The Shawl By Louise Ercrich

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1. “His father’s chest was broad and, although he already spat the tubercular blood that would write the end of his story, he was still a strong man. It would take him many years to die. In those years, the father would tell the boy, who had forgotten this part entirely, that at first when he talked about the shadows the father thought he’d been visited by manidoog. But then, as the boy described the shapes, his father had understood that they were not spirits.”

2.This passage to me is foreshadowing what will happen to the son as well as comparing and contrasting them.The first thing they talk about was how strong his father was.and then talk about how long it would take for his father to die.When he becomes a father he goes through the same thing his father does however does not break as easily.The father only weakens when he physically weakens and he finally tells his son what he believed to be the truth after years if holding it in.The son however is in the same situation and he becomes a drunk and beats his kids.I don’t think this was random there’s too much of a difference in how they react for it to be anything but a comparison between them.

3.I believe that the whole story is about many things.This comparison of weak and strong is also else where in the book.The husband tried to love his wife even though she had a baby with another guy,the wife on the other hand could not get the other guy out of her head and as a result could not appreciate her husband.The daughter more than likely saved her mothers life by jumping to the wolves which takes a certain strength she will die knowing that she did something good,the father knows he tried to love his wife and that she acted selfishly and tore apart their family and as a result their daughter that she wanted so badly died and the mother has to deal with this for the rest of her life if shes still alive.
I think there is an under lying theme of using strength for good and being rewarded in some way.

4.This idea can be found in many passages an books.One of my favorites is the battles that batman and joker have.Batman could easily kill joker if he wanted too.However batman just smashes his plans time and time again and sends him to jail.But why does batman feel as if killing a killer would be wrong? batman says that “Killing a killer does nothing but increase the number of killers in the world.” So it can be said that batman’ reward is being better than those he stops and keeps his peace of mind.

Research Annotation

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My research  annotation is about  the different race laws around the time the book was written.

“ Public Assemblages Act, the General Assembly required the racial segregation of all public events in Virginia. The act became law without the signature of Governor Harry F. Byrd Sr. on March 22, 1926”  

As well as the Colored persons and Indians defined Code of Virginia (1924) which defined a  colored person as having one-sixteenth or more “negro blood”.

And finally “Another proposed law, to be white a person must have “no trace whatsoever of any blood other than Caucasian”—in other words, the standard already being applied by Walter Plecker. However, people who had less than one sixty-fourth part Indian and no African American heritage would still be considered white.”   

from https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Racial_Integrity_Laws_of_the_1920s#start_entry

 

These are just some of the  examples  of race law that would have been i affect when then character would gave been born.These examples show us that people like Helga were being put into an unsavory position.

Laws like this were rampant in the south where she was and its important to know this because it adds to her feeling of not belonging even more.If there was a annotation on the many race laws of the time people would really start to understand Helga’s internal struggle even more.

 

 

Aped

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Project 2 Glossary Annotation:

  • Aped (verb) – to copy closely but often clumsily and ineptly

Source – https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ape

From: “Quicksand” by Nella Larsen, Chapter 9 Page 80

“She hated white people with a deep and burning hatred, with the kind of hatred which, finding itself held insufficiently numerous groups, was capable someday, on some great provocation, of bursting into dangerously malignant flames. But she aped their clothes, their manners, and their gracious ways of living. While proclaiming loudly the undiluted good of all things Negro, she yet disliked the songs, the dances, and the softly blurred speech of the race. Toward these things, she showed only a disdainful contempt, tinged sometimes with a faint amusement. Like the despised people of the white race, she preferred Pavlova to Florence Mills, John McCormack to Taylor Gordon, Walter Hampden to Paul Robeson.”

In this passage, the author depicts Helga as someone who would adapt to a better lifestyle to be accepted by the society, but keep her traditional values. Even though Helga hates white people, she follows their fashion and lifestyle. Helga also prefers the music that the white people like. This shows that Helga is conflicted between the African-American culture and the lifestyle of white people.

Project #2 thesis statement drafts

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thesis statements for Project #2:

An annotation about the Great Migration would be helpful for readers because the Great Migration is symbolic of Helga’s migration through her quest for contentment.

  • reflect on Great Migration annotation
  • think about it in the context of a few examples
    • Naxos to Chicago
    • Chicago to NY
    • What’s at stake with leaving Harlem for Copenhagen? for the South?
    • somewhere along the way: glossary entry references

Color is important for Helga, and a sticking point in contrast to others who want people of color to blend in or to stand out. Knowing background about fashion trends and who was supposed to wear color and who avoid it would help readers consider Helga’s dilemma with her appearance.

[Helga Crane is told that colored women should not wear bright colors but should wear dull or not bright colors. But what should be known is that the color of the clothing would depend on whether you were a working woman or a housewife.]

Because of her time in Copenhagen, Helga truly feels like an outsider.

Copenhagen is such a culture shock that Helga feels like an outsider not just because of her race but also because of ??? and ???.

Understanding the demographics of the 1920s can illuminate how racism affects Helga’s decision about marriage and having children.

“You” in “What You Pawn I Will Redeem”

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When does the narrator create the narrate–that is, where is the “you” addressed, and who is that you that he builds?

(Late post, I apologize)

The narrator creates this relationship/ barrier with the reader by addressing the readers as “you” especially in the beginning of the story. Jackson Jackson in the beginning of the story states “I’m not going to tell you my particular reasons for being homeless, because it’s my secret story, and Indians have to work hard to keep secrets from hungry white folks,” this atomically puts this barrier between the reader and the narrator.  The reader is portrayed as a distant person and as a person who will take advantage of the secret and harm him and his tribe. He starts by building this bad picture of the reader and that we are “hungry white folks” who is looking to harm the Indians. He continues to build this ungrateful and vicious view towards the readers by stating “Maybe you don’t understand the value of a clean bathroom, but I do,” in other words we are ungrateful for things that we feel are common however is a luxury to others and that we won’t ever understand what a clean bathroom is like because he feels that we don’t come across dirty or unclean restrooms. Again he builds this barrier between the reader and himself that the reader will not understand.  In other words its like, I’m just telling you but I don’t expect you to understand how I feel about it. He further develops this barrier by stating “We’re common and boring, and you walk right on by us, with maybe a look of anger or disgust or even sadness at the terrible fate of the noble savage,” Jackson mentions “you” referring to us the reader and says how we see homeless people often and not only do we not care about them but many times we make faces towards them. Sometimes faces that show our anger towards them and sometimes our sympathy towards them.  He makes it clear that we, the reader are these vicious evil people who are not trustworthy, not grateful and are bad guys. We can maybe better understand this by the way many of us see corporate workers and how their ungrateful and corrupt is kind of how the narrator portrays us the reader as.  Jackson builds this image of “you” as a corrupt person.

Humor in What You Pawn I Will Redeem

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Where is there humor? to what end?

(For starters, sorry for my late posting)

There is humor present throughout the course of Sherman Alexie’s story “What You Pawn I Will Redeem”, seen through dialog, character’s actions, and even the main character’s name, Jackson Jackson. I believe humor is used as a tool to lighten an otherwise grim situation. For instance in the very beginning the narrator, Jackson Jackson, describes himself as trustworthy after saying he has had two or three wives and two or three kids. Which is ironic, how can someone be considered trustworthy when they do not even know how many children they have fathered. Also he reached the conclusion that he was trustworthy because store owners allow him to use their restrooms. Jackson’s actions are humorous as well because he was given twenty four hours to come up with nine hundred and ninety nine dollars to buy back his grandmother’s regalia that was stolen years prior, from a pawn shop owner. He already had five dollars from begging on the street and the shop owner gave him a twenty dollar head start, Jackson’s first thought was to go to a seven eleven with his fellow homeless friends buy “three bottles of imagination”, and get drunk in an alley. I feel that the humor is essential in this story because a person’s life is full of very traumatic and difficult moments some more than others, this narrator is of Native American decent, a marginalized group of people who have had their heritage taken from them, and many live on reservations. And Jackson specifically is unemployed and homeless. Regardless of this he does not want the audience to feel sorry for him, Jackson jokes about everything in his life and will not give negative aspects of it a second thought like when Junior left. He looks at the positive side of his life and only wants to live life to the fullest. Not starting confrontation with the pawn shop owner for selling his stolen grandmother’s regalia. And sharing what little money he has with others, giving a twenty to the cashier, and buying shots for everyone in the bar.

Reliability of the “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” narrator

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“What You Pawn I Will Redeem” by Sherman Alexie is about the narrator’s , Jackson Jackson, story about his quest on obtaining $1000 in order to buy his grandmother’s long lost ceremonial regalia. What follows is a tale of Jackson’s tendencies at being irresponsible keeping the money he collected and instead ending up spending it on other things.

While I think that most of us will assume or get the hunch that Jackson is bound to fail on his task, he still ended up getting the regalia back anyway. This is because in the eyes of those around him, he’s a reliable man. His encounter with other people in different situations showed his generous and kind personality, which earned their trust, hence why he was successful in the end. For example, after waking up before Junior, Jackson constantly checked if he was still breathing, making sure his friend is alright. He also didn’t want to bring in the police into the situation about stealing of the regalia, he wanted to work hard for it instead. When Jackson won some money from a scratch lottery ticket, he gave twenty dollars as a small token to the clerk, Mary, saying that “When you win, you’re supposed to share with your family.” He also treated his “new friends” and fellow Indians to drinks and bought breakfast for the Aleuts he met at the wharf. Even though Jackson is in a difficult situation himself, he still acted out of goodness to others. His altruistic gestures was reciprocated with other people aiding him back, like the Big Boss giving him free newspapers to sell, when the police officer chipped in thirty bucks to help and ultimately the pawnbroker offering the regalia at no charge.

As a narrator tho, it is difficult to say if Jackson is a credible one, whether his story is true since its authenticity is quiet questionable. Made up stories tend to make the story teller in a positive image. You could say he is a good story teller tho if it were all just fictional events, like he said, “we Indians are great storytellers and liars and mythmakers”. I guess it entirely up to the readers whether to believe Jackson’s story is genuine as can be.

Project #2 Acceptance in Communities

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David Peikrishvili
300 Jay St
Brooklyn, NY 11201
5/6/2018

HathiTrust
1001 North Buhr Building
200 Hill Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48104

To whom it may concern,

       I hope this letter reaches one of your Editors at HathiTrust. I am writing this concerning one of the edits for Nella Larsen’s story “Quicksand”.  While I was reading the text, i thought maybe there could be some changes/edits that can be implemented in order to enhance the visitors viewing experience. Throughout the text, it would be easier for the reader to understand the main plot or theme, if they are given the proper annotations that can help them out. This story would probably be more appropriate for any ages. This story can impact someone depending on what they like to read or are interested in. The concept isn’t too hard to understand and can leave the reader questioning Helga’s decisions through the whole story. Why is it that Helga is so uncertain of herself and why can’t she find a place to settle down and start a family? These are the types of questions that an ordinary reader would ask, and that is why I suggest making some of the upcoming edits, in order to help readers understand more about Helga’s way of thinking. 

     The story revolves around Helga Crane who tries to find a place she can call home and settle down. She finds herself skipping around all over the place, trying out different communities and never find “the one”. A quote that appears in the beginning of the story stated by Dr.Anderson can be referred to throughout most of the chapters. He stated that “ Someday you’ll learn that lies, injustice, and hypocrisy are a part of every ordinary community. Most people achieve a sort of protective immunity, a kind of callousness, toward them”(Quicksand, Page 53-54). This quote isn’t wrong at all, we could definitely tell that while Helga was running all over the place, all the communities had some of these facts in common. The reader could clearly understand that Dr.Anderson’s words were no bluffs.

    To make things more supporting, we can use outside sources to enhance and reinforce the readers comprehension of the story. For example the article written by Elisabeth Hudson from King’s College London provides a well in depth description of the whole reading without leaving out any important details. One of the descriptions were: “Helga struggles deeply to come to terms with her identity as a mulatto woman in Quicksand. She experiments with several different modes of living: living among black people in an urban environment and in a rural environment, and living among white people. In none of these environments is she able to be herself completely, and she always feels suffocated by the expectations of society”(Elizabeth Hudson). This statement illustrates the main idea of the story and the main reason why Helga cannot find herself and her home. For Helga, Naxos was never a real home, “she could no longer abide being connected with a place of shame, lies,hypocrisy,cruelty,servility, and snobbishness”(Quicksand, Page 48). Why does Helga not remain in one place? Why does she not accept a community, all these questions can be answered by simple annotations done to the text, just like these ones. It is important to provide the reader proper citations and examples not only from the text itself, but also from other articles or reviews about “Quicksand”. With both, defined vocabulary words and extra information, people can more or less extract the important main idea from the whole text without being left in confusion or with questions. For me, the important factor in annotations is having certain paragraphs or words explained using real world examples or just having them simplified.

There is a term that’s used to characterize Helga in a way, it’s called “Tragic Mulatto“. This term is used to describe a person, (in this case Helga) who has a negative view of the world and the things around her because of her race. Mostly being a colored individual not being able to fit into the “white community” or into any community that is divide by race. It would be a bit simpler if Helga was just one race/color. But she is mixed, so it’s hard to find a place that accepts both white and colored. Even though this is true, at the same time Helga could have tried somehow to gain some kind of authority or power from both races. I think that due to her unknown personality, she was unable to think straight and chooses a path for a better future than what she got.

     I was actually able to foreshadow some events from the beginning of the text by using the clues and the descriptions about Helga’s personality and  her “wants and needs”. Also while reading the story, I noticed that every other character had a place they could call home. They had jobs, people to hang around or talk to and they actually had a somewhat clear mindset about the future. Helga could have stayed in a couple of places and start a good life but no, she decided to live a hard life as we see in the end of the last chapter. That was definitely not the type of ending that I was looking for but that was her decision so she should never had regretted it afterwards. With all of this information put into annotations into the text, I believe that the readers will experience the text much better. Thank you for taking your time to read this letter.

           Sincerely, David Peikrishvili

 

 

Works Cited

Hudson, Elisabeth, “The Relationship Between Colour and Identity in the Literature of  Nella Larsen and Richard Wright” 2008. https://lurj.org/issues/volume-3-number-2/colour. Visited on 5/6/2018.

Larsen Nella, Quicksand: Nella Larsen – Charles R.Larson – Anchor Books – 2001

Servility

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Adjective:Servile

 Of or befitting a slave or a menial position

This would be my second vocabulary word for the project, found in the book “Quicksand”. This word was stated by Helga Crane when she was describing what kind of place Naxos was. “She could no longer abide being connected with a place of shame,lies hypocrisy,cruelty,servility and snobbishness”. She wanted to forget and leave this place that she despised so much.

 

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/servility

Callousness

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Adjective: callous

Feeling no emotion, feeling or showing no sympathy for others; (a callous indifference to suffering )

I encountered this word in the beginning of “Quicksand” and was one of the words I wanted to use for the project. This is was shown when Helga Crane and Dr. Anderson were having their first conversation. He mentions that “Most people achieve a sort of protective immunity, a kind of callousness, towards them”. He was stating how no matter which community it was, there would always be problems and lies.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/callous