrate the second part of the novel, Eamonn Lone. The British-Pakistani son of Britain’s Home Secretary, Karamat Lone, Eamonn is a privileged man who has quit his job and traveled to America on a quest of self-discovery and refuge from his father’s publicity. Isma and Eamonn spend some time getting to know each other as she pretends not to know who his father is. The truth eventually comes out as Isma has a hard time looking past his father’s political indiscretions towards the British Muslim community, the same community in which her family and Karamat were raised. He abandons his Muslim upbringing in favor of political popularity and adopts the notion that Muslims should discard more traditional values, like the hijab, in order to better conform with the idea of being British. We learn that Isma’s father, Adil Pasha, had abandoned his family to join a terrorist organization and died while being transported from Bagram to Guantanamo. Around this time we also learn that Parvaiz has followed in their father’s footsteps, traveled to Raqqa and joined a jihadist organization.

As Eamonn takes over the story, he travels back to London as Aneeka discovers that her sister Isma is the one who turned Parvaiz into the British police. Shamsie begins to weave an intricate web of betrayal and twists as Eamonn and Aneeka begin a very sexual relationship. He falls completely in love with her and by the end of his narration, we discover Aneeka has been in contact with her twin brother Parvaiz. He is desperate for a way out of Raqqa and needs Aneeka’s help to return home to London. Karamat has learned of his son’s romance and immediately puts a stop to it as her family’s reputation would certainly make them all look bad. Aneeka admits to pursuing Eamonn with the motive of gaining help for her brother. Next, we move to Parvaiz’s section where we learn about his journey for answers about his absent father, his jihadi recruitment and training in London, the things he sees and experiences in Raqqa as a member of ISIS’ media team, and finally his attempt to get home to Aneeka. At the end he stands on the steps of the British consulate and the story switches to Aneeka, we see her brother’s murder through her narrative. Her section is comprised almost entirely of media reports and Karamat Lone demonizing Parvaiz. Karamat states that anyone who betrays Britain to become terrorists are enemies of the state, and are no longer British and will not be allowed home. He holds this stance when Aneeka wishes to bring her brother’s body home to be buried and refuses to allow it. Aneeka rushes to Pakistan where Parvaiz’s body is being held, she tears open his casket on live television and demands that she be allowed to return to Britain with his body. The last viewpoint we see comes from Karamat as his life essentially falls apart. His family is angry with him and Eamonn flees the country to be with Aneeka in Pakistan. The last few lines are gut wrenching as Eamonn meets Aneeka, a belt of explosives is strapped to him by jihadi terrorists. While he struggles to tear it off, Aneeka runs to him, whispers something in his ear, and they embrace.

Home Fireis another excellent fictional literary example of issues in today’s society. A highly political tale, we can see Adichie’s theme of the danger of a single story in the media portrayal of Parvaiz. When reading the section he narrates, we get a glimpse of the complex path he took to become stuck in Raqqa with ISIS. Farooq used Adil Pasha to set Parvaiz on a quest for revenge, ultimately brainwashing him into something he didn’t truly want. After Parvaiz sees the daily life in Raqqa he realizes he has made a terrible mistake and wants nothing more than to come home and leave the violence that surrounds him. Another example single story is Isma assuming Eamonn would be exactly like his father, she had a singular idea about him based on Karamat’s actions. It turns out, Eamonn would have done anything to bring Parvaiz’s body home for Aneeka. Karamat’s attitude towards Muslim’s is another example of the danger of a single story, the views he represents and publicly speak about reflect in society’s reactions to Muslims. At the opening of the novel, Isma is held in an interrogation at the airport for several hours and Aneeka is spit on for wearing hijab while she rides the subway. There are many countries today that still have restrictions on religious attire for women, The Pew Research Center has an informative article on the subject. The gender roles in Home Fireare also readily apparent, Aneeka especially gives readers a wonderful transformation, as she begins with always wearing hijab and taking prayer time, to eventually giving herself completely to Eamonn, and ultimately her quest for justice in the name of her brother. She defies what it means to be a Muslim woman in the name of family.

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The Hate U Give

Sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong. There are moments in life when it feels like the odds are stacked against you, when it feels like nothing you do makes a difference. I’ve had those days and it’s hard not to feel sorry for yourself or to complain about things never going your way. I grew up with lots of opportunities for a good education, plenty of tools to get me ahead in life, and a very cushioned view of the world. It took me awhile to realize that the color of my skin supplied me with those things. My neighbor and very first friend had a white mother and a black father, it never crossed my mind that people would look at her differently than the way they looked at me. Yet people did look at her differently and they treated her differently and it took me awhile to realize that, too. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that my bad days could never compare to her bad days. That when we got our first jobs my curly hair was perfectly acceptable, while hers was “unruly and unprofessional”. That when we went shopping together, the department store employees would watch her every move and never look my way. These discrepancies became so painfully obvious the older that we got, it didn’t matter that we lived on the same street in the same nice neighborhood or that we liked the same TV shows and the same music. She was treated differently because of the color of her skin. My father was raised in a white, southern family and he said some troubling things about race when I was growing up. It is because of him that I had to unlearn some things as I got older, I had to remind myself that I had been taught a single way of understanding certain people. I think Audre Lorde described this best when she said, “For we have, built into all of us, old blueprints of expectation and response, old structures of oppression, and these must be altered at the same time as we alter the living conditions which are a result of these structures.”

I also believe that Angie Thomas describes our society well in her novel, The Hate U Give. Thomas paints a painfully accurate picture of today’s society and the racism that is alive and well in it. The main character, Starr Amara Carter, is a 16 year old black girl who witnesses her childhood friend murdered by a police officer when he is unarmed and posing no threat. The book follows Starr’s journey of pain and healing while she attempts to have the officer who murdered Khalil indicted. Thomas highlights Starr’s struggle of living in a predominantly black community called Garden Heights, while attending a private school on the other side of town with mostly white students. The reader experiences what Starr refers to as her the two versions of herself, she has to be careful of the language she uses at school versus the way she speaks around her family and people from Garden Heights. Thomas also gives the reader a clear view of systematic oppression when Khalil is accused of being a drug dealer and the truth behind his actions becomes clear. The media attempts to portray Khalil as dangerous but his family was struggling to put food on the table and his mother was dealing with addiction. She owed King, the biggest drug dealer in Garden Heights, quite a bit of money. In order to pay off her debt and protect her, Khalil begins to sell drugs for King but the media and the officer’s family chose to latch onto the abridged version of Khalil’s story. Claiming he was just another violent drug dealer in an attempt to dehumanize him. In Chimananda Ngozi Adichie’s TED talk, she discusses what she calls “the danger of a single story”. Adichie argues that when something or someone is characterized based on a single story there is a risk of misunderstanding altogether. Just as my father tried to tell me a single story about people that didn’t look like us, the media coverage about Khalil’s murder tried to tell a single story about his life. The Hate U Give may be a work of fiction but its plot happens far too often in real life. 

Throughout the book, Starr struggles with more than just Khalil’s murder. She is wracked with guilt for not having been there for Khalil when he turned to selling drugs in order to feed his family and keep his mom safe. She believes she isn’t doing enough for Khalil after his death, even after speaking out and testifying against the officer. Starr goes before a grand jury and tells the truth about the night Khalil was shot, she makes sure they know that he was not a threat and that he was never violent with the officer. After waiting weeks for the decision, the jury decides not to indict the officer and Starr feels like everything she went through was for nothing. It is a sad reality that has happened many times in recent years; black people are killed by police officers or die in their custody and the white officers receive nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Rekia Boyd, Trayvon Martin, Philando Castile, and so many more have been killed at the hands of police officers. A New York Times article gives 15 examples since 2016 of police related deaths and the sentence for the officer involved almost always end without a conviction. There is a moment in The Hate U Give when Starr is blaming herself for the police officer being arrested. Riots have broken out in Garden Heights and Starr feels like it’s her fault for saying something wrong when she gave her statement. Her mom, Lisa Carter, tells her “sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong. The key is to never stop doing right.”

In parting, I will leave you with this quote from the magnificent Angela Davis:

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i had actual tears in my eyes from who is this ?

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