In Silko’s “Yellow Woman” what do the stolen beef & the jell-o have in common? How do these elements break the prevailing mood?
The main theme that I found these foods had in common was that they were not natural foods of Indian people. The prevailing mood is that the main characters were to be representatives of well known spirits, told of in tales of old. The characters try to draw themselves in with a tie to history. They find themselves drawn to nature, they stay in a cave with no modern conveniences and they eat very raw foods taken from the land. When the beef and the jell-o come into play, the cattle is rustled or stolen and not hunted as a purely natural food would have been if they stuck to the theme of purely American Indian tradition. The jell-o is obviously a completely processed food with almost no nutritional content and is in no way natural. These foods break the mood or idea of a complete return to traditional ways.
After reading Saadawi’s “In Camera,” how do you feel about Leila Al-Fargani’s father? Upon what evidence do you base your judgement?
After reading “In Camera,” I found Leila’s father to be a self-centered, selfish, prideful, idiot. At the trial, which would determine the fate of his daughter, he was more concerned with taking credit for a comment made by the judge, which would make him look more prestigious as a father, with respect to the way people saw his daughter at that moment, than he was with the outcome of the trial and his daughter’s life. After this portrayal, I could not shake the idea that he was a cold bastard, with no real emotion or parenting skill. The thought that this would be the first and most important thing to come to mind is beyond me. Maybe it was the society that he lived in, which defines priorities and principles, but I would not give him or that mind set a shred or respect.
What is the importance of the title of the story “Death Constant Beyond Love”? What does it tell us about the stories central thematic concerns?
During the preface of The Norton Anthology, it is stated that Marquez was portraying a reversal of the ambitious claim that love will outlast even death, in the sonnet “Love Constant beyond Death.” Marquez does portray his idea in almost every facet of his story. This is why his story is titled what it is. The story is titled to symbolize the theme he intended to express, which is that all types of love will come to an end with the fate of death.