Opinion Column and Editorial Blog

How has the text borrowed from other texts, and with what effects?

This opinion column come from the Ringer and it is about the best performing NFL player on the worst football team. The column extracts a variety of different statistics in order to make an argument for each NFL player being the best performer on his football team. Furthermore the personal statements used about the performance of the player shows the personal biased the author but it is eliminated by the statistics given because statistics aren't biased.

How and why is a social group represented in a particular way?

This editorial, comes from fox news and it is about migrants trying to pass the border to go to California from Mexico illegally. This story portrays the migrants as animals trying to find salvation and President Trump stated that the Border Patrol would not going to put up with this kind of behavior. Furthermore US authorities would arrest anyone who would pass illegally the border. This portrays the Mexican immigrants who are trying to find a new home, full of opportunities as enemies of the state and a threat to Americans. This is happening because the President is trying to enforce the rule that if anyone tries to pass the border illegally they would be imprisoned if caught in order to not make this phenomenon a norm

New York TImes Article towards birth outside marriage

1: How could the text be read and interpreted differently by two different readers?

The article "For Women Under 30, Most Births Occur Outside of Marriage" is about births outside marriage being the normal. This text can be read and interpreted differently by people. The conservatives are all about tradition and they are less adaptable to change, which means the prefer to marry before having children whereas liberals are more open to change and throughout the decades the are the ones shifting and going away from tradition in order to achieve their own happiness. Furthermore liberals reading this can be empowered and encouraged as well as feel empathetic towards "Amber Strader" because of having to grow a child alone and not willing to marry but conservatives might be appalled, because of the break in tradition

2: Which social groups are marginalized, excluded or silenced within the text?

Within the text, the author excluded minorities with the use of bias through selection and omission. For example the boyfriend of Amber was portrayed as a part-time house painter who was reluctant to wed, which immediately paints a bad image for guys in relationships in general. Another instance where social groups are marginalized is where the author through the use of bias through statistics states that blacks have more kids outside marriage in comparison with latinos and whites.

TEWWG - Style Inquiry Passages.

Passage 1: Chapter 1

Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they
 come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon,
never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes
 away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is
 the life of men.
Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember,
 and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the
 truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.
So the beginning of this was a woman and she had come back
 from burying the dead. Not the dead of sick and ailing with friends at
the pillow and the feet. She had come back from the sodden and the
bloated; the sudden dead, their eyes flung wide open in judgment.

Passage 2: Chapter 9

Most of the day she was at the store, but at night she was
 there in the big house and sometimes it creaked and cried all
night under the weight of lonesomeness. Then she'd lie awake in
 bed asking lonesomeness some questions. She asked if she
wanted to leave and go back where she had come from and try to
 find her mother. Maybe tend her grandmother's grave. Sort of
 look over the old stamping ground generally. Digging around
inside of herself like that she found that she had no interest in
 that seldom-seen mother at all. She hated her grandmother and
had hidden it from herself all these years under a cloak of pity. She
 had been getting ready for her great journey to the horizons in
search of people; it was important to all the world that she should
 find them and they find her. But she had been whipped like a cur
 dog, and run off down a back road after things. It was all accord-
ing to the way you see things. Some people could look at a mud-
puddle and see an ocean with ships. But Nanny belonged to that
 other kind that loved to deal in scraps. Here Nanny had taken the
 biggest thing God ever made, the horizon—for no matter how
 far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you—and
pinched it in to such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it
 about her granddaughter's neck tight enough to choke her.

Passage 3: Chapter 2

It was a spring afternoon in West Florida. Janie had spent
most of the day under a blossoming pear tree in the back-yard.
 She had been spending every minute that she could steal from
 her chores under that tree for the last three days. That was to
 say, ever since the first tiny bloom had opened. It had called her
to come and gaze on a mystery. From barren brown stems to
glistening leaf-buds; from the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of
bloom. It stirred her tremendously. How? Why? It was like a
flute song forgotten in another existence and remembered
again. What? How? Why? This singing she heard that had noth-
ing to do with her ears. The rose of the world was breathing out
smell. It followed her through all her waking moments and
caressed her in her sleep. It connected itself with other vaguely
 felt matters that had struck her outside observation and buried
themselves in her flesh. Now they emerged and quested about
 her consciousness.
She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in
 the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the pant-
ing breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to
 her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom;
the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the
 ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in
every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage!
She had been summoned to behold a revelation. Then Janie felt a
 pain remorseless sweet that left her limp and languid.

Their Eyes were watching God and This is Water

In what ways could Wallace's theory be applicable to their eyes were watching god?

Hurston's novel "Their Eyes were Watching God" follows Janie a black woman in the South of America in the early 1900's, who survives through a troublesome life in the still racist and sexist South of the US. In correlation with David Foster Wallace's piece "This is Water", whose main thesis is to be your own person, don't have to adjust to the normal stereotypes of society but through your own life experiences create an image of what life should be in your eyes and make your own choices in life.

More in depth "their eyes were watching god" follows Janie Crawford through her life's story where she sets of to find true love, which she has been told from the Nanny that it comes after marriage. After two failed marriages where she hasn't found true love, with ugly and old Logan Killicks, then with power hungry Joe "Jody" Starks who died because of kidney issues, she found true love in a much younger man called Tea Cake who treated her with respect she demanded, because although she was a black woman in the South of America she is a strong, empowering and even though the stereotype was to punish women and that men are superior to women, Janie stood out of that stereotype, which is applicable to Wallace's main theory that life is about choice and abut living your own life without restrictions. Tea Cake to Jamie was Romeo to Juliet, a man that she loved with all her heart and even though at the end she ended up killing her true love from all that life experience she had had she felt absolved and emotionally intelligent. Throughout all her three marriages she becomes more self-aware about life in general and the evils of society as it was in the 1900's in the South.

The commencement speech that was given by David Foster Wallace ensured in my belief that even though life is full of stereotypes if you follow your own choices and become aware in situations that most people are foreign to you can live a life of happiness and not judge other people on their situations, which Zora Neale Hurston also concurs with TEWWG novel.

Tings Fell Apart Even More

What is the significance of Okonkwo’s character? What does he represent or is symbolic of? 

Okonkwo is an influential Clan leader in the land of Umofia. He is shown as what a male should strive to be depicted at that time. From a young age he wanted to be honorable and strong. He is even given the nickname "Roaring Fire" to describe his masculinity, power and life. He represents the anomaly Igbo male at that time. Okonkwo rose up to power by his own doing. His father Unoka was a failure to his family and a drunk. Okonkwo wanted to be the opposite of his father, so for that reason he focused in becoming full masculine, without any sense of sensitivity shown towards the public, because he didn't want to be shown weak in the faces of his clan members. 

What is the purpose of Okonkwo’s character within the text? 

Okonkwo throughout the entirety of the novel stays with his values, them being that he is masculine and strong with no compassion and lack of respect his the people under him. He disregards orders although faithful to tradition because he wants to disprove the tragic flaw the follows him around and that is the fear of weakness. If the people believe that their leader is weak and soft they won't follow and believe him, and for that reason he does what is not advised to him in order to show that he is not weak, one being killing Ikemefuna. Okonkwo is an anomaly. He follows most of the traditions that the Ibo people have set but sometimes he chooses to do his own thing, because he might thing that his choice is the correct one or because he doesn't want to show fear and weakness. Okonkwo is a protagonist with antagonistic features. He loves his family but he doesn't want to show it public and although he thinks his son's are lazy, he wishes the best for them. Achebe shows Okonkwo as the tragic hero, because although the greatness that Okonkwo has in him at the end of the day he will fail due to his own doing, "tragic flaw", which is his fear for failure and inability to change. 


How does Okonkwo’s character contribute to big ideas?

In context to the main ideas of the novel Okonkwo's character embodies all the values that the Igbo people have. He refuses to accept the change that occurs in his home country where the colonizers have come and taken over Nigeria and Okonkwo refuses to accept the changes that will occur in his country. He refuses to accept Christianity and when his son Nwoye joins the church he gets furious. He wants to fight back and fight for freedom, because he believes that his people are going to be oppressed by the white men. In the context that Things Fall Apart was written two years before Chinua Achebe gives a bit of his personality in Okonkwo. The sense of patriotism and freedom is burning in Okonkwo like it was burning in Achebe and for that reason while everyone of the villagers wanted to surrender to the British, Okonkwo couldn't stand the cowardice that this portrayed so for that reason he took his own life which was a big NO-NO in the Igbo culture.

TINGS FELL APART

1. Okonkwo get exiled  (social context)
2. Missionaries arrive, take over Abame (historical context)
3. Okonkwo hangs himself (cultural, Social context)
4. Nwoye joins the church (cultural, social, historical context)
5. Ikemefuna gets killed by Okonkwo (cultural context)
6. Mr.Brown and Akunna talk (social, cultural context)
7. Enoch kills an egwugwu (cultural context)

1. Enoch by killing an egwugwu which is an ancient spirit that the Ibo believed in started a chain of event that enhanced the conflict between the Ibo and the missionaries. This happened after the death of the egwugwu when the ancient spirit decided to destroy the church and lay it in its foundation.
2. Okonkwo hanging himself was probably the most important moment in the book, because it showed the end of our tragic hero as well as the end of any of the conflicts he had started due to his violent and angry character.
3. Nwoye by joining the church enraged his father, Okonkwo even more, because although Okonkwo thought that Nwoye was lazy he would never betray his father and lose the claim to his family. Also this portrays Okonkwo as a weak and terrible father.

Why would Achebe choose to set his novel prior to and during the arrival of the colonial administration as opposed to during the context of composition?

In 1958 Chinua Achebe published Things Fall Apart, two years before Nigerian Independence from the British. Chinua Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart, because he thought that the image that the European authors had made about Africa was primordial and totally obscene. More in depth Things Fall Apart destroys the stereotypical portrayal of Africans. This book was set in the 1890's and Achebe gives his perspective in detail on the colonization Nigeria by the British during the Scramble for Africa through the eyes of main character, Okonkwo who is an influential clan leader in Umuofia who strives to be the exact opposite of his lazy father Unoka. Achebe in general tries to portray both sides as equally as possible and without any bias. Personally I believe he decided to write his book during the colonization of Nigeria, in order to show an unbiased opinion about the situation that was occurring in his country, because it is known that Chinua Achebe was pro Independence of Nigeria and for that reason he decided to write Things Fall Apart in a difference time space. On the other hand, when Achebe was writing this novel he had adopted the Christian religion as well as being an Igbo. By knowing this the reader can see the full picture both from the side of the colonizers that are going in a hostile country with the goal of influencing them and the people of the colonized country, we see how they feel and how will their lives change from this situation.