Antigone Quote Exercise - English III UCP

I knew I must die, even without your decree;

I am only mortal.  And if I must die

Now, before it is my time to die,

Surely this is no hardship:  can anyone

Living, as I live, with evil all about me,

Think Death less than a friend?  This death of mine

Is of no importance; but if I had left my brother

Lying in death unburied, I should have suffered.

Now I do not.

The character of the speaker Antigone shows her priorities of honoring her brother's death, rather than dying without that honor of him.  She states, "This death of mine/ Is of no importance; but if I had left my brother/ Lying in death unburied, I should have suffered./ Now I do not."  This quote from Antigone to Creon shows the connection the Greeks had as a society of honoring the burial of a family member.  This also falls into the motif of men vs. women in their society.  She says it herself that the death of hers is of no importance, but the death of her brother without her honoring him is a priority of moral in their society.  She makes light of her own death by saying it was worth it for her to honor Polyneices' burial. 

Be explicit:  Burial is a requirement from the gods.  Burial permits the deceased to enter Hades; otherwise, the deceased will wander for eternity without rest.  Antigone prioritizes eternal law over civil law. 

The assigned roles of patriarchy are not referenced here.

Honors English III:  Cry, the Beloved Country

In Cry, the Beloved Country (1948), Alan Paton narrates the story of the Rev. Stephen Kumalo who must leave his native village of Ndotsheni in South Africa to find his sister and son who have left for Johannesburg but never let Kumalo know what happens to them after they arrive.  The two leave for the big city because the meager land of Ndotsheni can no longer support the native people living there.  Kumalo quickly finds his sister and then later his son, but it is too late.  They are the latest victims of the injustice of apartheid that has deprived the native people of land and opportunity.  The Europeans have horded all power for themselves.  Yet, Paton does not fixate on this injustice alone.  By juxtaposing the personal losses of both Stephen Kumalo and James Jarvis, Paton demonstrates a longing for justice that is the key to real change.  It is the loss of James Jarvis' son, murdered by Stephen Kumalo's son, that paradoxically leads to a movement toward reconciliation and restoration.  The losses of both fathers, both victims of injustice, create a longing for justice that begins to bring real change in the midst of continued suffering. 

         Apartheid was a system of injustice.  It divided Europeans from natives in South Africa, keeping all power in the hands of the white minority. The best land was taken for Afrikaner and British farms.  The mining corporations benefitted the European shareholders, and the natives provided cheap labor, forced to leave their families at home and live in company settlements.  The system became incompatible with maintaining traditional tribal life as it forced the break-up of families.  The people of Ndotsheni had been given so little land and of such low quality that they cannot all survive on it.  They are forced to Johannesburg where they find no work and are deprived of the traditional support of the tribe.  In their desperation, crime seems to offer a solution to their problems.  Absalom Kumalo becomes a victim of this system, leading him to the murder of Arthur Jarvis. 

         It seems coincidental that the two fathers meet in Johannesburg though they both live in Natal, one in the valley and the other in the hilltops above.  It appears coincidental that the two unexpectedly meet at Barabara Smith's house when Margaret Jarvis is visiting her niece and Stephen comes to check on one of their servants who is from Ndotsheni.  This time Stephen is embarrassed that he must face the man whose great suffering is caused by his son's actions.  He must inform Jarvis that his son killed Arthur.  Yet there is a gentleness in James Jarvis' reaction.  There is at first shock, but there is no anger in him.  One would expect that each man's suffering would divide them, but the reverse is true.  There is mutual compassion because each has lost a son. There is something more than coincidence here.  There is the movement of divine Providence. 

         James Jarvis' compassion arises from what he has learned about his son since his death. 

         This new compassion leads to the restoration of Ndotsheni, a work that relies on both Stephen and James.

         At the end of the novel, Stephen Kumalo ascends to the hilltops above Ndotsheni to keep vigil on the day before his son's execution as James descends from High Place.   

Culture in Literature Student Sample #1

Love Against Ibo Identity

What happens when love and tradition collide? In Chinua Achebe's “Marriage is a Private Affair,” there is a tension between communal expectations and personal freedom in marriage between the Ibo and Ibibio tribes in Nigeria. This conflict comes into play when Nnaemeka's dad, Okeke, insists on his son Nnaemeka marrying a woman from the same tribe. Ugoye, who is from the same tribe. But Nnaemeka is already getting married to Nene, who is from the Ibibio tribe. Nnaemeka chooses personal freedom and marries Nene. In Chinua Achebe’s “Marriage is a Private Affair,” Nnaemeka rejects the identity his society assigns him by going against Ibo culture and not having an arranged marriage, resisting his father's expectations, and showing that love  over tradition allows for a new sense of identity  is more important than tradition.

From Coming of Age Around the World- Teacher sample single paragraph.

     In "Kura" from Baby No-Eyes, Patricia Grace seeks to use English in a way that keeps the Maori language and culture alive.  The first-person narrator, in the voice of Gran Kura, uses a conversational style that mimics the way stories were told in Maori.  She compares the stature of her body to that of a leaf:  "See that leaf – like that.  Thin like that, without weight.  You could see through me those days, just as you can see through that leaf" (150).  The reader, of course, cannot see the leaf to which she points, but the style makes the reader believe that the language really does come from an old woman who is telling a story to her grandchildren.  The language is informal.  Elsewhere, she refers to places as if the reader would know what she is talking about.  She points out "where Staffords live now," and "the eldest daughter of Te Wharekapakapa and Kapiri Morehua" (148, 149).  The use of Maori names and the assumption that the audience is familiar with these places make the reader feel a part of the intended audience, listening to a story expressed through a different cultural perspective.  

      Another way in which she uses English to keep the Maori language and culture alive is through code switching.  

Student Sample Culture in Literature Essay #2

Coming of Age in “Kura”

      Culture is a way for people to connect; however, differences can lead to conflicts when certain groups believe they are superior to others. This is illustrated through the short story Kura by Patricia Grace, which portrays the colonization of the Māori people in New Zealand during the mid-twentieth century. The main character, Kura, recounts her childhood experiences when her culture and language were rejected by the white people in New Zealand. Kura was gravely affected when her little cousin, Riripeti, died due to the harsh treatment and punishments she faced for speaking Māori. This caused Kura to stop speaking, and she almost died herself. In Kura, Patricia Grace shows how cultural oppression leads to suffering and silence, shaping Kura's views of herself and her own culture.

     One way Kura was marginalized was through language. The Māori language is seen as wrong by the British and taught to be inferior/evil in the assimilative-style schools the Māori children were forced to attend. In these schools, speaking the Māori language resulted in being hit with the “patu rakau” (wooden stick or club) or having to stand in the punishment corner. Kura said, “We didn’t speak until we’d learned, didn't speak unless we had to because we were afraid our bad language might come out, but we became good at guessing the answers we had to give” (153). Because language is such a big part of someone's identity, this makes her feel silenced and like a split person. As a way to cope with this trauma, the Māori students had a chant they called mimicking the teachers (Mr. and Mrs. Wood), “Mr. Mrs. Rakau, Patu Patu Wood” (152). This shows that even though Kura was forced to abandon her language, holding on to her Māori culture would be important for her sense of self.

       Another example of this oppression is demonstrated in what happened to poor Riripeti. Young Riripeti started school with Kura as her guide, but unfortunately, she could not understand what she was being told to do. She was punished for speaking Māori daily, and eventually the punishment corner became “her” corner. The other Māori children knew how to act, knew the right answers to give in order to please the teacher, but Kura said Riripeti was “too good to guess what to say, too good to know what lies to tell, too good to know what to do” (153). Riripeti became really thin and lost her smile more and more everyday. Her face would go pale, and she would beg to go home when she and Kura approached the school. This was hard for Kura, too; she blamed herself and thought she had failed her Teina. Eventually, Riripeti died from the mistreatment, leaving Kura with a deep sense of guilt and regret. Through Riripeti’s story, Patricia Grace shows the devastating impact of cultural oppression.

       After Riripeti's death, Kura stopped speaking, eating, and sleeping, almost losing herself in her grief. She carried the guilt of her “teina” and thought she had failed her, saying, “What an evil girl I was to let her die” (159).  Kura’s silence shows how badly she was damaged, how badly she had lost her identity. She even referred to her Māori language as “that evil language which killed my teina and which I never spoke again” (159). The children never mentioned what happened to Riripeti, saying it was because “we love our children” (160). This means the Māori people chose silence over reliving the trauma, thinking that it would protect the younger generations. In this way, Patricia Grace shows that cultural oppression not only causes suffering but also the loss of identity.

       In Kura, Patricia Grace shows how cultural oppression leads to suffering and silence, shaping Kura's views of herself and her own culture. These examples through Kura's experiences reveal how forced assimilation can silence people causing them to lose their identity. Even in small ways (mimicking Mr. and Mrs. Wood), Kura and her classmates hold on to their culture, but eventually Kura begins to blame herself and her language for what happened to Riripeti. Her silence and guilt show how deeply her sense of self became damaged and led her to question her worth.