Genre Analysis Princess Pari and Comfort Woman

       Professor Kun Jong Lee’s article in the East Asia Cultures Critique, Fall 2004, “Princess Pari in Nora Okja Keller’s Comfort Woman”, provided an overall general scholarly analysis of the main characters in Keller’s novel and Princess Pari character from a popular South Korean folktale from the Choson Dynasty. The novel, Comfort Woman was written by a Korea American, Nora Okja Keller, in early 1990’s when South Korean women began to come forward to attest about atrocities and enslavement by the imperial Japanese military during and after the Pacific War (WWI time-frame) for which they were victims. Lee’s article provided deep insight into the relationship between the folktale of Princess Pari and the methods Keller used to transform the original manuscript of the folktale, (viewed to reflect patriarchy, patrilineal, and misogynistic culture which was widespread in the Neo-Confucianist era in Korea and Japan), with an adaptation with shamanistic rituals to invoke dialogue in the Asian communities about feminism, colonialism, trans-nationalism and sexuality which are accepted more in modern era to discuss. Lee pointed out that Keller’s transformation of a former “comfort woman” into a shaman correlates to the depiction of a former comfort woman as Princess Pari. In that, the shamanistic narrative of Princess Pari is used as a critique of the patriarchy, androcentric, and misogynistic Korean society, as well as, in Japan with their colonialism and ethnocentrism. This essay studied the full spectrum of Keller’s difficult engagement with the myth of Princess Pari as a valuable and potent site for feminist articulation.

            The type of audience for this article would be Asian studies scholars and students, Korean-American literary writers interested in gender rights among Asian women, and transnational gender identification between Korean-American societies. Lee’s in-depth analysis of shamanistic rituals practiced by Korean shamans, who are predominantly female, included virtual accounts written about by other authors interested in the phenomenon of shamanistic trances and meticulous rituals practiced by Korean historical ancestors and current day shamans. The reader must have at least a high school reading level to keep up with the deep cultural and historical aspects of the societies in Korea and Japan during the early 1930’s described with some graphic sexual language depicting explicit details of physical and emotional abuse. Keller was inspired by a true story of Keum Ju Hwang, an actual ‘comfort woman’, during a human rights symposium in Hawaii in 1993. This type of real account would be an interest to those studying colonialism between Japan and Korea after WWII.

The ethos is evident in this article printed by Duke University Press was posted in the East Asia Cultures Critique, which is a professional forum for people concerned with the social, intellectual, and political events within Asia for the purpose of dialogue for rethinking their priorities in scholarship, teaching and criticism. This article was supported by Korea Research Foundation Grant. Lee’s article would require at least an hour or two for a complete read with it being 22 pages in length using some Korean and scholarly language used in higher level high school and/or college literature. The phonetic use of Korean words could confuse the reader, unless the reader is well versed or have the ability to translate via dictionary or on-line search; however, the impact of such use of words show the article is geared towards Korean-American scholars. The article is mainly informative written in a sterile fashion by a Korean English Literature Professor with providing historical context to show empathy for the victims which he can relate based on similar nationality, but neutral due to difference of gender between him and the victims for which Keller’s novel projects. Lee seem credible due to the multiple referenced writers who are touted to be the subject matter experts in areas of Korean shamanism, colonialism by the Japanese military, and various feminist writers to include those of Asian and non-Asian backgrounds.

The analysis was methodical in providing organized summaries of the origin of the Princess Pari folktale, the historical accounts/testimonial of comfort women and Korean shamans, interviews with Keller regarding her motivation to write Comfort Woman, and how Princess Pari relates to comfort women. The logical structure provided an easy to follow sequence of events and thoughts which clarified the role Princess Pari played in the two main characters used in the novel. Lee also provided insight as to the main characters to thrive in-between cultures from Soon Hyo (the mother) experienced difference between the Korean society she came from adapting to the Japanese colonialism, then Beccah (the daughter) experienced from the American culture she was born into adapting to being raised by a Korean mother. They both, according to Lee, used Korean shamanism as a psychological anchor and cultural agency to make sense of an unfamiliar society.

The details and images used centered the agony and suffering by “comfort women” and anguish experienced by the main characters in Keller’s novel due to a lack of voice. Lee provides keen historical explanation for the reader to understand what was readily accepted in Korea during the Choson Dynasty in Korea through the traditional mindset of Korean and Japanese societies following the Pacific War. Lee provided numerous examples to support the harsh realities and reflection of the common people to survive the sadness, pain, frustration, and limitations of those Korean women who have been since labeled “comfort women”. The importance shamanism played in the Korean society during that era is explained well by Lee using excerpts from other authors who have provided factual accounts and literature provided visual descriptions a reader can imagine with little effort.

I plan to use this article in my future writing assignment for this literature class at University of Texas El Paso in the required format. I will examine more closely other scholarly articles which cover the subject areas of Princess Pari, “comfort women”, Nora Okja Keller’s novel, and feminist articulation for research regarding further writing assignments. The relationship between the mother and the daughter in Keller’s novel should provide a more personal reflection for not only my interest in this novel, but the various subject matters it contains. There is a rich history available for me to share with my class regarding the empowerment of victims, for everyone should be entitled to have their own voice. I will follow the learning module for the requirements given to the class for our Literary Analysis assignment using our chosen text and visit the writing center for any questions or checks on deficiencies in order to correct my mistakes in writing.

               

Works Cited

Kun Jong Lee. "Princess Pari in Nora Okja Keller's Comfort Woman." positions: east asia

cultures critique12.2 (2004): 431-456. Project MUSE. Web. 29 Aug. 2012.

<http://muse.jhu.edu/>.

THIS BLESSED HOUSE

The final story summary from Interpreter of Maladies:

Summary: This Blessed House

            “Jhumpa Lahiri  provides a short story, “This Blessed House” in Interpreter of Maladies showing contrast and similarity between the two main characters. Sanjeev born and raised in Calcutta, educated in the United States, attended MIT, and an engineering professional is newly married to California born and raised Twinkle who is very much a young vibrant modern American woman who is also highly educated working on her masters at Standford. The similarities between them physically are their ethnicity, but visibly to anyone else they could not be any more different.

            They find various Christian themed paraphernalia throughout the home they just moved into in an established neighborhood located in Hartford right soon after they married. The former occupants must have been devout Christians as Twinkle’s excitement grows with each find and overtly desires to display them out in the open. Although they are of Indian ethnicity, and they are not practicing Hindus, Sanjeev is displeased and quite uncomfortable. The difference of their background is evident in the ability of Sanjeev to understand and accept Twinkles behavior and of Twinkles disregard for Sanjeev’s reasoning for the dislike of religious relics discovered.

            Sanjeev is obviously in love with Twinkle, although their courtship was brief and not fully developed. The energy and eccentricities Twinkle exudes not only aggravates Sanjeev but he is also fascinated by them. He realizes a choice he has if he wants to continue to be married to a woman who does not hold the same old fashioned values he had once regarded a traditional wife should perform such as cooking and cleaning. As he rushed into the marriage without learning to live with Twinkles quirks, purchased the home without noticing the eccentric details of Christianity throughout the home, Sanjeev must decide if he really loves her. He must decide if their differences will separate them or bring them together in this new life where they are joined and no longer one.

            The scene at their housewarming party shows Sanjeev just how much he belongs with Twinkle. Although he was worried about what his Indian colleagues would think with all the Christian relics in the home or would they are able to appreciate the extroverted way his wife is. After the validation from his friends about her beauty and how much fun they were having, it seems that is when he finally decided to quit the internal fight and give in. For giving in he would not be at a loss, yet gain the love of his life, regardless of their differences.

Female Subjects and Negotiating Identities-Analaysis

Analysis: Female Subjects and Negotiating Identities

            This essay from Bahareh Bahmanpour regarding Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies, focused on stories surrounding female characters as opposed to males. The stories contain suffering, adaptation, and negotiating their identities through “silence, resistance, negotiation, acculturation or assimilation.” (Bahmanpour, 44).  The strength women played in a cultural role was discussed in “This Blessed House”, The Treatment of Bibi Hledar”, “Mrs. Sen”, and “Sexy” provides interpretation focused on identity and provides a voice to these diasporic females in a post-colonial setting.

            Providing a background of identity, stating that they are “conceived as a process” (Bahmanpour, 45) rather than fixed as we know it, Bahmanpour provides the idea that identity is a process not just to be a representation of oneself. Since our identity can be an ongoing process, understanding boundaries could provide a focus for which Lahiri does in her works. Such as in the sixth story of “This Blessed House”. The character, Twinkle, a young wife who moved into a new house in America with her husband. She is considered a second generation Indian where she is ethnically Indian but culturally American. This story displays the hybridity where she lacks traditional Indian cultural knowledge, willingness to adapts all while display solid confidence for which her husband cannot comprehend providing fluidity traveling effortlessly from one culture to the other as see needs.

In “The Treatment of Nibi Haldar” the setting is in India with a theme of anxiety of the globalization of Indian women who is essentially homeless. Bibi is sick, received treatment without results, she longed for a normal life yet no one took her for their wife. She ends up living alone, happy, and gave birth to a son after she is mysteriously cured. Bibi negotiated between gender identity and ethnic codes established in her community she wanted to belong to, although she felt out of place. She became a mother without a wife, in this manner displayed the hybrid nature of identity.

“Mrs. Sen’s” is a story for which she is the caretaker , she expounds on her past, each detail creating her identity to Eliot, an eleven-year-old boy. As a self-described first generation immigrant, she found it difficult to adapt to her new surroundings as she could not remove her own cultural background and values. She takes a massive step to drive, thus proving her independence and to soothe loneliness and alienation she felt being far from her family.  She faced her fears in order to show to release past trauma is to gradually release her fears.

            Lastly, in “Sexy”, Miranda is an American young woman from Boston in an affair with a married Indian man. She is thrilled with the fascination with Indian culture and tried to learn more about it. The man she has an affair with is not as invested in sharing his cultural identity beyond their conquest; therefore her search for the cultural other isn’t complete.

            In closing, the female characters in Lahiri’s works provide their own voice in order to display their identity in each quest to develop them.

When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine

Summary: When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine

            “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine” is a short story from Interpreter of Maladies from Jhumpa Lahiri. In this story, Mr. Pirzada is from Dacca, Bangladesh (once part of Pakistan), where the Pakistani army invaded and caused over three hundred thousand people died. He had been a botany professional at the university sent to America to study foliage of New England from the government of Pakistan. Back home he left a wife, seven daughters whom lived in a three-story home and a war was starting. The story is essentially about identity between the main characters, a young girl named Lilia and how she relates to Mr. Pirzada.

            Lilia, an Indian-American girl who is ten years old, living in Massachusetts in 1971. Her family is Hindu and Indian-Bengali. They befriend Mr. Pirzada who is Muslim and Pakistani-Bengali, visiting from East Pakistan and regularly invited him to their home for dinner. Lilia identifies with the Indian ethnicity for the similarities in the physical attributes between her, her family, and family friends considered Indian. Lilia also identities with being American, learning of the history, reading literature, and living life as a typical ten year old American girl (during Halloween).

            Mr. Pirzada becomes the ‘other’ during the course of his numerous visits to Lilia’s home. She analyzes the distinctions between him and her parents even though there are quite a few similarities. Her father informs her Mr. Pirzada is no longer Indian, showing her the geography on a map of the world taped over his desk to indicate the severed country and physical boundary line which separates her ‘people’ and his. It became evident to Lilia that Mr. Pirzada also realized his cultural identification when he struggled to understand an American saying and gesture ‘thank you’ after Lilia commented after receiving candy from him. She taught him about carving a pumpkin and the holiday of Halloween, all while he was worried about his family back home. The fact he is constantly around her family during dinner is symbolic to his connection with his home. It wasn’t until Mr. Pirzada went back to Dacca when Lilia realized although she could not recall the first or last time she had seen him, she missed him. She had kept a box filled with the candy he would bring to her. She would usually have one piece thinking of him, after receiving a card from him stating he was well with his family, she no longer had to worry and threw out the remaining candy.

Oral Narrative as Short Story Cycle-Rocio G. Davis

Davis: Forging Community in Edwidge Danticat’s Krik?Krak!       

            Rocio G. Davis completely dissects the way Edwidge Danticat provides short stories in order to promote collective identity in this essay. First he points out the cultural interpretation regarding a variety of short stories by ethnic writers. The dynamic of providing history as a road the essence of gynocentric relationship between mother and daughter as the vehicle for which it travels is enlightening.

            In the form of storytelling, collective short stories in ethnic novels from writers such as Danticat, promotes survival especially in women. The cultural history behind each writer can be felt as the reader is engulfed in a rich story about hardships and happiness that promotes self-affirmation for the ‘daughters’ of the stories and individual empowerment for the ‘mothers’. Danticat turns to her own roots, for example, from her own experiences with family, community, and the struggles to identify with her ethnicity in the intertwined Haitian culture and connecting her life in the United States.

            Rocio points out that the validity of the past, examination of similar paths and recognition from fellow women is the utmost importance in the reason why ‘games’ are played among women in Danticat’s stories. The hidden meanings and ability to have a voice becomes evident in the symbolism used through stories mainly about leaving Haiti and the search for a future outside of the ‘home’ each character recognizes with.

            The “desire to come to terms with a past that is both personal and collective: this type of fiction often explores the ethnic character and history of a community as a reflection of a personal odyssey of displacement, and search for self and community.” Danticat showed the struggle of women to preserve the bonds of their Haitian community, and through the life in the United States while maintaining the link to the mother country. The need to find familial and historical connections with the group that is identified with becomes relevant among Danticat’s characters. Danticat blends this idea with the solid structure with history, although her works are fiction, in order to preserve the familiar bonds between women essential for their survival.

Pulitano and Caribbean Studies Journal

Elvira Pulitano: Landscape, Memory and Survival in the Fiction of Edwidge Danticat      

            Elvira Pulitano brought to light the ideology behind the meaning of landscape as it relates to the memory and perhaps underlying meaning in the fictional writing by author, Edwidge Danticat. Pulitano had an idea to submit a paper for a panel featuring island and ocean representation during a convention in Philadelphia in 2006. Her idea contained the works by Danticat and her descriptive narratives covering discourse of islands and the ocean mainly Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Although Pulitano was turned down on account that Danticat wrote in English and the Francophone writing is done in French. Pulitano asserts her idea that even though Danticat used English for her works, the underlying language of the landscape described and her use of native words familiar to those from the Caribbean was ultimately the true culture representative of the islands and ocean.

            Simple representation of  various languages used to instill richness of culture in Haiti and the Dominican Republic could be found from different cultures which invaded and wreaked havoc over the borders. The Spanish word for parsley is quite symbolic among the Haitian sugar cane cutters, although they pronounced the word differently. There are references of their language also from the French, English and Africa to describe life and landscape in the works by Danticat containing the history of slaves taken from Africa travelled the Atlantic to the Caribbean by European settlers.

            The history of Hispaniola reclaimed by Danticat provided voices to the victims of the 1937 massacre. This event is not only captured in Danticat’s Farming of Bones, she also provides truth behind the underlying narrative story of fiction, depicting the pain and joy experienced by memory of actual people of that era and location permanently engrained in the landscape and waters.

            The river is quite symbolic representing both life and death in Danticat’s Krik?Krak!. In both Haitian folklore and accounts represented in such stories as Nineteen Thirty-Seven and Children of the Sea, water represents both the idea of re-birth and freedom of death. Many parts of the landscape could be dissected in order to provide the collective cultures that blend and make up the landscape for which the discourse of the Caribbean exists.

            Lastly, Pulitano points out that, “According to an ancient Haitian belief, a transnational historical community is powerfully established in the fluid, borderless space of the sea.” (Pulitano, 12) The underlying message behind the works of Danticat is that in order to create a nationalist discourse of island identity, one must recognize the past and provide a voice to those that were not able to provide.

Children of the Sea

The story of Children of the Sea in Edwidge Danticat’s Krik?Krak! begins by describing the fact that the main character finds out the limitations of what he sees while floating in sea in a boat of escaped Hatians result of the escape from a military coup of his homeland. He narrates as he is writing a letter to his lost love with whom he became separated from in the rush with his family to find safety and a better life. With the 32 passengers aboard, he provides details of their daily living as to not only document his experiences but also to express his desires of hope. He describes the sails of the boat mentioning semen as to introduce the symbolism of rape, not only of a character for which he references later on in the continuation of his narrative, but the ideal of what has become of his nation.

The other type of narration seems to be that from the girl he professes his love for. It seems she too is writing to maintain a connection of what she is familiar with to possibly escape her traumatic reality. The mention of tapes for which his voice can be heard seems to indicate he must have been on the radio or perhaps he created a vocal history recorded. The image of the butterflies is the most prevalent describing one for hope and the other as death. She describes in detail about the military tyranny and her family hiding their political allegiance. She mentions the disapproval of her father’s view of their relationship, but the sacrifice he made throwing out their possessions to protect her.

The difference of visual type is effective in letting the reader keep up with who is narrating and picking up the pieces as it flows from one conversation to the next. The boy talks about the pregnant teen ager, Celianne, who had been raped by the soldiers and discovered she was with child. It seems there is an implied allegation he is a political member of the Youth Federation movement and therefore needed to escape or face being killed or tortured by the military. He speaks of land knowing what you can see however, the water, blended together like being lost not knowing where it begins or ends.

The female talks about her new home among the banyan trees, which she was told by her mother held holy spirits. She describes finding comfort where the trees branches reach the earth, not knowing where it begins or ends, as the mountains she can see. She knows the male is out in the sea, without being able to see the waters. She once again describes if a black butterfly land on her hand, it brings bad news. So whenever she sees them she throws rocks in an attempt to divert any possible bad news about the man she loves besides her father.

The current events narrated by the young man become more horrid with stories about the young pregnant girl who gives birth. The hope that the birth will provide hope yet it does not make a sound. The young girl has to make a decision and throws the baby overboard and jumps in after it, drowning. She became a victim of the brutality that struck her homeland even though she tried to escape. He mentions his hope is also ending, the fear of not making it to safety or being united with his love. As he writes in his notebook to record his thoughts in hopes the messages will reach her, he tells a man on the boat he is writing his will. This is when his hope is lost. Although he ends by talking about eternal life at sea, it is evident his visions of mermaid symbolizes his death, yet the girl is looking for a butterfly for good news. She eventually heard the news on the radio about another boat sunken in the sea, it is then she is able to see butterflies, yet they are black butterflies. It is then she realize her love is lost yet as he accepts death, he views it as joining his family, a rebirth.

Nineteen Thirty-Seven, Danticat

Nineteen Thirty-Seven

            In the book Krik ? Krak! By Edwidge Danticat, a short story narrated by daughter Josephine, who visits with her mother, Manmen, who is imprisoned in Haiti because she was accused of being a witch. In the beginning of the story, Josephine’s mother swam across a river of blood from Haiti to the Dominican Republic which is referenced as the Massacre River, just shortly before giving birth to her. This time coincides with the death of Manmen’s mother and her body brutally butchered in the Dominican Republic and thrown in the river which divides it from Haiti. In this story, Josephine begins to relate to the suffrage of women to include her mother, with hopes for a future but never forgetting the past which allows insight into her own make up.

“My Madonna cried…” is how the story begins. Josephine first meets an old woman who shows interest in the Madonna. The Madonna remains the center of this mother-daughter relationship and the silence of communication between the two. Whenever Josephine visits her mother, she could not speak but would faithfully bring the Madonna statue. The sorrow symbolized as a perfect tear from wax that would drip from the eyes melted from the heat. This spoke volumes without words to amplify the loss Josephine felt or the slow death her mother felt was upon her.

Josephine recalls rituals her mother performed with her at the river each year prior to her imprisonment. Josephine would expect to see the river to be crimson with blood, but when she saw it, it was the clearest water she had ever seen. The water could be seen as both an obstacle and a vessel for the escape from pain and death. The flight for which can be envisioned from the descriptive details of flames, not unlike the accusation that the women accused of being witches could strip their skins and rise in the night as birds of fire. Josephine’s first words to her mother were to ask if she could fly. Deep down it seems Josephine’s believed her mother could use her powers to escape, it would have to be through the river, where that had been hope once before.

Josephine is met by a character Jacqueline, who was a performer of similar rituals as her mother had done. It is Jacqueline who takes Josephine to see her mother’s body burned. They traveled to the prison where Manmen was quartered, and were told by the inmates of the gruesome demise. Clutching the pillow made of her mother’s hair, Josephine then recalls the tales from her mother, the story about how the life of her mother lost yet the birth of her daughter as a symbol of hope. Then Jacqueline tells her, “life is never lost, another one always comes up to replace the last.” The year was nineteen hundred and thirty-seven; her mother took flight in Josephine’s mind, envisioning her leap from the Dominican soil into the water arriving on the Haitian side. Where the clear river water seemed to glow red, and her body covered in blood, looked as though it were covered in flames. The sorrowful moment disrupted by a glimmer of hope that the flights would be joyful.

Toughest Indian in the World

            Sherman Alexie provided an insight into searching for your identity when one may feel like an outsider to those with whom they feel like they belong and also from those they look like they belong. In The Toughest Indian in the World, the main character is of Spokane Indian decent living Seattle, Washington, and works as a features writer for the local newspaper. The main character by all accounts has the dark hair and eyes, along with the complexion of an Indian. He also is a suburban white-collared man who dates outside of his ethnicity and drives a 1998 Toyota Camry, which he boasts that it was named Consumer Reports as the most reliable family sedan. With these causal inference of the way he actually looks depends on who is looking at him and the fact that they see what he is searching for, his true identity.

            In the story, the main character references salmon, which signify the bountiful salmon which once flowed in their rivers, are just ghosts, extinct as his father has instilled in him what the white man wants to do with the Indians. As a boy, he learned that the “ghosts of the salmon rise from the water to the sky and become constellations. For most Indians, stars are nothing more than white tombstones scattered across a dark graveyard.” He also learned from his father of a tradition of being able to pick out who was an Indian while walking along the roadside hitchhiking. He stated that his father “wanted to break open their hearts and see the future in their blood.” He would pick up three to four mostly male hitchhikers a week and described their journey to be on their way back to the reservation if they were near one, but never asked them for the reasons why they were hitchhiking.

            The main character feels displaced as he describes many events in this short story. The first that comes to mind is how he described intercourse with Cindy who is by all accounts a good catch because she is employed, cute, smart, and funny. He then changes his tone by stating that something must be wrong with her because she is this white woman who only has relations with “brown-skinned men”. The feeling of exhaustion from her erotic vocabulary, she stated that he “would fall asleep before his orgasm, continue pumping away as if I were awake” seems to validate his distance from his reality which he has chosen for himself. He does end his portion of describing Cindy with divulging she left him for a bi-racial man who left her “dizzy with the interracial possibilities”. Was this an inference that he thought his place was one of her possibilities? This was never discussed again in this story, however with the nest story; there is a direction that his search for his identity continued.

            He had not been on the reservation for twelve years, and although he does not live far from there, he hardly goes home. His parents still live in the same house in which he grew up, including his siblings. He calls once or twice a week, but he does not touch on his connection with his family as where he belongs, nor does he mention he misses being on the reservation. The hitchhiker he picks up was a large man who seemed muscular and a bit weathered by experiences he could only imagine. He in intrigued by his physical presence and made it seem as if that embodied what an Indian was supposed to look like. He is fascinated that the Indian is a fighter who travels from one reservation to another in search of a fight for money which may be illegal but did not care. The fighter described a story of his last fight with supposedly the Toughest Indian in the World, whom he could have killed but this large brute would not submit and he did not want to kill him so he gave in. This was possibly what the whites in his outside world imagined him to be, the women he chooses to be intimate with may fancy the underlying danger. This could not be farther than the truth, but what was the truth?

            At the end of the story, he describes an encounter for which he invites the hitchhiker to room with him since it was late and they had not reached their destination. The evening began with the hitchhiker curled up on the floor and the main character uncomfortable in the bed at this motel with motif that was ironic and cynical with scenes of the U.S. Cavalry fighting a band of Indians. In the middle of the night, he realizes that the hitchhiker has curled up behind him in bed, he was naked and although this was a strange thing for him, he did not fight it. Going along with the oddity of this encounter, it did not satisfy a desire nor was he feeling sexual. He was still detached, searching for his identity. He only realized how he felt, and it was as if the salmon his father had warned him about was what consumed him and had he lost what he wanted to find all along.

Plagiarism and the Web

In “It wasn’t me, was it?” Plagiarism and the Web, article in Computers and Composition which were authored by Danielle DeVoss and Annette C. Rosati, they dealt with the definition of plagiarism to first year composition and literary students based on their shared experiences and the effects of plagiarism with regards to research and writing with using the internet. The steps involved with writing a paper includes research of the topic at hand and learning to reference the information or ideas used, this includes research that is done on the World Wide Web. This article describes stories they have either personally encountered and/or shared from their colleagues regarding plagiarism and its effects of reproduced information and the ever changes in research spaces.

Plagiarism occurs to varying degrees in practice and the lack of knowledge to commit intentional fraud was encountered by the first story where Annette approached the topic by introducing what plagiarism was and by the design of the assignments to encourage original ideas and multiple drafts. With the topic in King Lear, she discovered by curiosity that there were at least three that were verified plagiarized from the internet. She provided an opportunity to the students to meet her in her office to avoid getting into trouble, and it was at that time she realized by the 14 students who visited her, they did not have a clear understanding of what plagiarism was and that many of them feared they had done something wrong, unintentionally.

Danielle spoke about a time where she met with a student after assuming due to his prior academic experience he would be familiar with the resources in the library and he understood about what plagiarism was and its consequences. She soon realized that he only utilized the internet and the sources he cited were not credible let alone be the basis for which he should have completed his assignment. She proceeded to show him in person at the library the proper way to search databases for credibility in starting electronic research, and then checking on the credibility of the author, the manner for which they were published and being able to create the correct bibliography for a proper credible citing for academic reference.

Then the example was given about a foreign student for which English was not the first the main language spoken. Although the student had great ideas and the writing was decent, however, it lacked flow and certain academic style. The student wanting to please his teacher and not realizing it was wrong, copied a paper found on line. The student ultimately knew it was unacceptable for students to copy one’s paper in its entirety and turn it in as their own. There were two beliefs from the examples in this article, one, students adapting to the web when it comes to their research, reading and learning to write. And secondly, these first year composition and literary instructors have a key role in teaching and molding the students into this space of the World Wide Web but also to encourage them to do proper research to include validating the credibility of sources they choose to cite or reference.

Educators take plagiarism personally. They ask students for their insights but their original ideas may not be correct as in the correct intellectual shared discourse for the purpose of the writing assignment. It is difficult to conduct research on the web and some are used to cutting and pasting that it is almost natural, however, it should not be done without the acknowledgment to the original author and to merely copy and paste and turn it in as our own work. The teachers must help the students to be effective searchers of the Web and the ability to evaluate the information they find for their academic writing progression. Not only is it important for the students to learn the function of academic writing, they must also be able to be fully engaged in appropriate academic processes, such as research and writing spaces since there are temptations students face on line and the complications they face in adapting their literacy, research, and writing skills to the virtual space.

Hans Roslng, Let My Dataset Change Your Mindset

SOlsen             Let My Dataset Change Your Mindset

            Hans Rosling is a professor of global heath at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, and his current work is to dispel myths about the developing world and how they are no longer far away from the West. Professor Rosling uses data-bubble software to analyze how Third World countries are on the same trajectory toward health and prosperity and that many of the countries are moving at a much faster pace than the US has. He provides statistics from the United Nations databank and he developed the software for his he utilizes during his illustration. The bubbles have a purpose to enable us to make clear of the global trends.

            Professor Rosling shows how we may view a Third World country such as Afghanistan compared to the United States a little over 100 years ago, the population information of life expectancy with earnings are similar. However the speed in which they are growing is at a much faster rate for which the United States has grown. He indicates it is due to the funding the United States provides worldwide for which we did not have such assistance, with monetary aid to organizational services. Therefore with the resources of well-established countries such as the United States, China Mexico and other global communities in parts of Europe can assist the globalization and the united fight towards education to assist with the known crippling effects of not having wealth in countries in places like Afghanistan, parts of Central America and in the continent of Africa.

            The situation in Kenya with HIV and sexual education with regards to sexual habits and diseases to be compared to world wide data configurations coincide with the fast processed toxic roots in the roof of the huts which it affects the poor, and is an epidemic. Over the last few years, thousands of people in Angola have been affected by devastation for an area which is widely known for diamonds and the income data is incomplete with the existing mindset we have. The new mindset has a crucial role for the world and the technical term of State Department which should be referred to as the world Department, and the hopes for a global effort in changing the mindset that the growth and prosperity is not purely an economic issue, but a health and welfare issue as a while.

Solsen  Analyzing Literary Pieces “Class”

            The short story, “Class” from Sherman Alexie’s “The Toughest Indian In The World” illustrates his feelings towards diversity in ethnic class and social class. There appears to be a theme of substance behind one’s desires and attempting to become satisfied when you reach what you thought were goals, instead finding dissatisfaction and a sense of not belonging. The comparison of being biracial is difficult in finding oneself in not only identifying with a culture, but in the basic ways in which one looks and behaves in accordance with societies ideals and with your desire of appearing accepting.

            The details from the physical appearance of Alexie’s characters in this story to the ways the audience can identify with the simple yet powerful descriptions of the various social classes demonstrates the struggles the main character, Edgar Eagle Runner, has. The story begins with the smallest of details full of actions, emotions and language used among the various characters became evident of the comparison of the multiple social classes. The comparison first starts with his view on his appearance and what his equal would be, that is why he always approached the tenth most beautiful woman at any gathering, because as he stated, “I’d always made sure to play ball only with my equal.” Then the comparison was with heat and cold with love and affection. The wedding symbolized the happiest times and it leading straight into an affair in just one year. Ending in the story with a comparison of what he thought he was looking for and what he actually had the entire time.

            Edgar is a modern middle-class American Indian who definitely struggles with his heritage, not only his ethnicity. There are parts of the story for which he seems proud of his physical difference from the mainstream of his professional legal office in a predominately white suburb in Washington State. Then he expresses he may seem to have everything one would want, a nice home, a nice job, nice car, lots of events and outings; however, this could not be further from the truth. Was his sorrow in the fact he had an absentee father who was an alcoholic, a mother who was proud he had married a blonde haired blue eyed white woman in hopes that continual breeding would eventually erase all of the appearance of the brown skinned Indian? Could he be looking for something else with the search for an Indian prostitute or attempting to have sex with an Indian bartender a way to find him ethnically, or was he looking for a place to belong since the marriage for which he believed was ideal for him a sham once discovering the infidelity of his wife?

            This story expressed the multiple differences in being biracial and bicultural. The diversity was never the weakness, as the main character discovered, it was the strength. Though one may think the grass is greener on the other side of the pasture, having the choice is the ultimate prize, and once he realized this, he was able to be content and rejoin his wife and continue with his life.

Language and Identity Politics (Ramsdell)

Lea Ramsdell began with the phrase, “Language is identity and identity is political.” This was the assumption she formed after researching three autobiographical writings from Richard Rodriguez, Ariel Dorfman, and Gloria Anzaldua. After reading the chosen works by all three, she realized that the described language heritage was brought together by their family and each ethnic history. She asserted that the chosen language choice for each writer was a political act for which they were using for self empowerment. For each writer, the language they identified best with is what they chose to write, therefore a means to inform anyone who reads their works that this is who they are regardless if you agree or not.

For Richard Rodriguez, he chose to write in English as a means for what he expects would bring him success in America. Out of the three writers, he is the one that is farthest removed from his original Spanish speaking culture. In his writing, he described his origins as a happy memory with his Spanish language and total immersion into that culture. The change for him came when school officials informed his parents that if he did not master English, his education would be shortchanged. This caused his parents to encourage English, rarely speaking their native Spanish, which caused for some sadness for the comforting language and culture he had known his whole life. This sadness went away when after a few weeks of not speaking Spanish, he had volunteered an answer in class, which to his surprise created a sense of him finally belonging in that environment, which was told to him and his family would indeed be the best for his future. This was the cause for his writings in English.

Ariel Dorfman whose maternal grandparents fled the Ukraine in the early twentieth century settled in Argentina, where his mother eventually forgot their native Yiddish for Spanish. His paternal grandmother was multilingual for which she spoke Russian, German, and French fluently and worked as a translator; although his father never forgot his native Russian and was able to grasp and recall the Spanish he learned as a child. Dorfman has been influenced by multiple languages as a child and came to the realization if it were not for Spanish, his parent would not have been able to communicate when they met, for his mother of a Jewish background and his father Russian. He was a displaced European in South America. He heard English for the first time while he was hospitalized briefly for a few weeks in New York. It was then when he came to the conclusion that you speak the native language of where you are. This realization caused him to not want to speak Spanish while they were in New York, and he did not have the desire until he was a teenager when his family relocated to another South American country. This enforced his believe that it is only proper that you speak the language of where you are for acceptance, therefore his love and developed respect for Spanish, although knowing English is the preferred language .

Gloria Anzaldua is vastly different from both the previous writers. She never hesitates to take pride in both her language and heritage. She expressly never diverts from her means to invoke a message to anyone who reads her works, that she is not one to conform. She finds a home with her Chicano style and writes in a mixed hybrid of both English and Spanish which can be termed as Spanglish. She maintains compartmentalization of a language will only limit from the variety of expression only hybrid languages have to offer. She believes it gives language legitimacy, and does not agree with academia dictating what her expressed language should be, and her message is that she will not surrender to pressures by a dominant group to use a language that suits them.

The works by the three authors read by Ramsdell, all highlighted how critical a role of language is. The purpose not only to express themselves in their true fashion, but to identify their political stance of various forms of displacement, yet avenues of communication for which they each identify with and are free to choose in the language which resonates with their self-hood.

Solsen Summary of “La conciencia de la mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness.” Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza

Gloria Anzaldua's writings in the chapter of Borderlands/La Frontera shows a unique blend of various ways of writing and useage of both English and Spanish to immerse the reader into what seems to be her experience of a woman of chicana background along the border of Texas and Mexico. The ideology behind her words document not only the cultural differences between race and way of life, but also for gender and sexuality. There are apparent struggles not only physically for her, but a mental anguish as well. Her view point seems to stem for a quest for change not just for tolerance and acceptance but a change of the norms for those that travel well beyond the borderlands.

Her method of study is by observation and through her own experiences as well as those family members for which she accounts for in her childhood memories as she narrates in the third person. She uses much symbolism to describe emotions and outlook for not only her future but for those in her culture. As descriptive as her story unfolds not only past struggles but she foretells of current and future struggles for not only success but for a livelihood. Unfortunately, her struggles only mentions that of a divide of gender equality for her subculture of immigrant farmers and not of others that may be in the same culture of Mexican-American heritage along the borderlands, which would include other trades or skills to tell the entire story of why certain struggles remains.

On page 109, she brings up the question about blending and what can get lost without an insight of what could be gained. There is a hybrid message that seems to reconstruct the thought of oneself rather than the expansion of the culture as a whole. Her writing does provide a substantial history as to why some things are the way that they are and the consequences of intolerance of both the outsiders and those within her subculture to prosper having to know the pains and have scars both on the inside and out. The only hope is in using the farm lands where even in the dirt where it seems nothing will grow, with actions and hope another growth is imminent even though it may not be how one imagined.

My questions are still, how does one prepare to read the works in this book? Is a knowledge of some of the culture and history  required as well as a dictionary in order to understand the direct approach of the writer since she uses cross blending of both English and Spanish?

Living in El Paso, I have come to some of the ideals and descriptions she had written, but if I had not, would I have the same level of consciousness of her message?

ENGL1313: Bartholomae and Inventing the University

ENGL1313: Bartholomae and Inventing the University: Solsen Bartholomae Summary As a Professor of English and former Director of Composition at the University of Pittsburgh, David Barth...

Bartholomae and Inventing the University

Solsen Bartholomae Summary

As a Professor of English and former Director of Composition at the University of Pittsburgh, David Bartholomae is an expert in the field of composition. Inventing the university is a means overcome any discourse between the writer and the audience. As students learn to write, they begin with a particular topic. If that topic is unfamiliar to them, they must research in order to learn the language that topic would use in order to gain understanding from the reader as to what is written. There are various methods to invent the university according to this essay from Bartholomae.

Learning to speak the language is a way to ease the discourse between an inexperienced writer and academic professionals at the university. Whether it is a subject matter such as Economics or Mathematics, one would need to understand the basic vocabulary in that particular field or subject, and appropriate arguments and know how to evaluate any statements made by the writer. Some students may pretend to know the language using words or phrases that may not seem appropriate, and would be obvious to those more experienced in that subject matter. This type of assumption to speak the language can be considered carry off the bluff, as if they writer is full of knowledge on the main points or ideas.

In his method of collecting various sampling for both experienced and inexperienced writers, Bartholomae discovered some keen similarities yet obvious differences between the two. He noted that while they both show discourse on the range of topics, they both may not have understood the audience as well as they should have. Although with the experienced writers, he did acknowledge that they did profess a privileged style of writing for which they became the subject matter expert or drew in the audience to perceive such. There is an importance to connect the two worlds of both the reader and the writer for the message to be concise of the message and for it to be understood as it was intended.

As the student writer becomes more experienced, they will be able to take on more technical discussions or presentation of the concepts used in his or her writing. A commonplace is where alike members have similar interpretations based on their shared or similar experiences which causes their understanding. This is advantageous in writing because the writer can enforce the material in which they are writing about as it could possibly relate to their intended audience. Finding a commonplace would provide the most basic point of reference which could explain the general nature and specifics to more experienced writers.

The major difference between expert writers and the novice would be that an expert is more adept to convert their writing with similarities the reader can relate to and interpret responses. Manipulation of the audience and writing from a position of privileged discourse is a skill learned with experience, for which expert writers have and students set to achieve. Setting the foundation of commonplaces and attempting more scholarly projects will enhance a student’s ability in becoming more expert of a writer.

Intro

INTRODUCTION

My name is Sheila Olsen and I am a student at University of Texas at El Paso studying Business Administration with a minor in Accounting. The purpose of this blog is to maintain my information and discussion relating to materials from my ENGL1313 course.

I will attach information I obtain from my course so that discussion or thought material relates to the subject matter. There are various websites with additional materials and possibly other links from my blog as well. As I research not only for materials for this blog, but I will include my research or ideas pertaining to my course work. 

My writing experience is limited to technical writing obtained from my prior job as a court reporter, but I hope to gain insights and additional experience to broaden my writing and reading. If you have any insightful recommendations, please address them to me.