Chinua Achebe: Okonkwo Cahracterization

One of the reasons why the novel Things Fall Apart is a tragedy and can be related to so many other tragic works is because the main character, Okonkwo, fits the classic example of a tragic hero. A tragic hero is, by short definition, is a literary character who makes a judgment error that inevitably leads to his/her own destruction.One of the major themes that develops throughout the story because Okonkwo is a tragic hero is the theme of ‘Culture vs Tradition’. This theme focuses on the clashing of the traditions that Okonkwo wants to uphold by the Igbo people, with the culture and religion of the colonists. Since Okonkwo goes against everything he considers to be weak and feminine, he decides to retaliate against the ‘white man’ because he does not want to seem girly. To some extent Okonkwo’s defiance of cultural change is also appointed to his fear of losing societal position and rank. Because his sense of self-respect is reliant upon the traditional criteria by which society judges him. He develops this theme as a tragic hero because if he were to adjust his ways and find compromise with the missionaries, it would not have led to his decision to commit suicide. I believe the reason Chinua Achebe chose a tragic hero as a protagonist is because he wanted to impact his readers by not making it the typical fairy tale ending, but where it ended with Okonkwo’s death in the end. To show that colonizers really affected people, and to basically give a voice to everyone that went through the same situation. Chinua Achebe wanted people to feel for Okonkwo in the end, since throughout the entire novel he was the focus for nearly the whole book. Therefore he wanted the reader to get attached and then snap them out of reality by showing it did not end well, and there really were no winners. 

Abraham Lincoln: Gettysburg Adress

In a speech that was comprised of only 10 sentences and 272 words, Abraham Lincoln was able to shine light on something that would resonate not only with his audience, but one that would echo through time. Why is this short speech so notable?

First, it is vital to recall the context. America was in the middle of a bloody civil war. Union troops had only four months earlier defeated Confederate troops at the Battle of Gettysburg (which is widely recognized as the turning point in the war). Thus, I believe the stated purpose of Lincoln’s speech was to bestow a plot of land that would become Soldier’s National Cemetery to honour the deceased. However, the Civil War still raged on and Lincoln comprehended that he also had to encourage and inspire the people to continue the fight. Therefore the speech is mainly a mix between motivating people to keep fighting and also honouring the fallen. I believe that Lincoln had one main audience which was the country in general, however he had a bigger purpose with this speech. I believe he made it short and easy to follow so that it could impact future generation, a speech to resonate in the ears and minds of generations to come.

(In italics and bold are going to be the words of Abraham Lincoln during the speech and under them are going to be my thoughts and views on the speech itself.)

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

§  “Four score and seven” is much more poetic, much more elegant, and noble than “Eighty-seven”. This is appropriate, because 87 years prior, the United States had won its freedom from Britain and thus embarked on the “Great Experiment”.

§  Lincoln reminisces to the audience about the basis on which the country was founded: liberty and equality. This is a perfect set up to the next sentence.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

§  Here, Lincoln signals the task. The values on which the nation was founded are under attack.

§  He encompasses the importance of the fight beyond the borders of the United States. It is not just a question of whether America could survive, but instead a question of whether any nation established on the same principles could live. Thus does the war — and the significance of winning it — take on an even greater importance.

We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

§  Lincoln turns to distinguish those who have fallen for their country.

§  He uses contrast well. By stating “those who here gave their lives that this nation might live” Lincoln makes what is possibly the ultimate contrast: life vs death. This has an immediate impact on the audience because the use of contrast is persuasive in a speech because it directly proves the persons point, showing the good that come out of their side.

§  He uses consonance — the repetition of the same consonant in short sequence — through words with the letter “f”: battlefield; field; final; for; fitting. This has an effect on the audience because it makes the speech seem more impressive and appealing and add certain amount of intensity and beauty to them.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground.

§  Notice the use of a “triple” sort of repetition: “can not dedicate … can not consecrate … can not hallow”. Triples are a influential public speaking technique that can add authority to your words and make them notable.

§  Say the sentence out loud and hear the powerful cadence and rhythm.

The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.

§  This sentence is full of sincere respect for those who fought. It is an expressive way of saying that their actions speak much greater value than Lincoln’s words. This pulls on the audiences pathos and really put the situation in perspective.

§  There is an alliteration as well: “poor power”. The function of alliteration in speeches is to be both attention getting and memorable.

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

§  There is a double contrast here, in this sentence: “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here” / “but it can never forget what they did here.”

§  Note the appeal to something greater. It is not the United States that will never forget, but the whole world.

§  Ironically, Lincoln was wrong with this statement. Not only have his words been remembered to this day, they will carry on to continue to be remembered in the future. Which as stated before was the reason I believe he made his speech this way, for it to be remembered later on.

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

§  The final two sentences of the address signal a call to action, a resolution to complete “the unfinished work”.

§  They are packed with inspiring words such as “dedicated”, “nobly”, “great”, “honoured”, “devotion”, “highly resolve”, “God”, “birth” and “freedom”. To inspire the audience to do the great task he asks of them.

§  There are a couple of contrasts here: “the living” with “the honoured dead”; and “these dead shall not have died in vain” with “this nation … shall have a new birth of freedom”.

§  Prior to this, Lincoln said that, in a sense, they could not bestow the ground. Here, he tells the audience that to which they must be dedicated: “the unfinished work” and “the great task remaining before us”.

§  He finishes with a powerful triple repetition (as mentioned before) that has become famous throughout the world: “of the people, by the people, for the people”. This repetition displays authority when being said. 

The Most Meaningful Takeaway: How to Tame a Wild Tongue

In class today we were asked to get in groups and discuss what we read (in depth) over the winter break. It was asked of us to read “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” and “Woman Warrior”. After reading them both and having the group discussion in class, there was a question that Mohammad asked that really stuck with me; ‘does using multiple languages in the author’s writing exclude or include other people who do not speak the languages written?’  

In my opinion it includes people more than excludes people. What I mean by this is that people who speak Chicano Spanish can read this as well as people who speak English. Thus it can relate to both English and Spanish speakers. However I believe that the author didn’t really care about everyone else who was reading this. This was for her, who she was, and how she’s able to show herself through her writing. And people who do not speak any of the languages that were written should not feel excluded because they do not know the language. For instance: I do not feel excluded that I cannot read the Spanish parts of the text because I understand that this is for the author and how she wants to use writing as a creative outlet to express herself. Much like I do not feel excluded that I can’t read texts in Swedish or French, because I do not know the language. 

However I understand why this question could be asked often, and that’s brings us to language and power. Because English is such a world renowned language nowadays, I understand why people might feel excluded that they can’t speak or understand it. Because in reality English is one of the most spoken languages in the world right now and it is only progressing in terms of it growing. 

Another way that this text shows language and power in my opinion, if she truly wants to show that she is a proud Chicano Spanish speaker and “she really is her language”, why is she writing most of text in English? This is definitely a form of linguistic imperialism. This is because it shows the author’s language as being dominated by a more powerful one (Chicano being dominated by English). This is an utter portrayal of aspects of the dominant language being transferred along with the culture that the person(s) are in. For the reason that since the author is living in the United States it appears to be that the culture and language have rubbed off on her. Not saying that she doesn’t relate back to her culture, and language but more of the fact that she could be drifting away from it due to the location she is in. 

In conclusion in How to Tame a Wild Tongue the relationship between language and power is portrayed through the author’s writing (whilst writing mostly in English), and how since English is so popular nowadays people might feel excluded or discriminated against in places where this aspect of the country’s culture is shown (displaying linguistic imperialism). 

Food Crisis in Sahel

 “The Food Crisis in Sahel” is an article made by “Oxfam International”. Oxfam is an international confederation of 17 organizations working together with partners and local communities in more than 90 countries, with the sole purpose of ending hunger and poverty. The main aim for this organisation is to persuade people to join it and contribute to help these people in need. Where it is very noticeable “Oxfam is targeting to reach one million people across Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and  Senegal with humanitarian aid”. The article simply starts off with the logistics aspect of the cause, by giving the audience factual numbers of what’s happening in terms of the food crisis and the aftermath (to capture the audience’s attention). And this idea of using logos to attract people’s attention and thus turning into pathos as well (because it would affect people’s emotions to see the ones more needy suffering), is shown throughout the entire  article.

As said earlier this article is to persuade people to join the cause of helping the people in need in Sahel. However it’s more than that as well, it is also to inform and educate people about the problems there. More than that the clear target audience is anybody who is interested and willing to help the ones in need and the ones that are less fortunate. By (as said before) their use of continuous data of numbers in their writing, to affect people’s emotions (turning logos into pathos). This article also outlines what Oxfam is doing to try and stop this crisis, and what they as an organisation and community intend to do as well. Furthermore the author tries to convey the message that these people in Sahel need help, and it is in Oxfam’s interest to do so. Thus I believe the way that the author tried targeting their audience is by making the readers feel sad and bad about the people in Sahel, so that they can get more people to join the cause and jump on the bandwagon. To do this the author uses mainly logos to attract the people’s attention. Such as where it states: “Recent evaluations suggest 12 million people across West and Central Africa are facing a food crisis”. Or when it claims that: “Recent reports said over 5.4 million people in (35% of the population in Niger, some 1.7 million people in Mali, 1.67 million in Burkina Faso and 700,000 people (over one-quarter of the population) in Mauritania are estimated to be vulnerable to food insecurity.” This makes the reader’s think and realize how good they have it compared to others, hence, making them feel bad about these people and hopefully join the organisation.   

The tone of this article is very eye catching and serious, considering that just by looking at the title there’s already a situations “Food Crises in Sahel”. In addition their use of vocabulary, how they do not sugar coat it they go straight to the point which is: There is a food crisis in Sahel and people are going to die if we do not help them. They are able to say these things and really catch the audience’s attention through the use of statistics and numbers of causalities and people in need of food etc. For example: “In Chad 13 out of 22 regions could be affected by this food crisis: some 2.4 million don’t have always enough to eat. There are key words in there that also make set the tone of seriousness such as: ‘serious’, ‘crisis’, ‘causing serious problems’ etc. This makes people really feel for the people in Sahel and in Africa in general, thus altering the mood to a sad one (as said before).

In this article although it is discussing a serious matter it uses the informal approach of using pronouns. But why? As said before since Oxfam is trying to persuade people to join their organisation (as this is their clear goal), I assume that they use pronouns to try to already convince the reader that they are part of this action taking society, by including them. They do this by using words such as: ‘We’re’, or ‘we’ etc. The whole article engages the reader because it portrays a problem and includes the reader to find a way to solve it. As well as that the main sentence structure is for the whole article is declarative, because it declares that ‘there is a food crisis in Sahel’, it declares the number of people who are suffering from this crisis etc.

In conclusion this article was created to get people more aware of the situation happening in Sahel and what Oxfam is trying to do to help. It is also there to inform and educate the people that do not know what’s happening in Sahel, thus meaning to raise awareness to this serious cause. This has been explained in the text, by explaining how they use the vocabulary, who their target audience is, how they use statistics to attract people’s attention and what tone and mood they try to give off with the article itself. 

FOA reflection

My further oral activity was based around AXE the multi-national co-operation, but more solely focused on how they use advertising techniques to attract the male audience. The overall feeling I had when I was done with my presentation was that I was feeling very confident, because I practiced it and put a lot of effort into it. Therefore when I went to present I did not feel that nervous which made my whole presentation a lot better, because I had confidence to talk; which I believe attracted the audience to pay more attention to my presentation. Therefore I believe I was very successful. By looking at the criteria I believe my strengths are definitely criterion A and B. “A” because: I understood the material I was explaining thoroughly well I gave detail, examples, I went into depth with my analysis etc. And “B” because, I broke down all the language in each ad differently. For example: my first ad didn’t really have much language but I talked about how the language in the music in the background added to that effect, or how the second one I broke it down in terms of language claims, and lastly the third one with the use of breaking down the script into the four parts (supernatural, nature, man-made, and man), they were all broken down differently to show variety and diversity and I believe I did show that in my presentation. I chose my text because I felt that no one has done that yet, I mean focus on “advertising techniques” and I thought it might have been interesting to break down how one specific company uses them (AXE). The thing I learnt most in this FOA is that it takes a lot of presentation, I mean if you go up there with nothing prepared then it will be harder. Therefore, there’s a lot of presentation, preparation, rehearsal etc. By doing this it will help me later on in future FOA’s. 

Blog Post Advertisement and Culture

In our last class my group and I presented an ad from OLAY. This ad was based around the image of a woman who is overjoyed because she feels ‘complete’ by using the new moisturizer from OLAY. However it wasn’t simply that, in the image the woman had a description of her roles…what does that tell us about our society? This brings me to gender roles in advertisement. Unlike sex which is the product of biologically based male-female difference; gender is a result of socialisation in a culture. Gender signifies the association between men and women or femininity and masculinity. It is this connection that advertisers focus on, because people express themselves by their gender, and gender can be noticed at a glance making it much easier for advertisers and marketing agencies to use this theme in their work. For example: if an advertiser wanted to target the male audience they would include things that men think make them masculine (women, beer, monster trucks etc). Going back to the original question what does that tell us about our society? Well it should tell us that we are sort of sexist, because we classify products and goods as to being only for one sex. Take the OLAY ad for example, they are only targeting women for their moisturiser, however why can’t men use moisturiser as well? As well as that women are used as objects in ads and are classified as certain things. In the OLAY ad (as mentioned before) the woman has roles “mother, wife, shoe aficionado” etc, therefore classifying her, and thus targeting the women who are those things. In conclusion I believe that people need to start seeing the tricks in advertisement and start asking questions, because we are open to thousands of ads a day and we are starting to not notice what that is really trying to convey in their message.  

Smoking Kills

Smoking Kills...STOP! (By: Medicine Plus) 
Smoking is accountable for numerous diseases, such as cancer, continuing respiratory diseases, and heart disease, as well as untimely death. Over 440,000 people in the USA and 100,000 in the UK die because of smoking each year. Smoking causes cancer. 90% of lung cancer patients established their disease due to smoking. Lung cancer is one of the utmost communal reasons of cancer deaths in the world. Smokers also have a considerably higher hazards to evolving cancer as well. Not only that but they have the greater risk of smoking reappearance (which means the cancer coming back). This article (by “Medicine Plus”) is being written to really show the significance that smoking has on people. Smoking really does affect us and des cause cancer because, it affects our cells and how they grow. In some cases they may grow rapidly causing tumours, or in other cases may kill the cell fully. Not only that it causes breathing problems because your lungs get so clogged up with tar that it affects the way you take in oxygen. Smokers are twice as likely to have a heart attack due to the clogging of arteries. Kids do it nowadays as well not just adults, because of several reasons: bad influences (peer pressure, or parents who do it etc), some of these kids die by the time they are thirty five years old. Save yourself, the people around you and the kids…stop smoking