Blog Post # 4

This week we discussed the idea of how the worship of the gods in Chinua Achebe’s Thing’s fall apart are a common theme the author is known for. He relates this worship as not only a part of the Ibo culture but also as means of people being held to a moral standard in a society that is quite diverse in their customs from village to village. It represents I feel a sort of law in their villages, in place of the white man’s government in this story, which is completely at odds with theirs, and quite harsher. I found it interesting the route the British took in colonization, instead of outright killing or enslaving them, they were a lot more methodical, first attacking the villager’s religions customs, and then moving into their form of law without retaliation. I feel in this story the old gods represent the old ways and culture of the Ibo people, which was Achebe’s way of showing from both perspectives how they were beaten from within, by their own villagers who converted to Christianity. This resulted directly in a non-hostile yet very invasive takeover, in which those people will never be free from, only knowing the British variation of what it means to rule now. I found it very interesting and obviously quite sad, especially since we get to see it firsthand from a very proud warrior’s perspective, being Okonkwo.

-Josh N.

For this week’s blog post, I was in the role of Passage Identifier in which I analyzed a section in the story in its significant toward the story. Today I will be analyzing the short story of Recitatif by Toni Morrison. This story held the tale of two girls, one black and one white, both involved in the State orphanage due to both mothers’ being unfit to bring up the girls personally. This story documents the story of the two throughout their life’s when they meet up and told by the voice of the black women named Twyla. One key passage that I thought was important to bring up was when Twyla was thinking about Maggie one of the cooks in the orphanage who was deaf and how in a way she resembled in a way her dancing mother. “Deaf, I thought, and dumb. Nobody inside. Nobody who would hear you if you cried in the night. Nobody who could tell you anything important that you could use…I knew she wouldn’t scream, couldn’t-just like me and I was glad about that” (Morrison 17-18). I find that Twyla as an older woman and now mother can relate to how Maggie was, unable to raise her voice. Twyla and Roberta (the white girl/women) as both older mothers try to raise their voices for things such as school changes just to have something to raise their voices about. It doesn’t matter what race Maggie or either of the girls were, it matters because they are women in male dominated society.

Jessica Fehrman

Recitatiff by Toni Morrison as very interesting. By the time I finished it, it seemed like the whole story was about Maggie. Whenever Roberta and Twyla would meet up they would always bring up Maggie. When Roberta first brought her up was when they met for the second time after being separated at the orphanage. They found each other at the Food Emporium. they went out to get coffee. She said that Maggie was knocked down by the gar girls. Twyla always thought she just fell. Then the next time they met was when Roberta was picketing, she sir that Twyla helped kick Maggie. The relationship between the two girls is confusing. When they meet for the last time they did not know what actually happened to Maggie. The whole story is actually like a mystery, but you don't find out until the very end. Then you just wonder.

Mattisyn Woods