Author: Mike

Michael Osei-Antwi

Professor Scanlan 

English

December 13 2022

American Spy 

 In this novel “American Spy” by Lauren Wilkinson  is about an intelligent woman, Marie Mitchell, who was assigned to a task force to get information about Thomas Sankara. Throughout the book, characters must consistently make decisions that will affect their own, as well as other peoples’ lives. Ethics is a major factor in how these decisions are made. The five types of ethics are: deontology, virtue, utilitarian, feminist, and global. In this essay, I will analyze how Marie,Ross ,Sankara and Slater used these different types of ethics and use research to support these analyses. Next, I will explain what motivated Marie to take the task assignment. Lastly, I will talk about what ethics Marie and Ross started with and ended with.

I.               Feminist ethics

a. Marie does not want to seduce

                                               i. “I think we could get you closer to him than we could get a man,” Ross pressed.

                                             ii. “They expected me to sleep with him. For intel” (pg 87)

1. For the right price, they expected Marie to agree even if doing so would disagree with her own personal moral instinct and values.

b. Sankara is in support of women’s rights movement

                                               i. “Sankara argued that a society that oppressed women couldn’t be a successful one, and committed himself to women’s rights” (pg 87)

II.             Deontological ethics

a. Ed discusses personal sacrifices he has made on the job to fulfill his duty

                                               i. “That’s a choice I made. A personal sacrifice. It was worth it, because I swore an oath of service to all Americans.” (pg 86)

III.           Utilitarian ethics

a. Ross developing the assignment to hire Marie to kill and cut the operation of Sankara

                                               i. “It’s a fact that Communist governments inhibit the economic growth of a country. End of story.” (pg 88)

                                             ii. Gold suspends Marie

IV.           Virtue ethics

a. Marie accepts the assignment to achieve her own goal and finding out more information about her sister’s death

                                               i. “I want to talk to Daniel Slater.” I had questions about Helene that only he could answer. (pg 88)

b. Marie ignores her assignment and does not kill Sankara

V.             Global ethics

a. Sankara has a global and large impact in his political initiatives

                                               i. “Sankara had helped save the lives of thousands of children.” (pg 86)

b. Slater talks about why he joined the CIA in the first place, to make a positive impact on humanity through tactics used in war, in this case the Cold War (pg 173)

                                               i. “humanity had been brought to the brink of nuclear war. But Slater believed that had he been able to insert himself into the early planning stages of something that became an international conflict, that conflict would have been avoided.”

Interdits

According to Cambridge dictionary the word interdits is a French word and in English it means something or someone that is banned, unauthorized, or not allowed. This term relates to the novel because in the novel it talks about how the author’s grandmother moved in and out of the New York places where negroes were interdits. She Is saying negroes were being moved around in places they were banned. She wasn’t living comfortably because of her being moved out her house consistently. The novel also says she was gathering her intelligence on the world that white people inhabited, and she feels like she about to be made.

Ghana

 According to Wikipedia officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and Togo in the east. Ghana is the second-most populous country in West Africa, after Nigeria. This country relates to the novel because when Marie arrived in Ghana, she intentionally blows her cover, revealing all of ross and Slater’s machinations to Sankara.

The poem “Halloween party” makes me feel like the person talking wasn’t the most popular kid but was trying to dress nice to impress their friends. They dressed like Dracula because how scary he is and how cool kids think he is. This person talked about all the steps they went through to feel confident about their custom. At this point we can assume this is a boy, when he got to school, he felt like the biggest fool because he didn’t feel so cool no more just the fact that his mom dropped him off. This shows that this is a kid in middle school. This person went to school thinking his outfit was cool until he showed up and the other kids stared at him like he was a freak. I like this poem because it gives off like a nerdy kid doing things to fit in, but it doesn’t always end up on the right side. I noticed how at the end of each line it has word that rhyme together. At the 3^rd Stanza I like how the end of first and second sentence ended in school and fool to show how he felt when he got to school.

The Article “Where I Learned How to Read” by Salvatore Scibona was written in a first-person point of view. Salvatore spoke about how he was trying best to fail out of school. He was making only $3.85 an hour at KFC which he enjoyed. He didn’t like being in school because he wasn’t good at it, and he didn’t bother to ask for help either. Every time he gets a report card, he burns it on the stove in his job. He thought he could get re-positioned anywhere in the country to work for KFC. Eventually while exploring, he found about a college call St. John’s which he wanted to attend. He decided to get himself together so he could be admitted into the school. In his classes at school, he discovered how much he enjoyed reading. Overall, I liked this reading because even though you might not find your purpose in life, there is going to be something that crosses your path to change your point of view on everything. I can relate to his story because I was a person who didn’t take school seriously until I realized it is needed to make a better future for myself.