Study Guide for Midterm part two (Summer 2009)

Now that another week is over, I thought that I'd post the next installment of our study guide.  This entry will cover Things Fall Apart, The Turkish Embassy Letters, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl as well as the web sites and videos we looked at this week.

Monday we began our discussion of Things Fall Apart (1958), one of the first major works in modern African literature and the first that most of us read.  This novel was also Chinua Achebe (1930-)'s first.  Among the topics we talked about were Okonkwo's character, his relationship with his father (was Achebe influenced by Freudianism), Achebe's depiction of Igbo society, his use of third-person narration, the role of the council, the role of the egwugwu, and Okonkwo's wives.  We also discussed Okonkwo's hypermasculinity and compared it to the masculinity of the other men in the village.  In addition, we talked about elements of orality, especially the proverbs that appear in the narrative as well as in characters' speech.  For more information about orality, see this site here:  http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~univ302/StudentWork/S96/Sandman/Orality.html


We also watched the following scenes from the TV movie version of Things Fall Apart:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBy0-08uw3o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXFuiRaiYB0

I have to add this earlier scene that we did not watch because it allows us to watch Pete Edochie's Okonkwo in action.  Isn't he well cast?! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZijfjuYftw


Tuesday we continued discussing Things Fall Apart.  Topics we considered included Okonkwo as tragic hero, his tragic flaw (his temper?  his pride?  his hypermasculinity?  his misogyny?), Ikemefuna's murder (and Okonkwo's role in it), Igbo society, colonialism, and the impact of Christianity on Umuofia. 

For more information about the tragic hero, see this site:  http://vccslitonline.cc.va.us/tragedy/aristotle.htm

This site has more information about tragedy:

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/tragedy.html



In addition, we watched the following videos.  The first, a brief video, contains Chinua Achebe's remarks on slavery, colonialism, and the African diaspora.  It will also shed light on The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNdjcFOoVi8

The next, a longer video, is part of Bill Moyers' interview of a middle-aged and vigorous Achebe.  The interview took place just before Achebe returned to Nigeria to become the leader of his town's council.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCic_RoPhoM

We also watched the following examples of Igbo dance.  The first is a masquerade, and the second takes place at a funeral.  Note how these videos help you understand some of the rituals in the novel, particularly the egwugwu.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrWu7Dp3Ea0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PxvDFoBxTc


The picture below is of an egwugwu, specifically an elephant spirit.  How does this picture compare to the way that Achebe depicts the appearance of the egwugwu in the village?



Wednesday we began our unit on life writing, a genre that includes autobiographies and memoirs, letters, journals and diaries, and biographies.  In other words, life writing documents an actual individual's life.  Olaudah Equiano's and Harriet Jacobs' writing fall under the category of autobiography.  (Memoirs cover only part of an individual's life.  For example, if Jacobs wrote about her nearly seven years in her grandmother's attic, then her work would be a memoir.  Other examples of the memoir would be Maya Angelou's series that begins with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.  As you can see, though, from this image from www.littlebrown.uk, the terms autobiography and memoir are often used interchangeably.


Wednesday we discussed Equiano's Interesting Narrative (1789) and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Turkish Embassy Letters (first published in 1837, long after the author's death).  For more information about Equiano's life, see this Critical Biography by Prof. Brycchan Carey:

http://www.brycchancarey.com/equiano/biog.htm

For more about the controversy over Equiano's birthplace, see these links:

http://www.brycchancarey.com/equiano/nativity.htm
http://www.everygeneration.co.uk/equiano_review.htm

Jim Egan's review is interesting but may be too technical for some.  However, he raises some important points about biographies' old-fashioned attitudes:

http://ecti.english.illinois.edu/reviews/46/egan-carretta.html

I must admit that in our discussion of Equiano's rhetorical strategies and his relationship with Capt. Pascal we fell into some of the errors that Egan mentions.  However, as Prof. Carey's biography indicates, Equiano really did have a complicated relationship with the captain. 

Other passages we focused on were Equiano's first impressions of the Europeans, his relationship with his mentor Daniel Queen, his first impressions of England, a paragraph on cruelty towards new slaves (especially women and girls), the way that he achieved his freedom, and his expressed wish to track down Capt. Pascal (who had sold him off his ship right before it landed in England...again).


This picture is from the University of Maryland's Early Americas Web Gateway.  Vincent Carretta, the scholar who argued that Equiano was born in the Carolinas and not in Africa, is a professor at College Park.  I guess I am going to put his biography of Equiano on my reading list! 

Now for Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and her Turkish Embassy Letters!  For a biography of this most interesting woman, see this link:  http://www.luminarium.org/eightlit/montagu/marybio.htm

I think that her letters are particularly interesting in EN 202 for two reasons.  First of all, she is writing at a time (1716 to 1718) when the British Empire was not dominant, so she did not depict the Ottoman Empire from a position of superiority and perhaps contempt.  Secondly, she writes to a number of different people, so her point of view changes from letter to letter.  In fact, here are a few more letters that our anthology did not include:

http://www.ic.arizona.edu/ic/mcbride/ws200/montltrs.htm

The letters we looked at in class were Lady Mary's literary letter to Alexander Pope, her letter to a friend that detailed the Turkish practice of vaccination against smallpox, and her letter to her sister, the Lady Mar.  In that last letter, Lady Mary writes about her visit to two very different harems.  The picture below looks more 19th century than 18th century, but it gives you an idea of what the harems might have been like for Lady Mary.


Thursday we covered Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) and scenes from film adaptations of 19th century British novels.  I also talked about the transition from the 18th century to the 19th century.  Even though the difference in gender and geography between Equiano and Jacobs may well be differences enough, I think that the different time periods are also important factors.  I'm particularly thinking of the difficulty that Jacobs' family has in buying their freedom, Jacobs' own embrace of True Womanhood (piety, purity, submissiveness, domesticity), her praise for womanly women like her grandmother and the elderly white woman who gave her her freedom and her scorn for unwomanly women like Mrs. Flint, and her depiction of her childhood (until the death of her parents). 

I am going to post a link to a 1973 edition of Orlando, the book that I read.  If you go to the contents and then to the end of chapter four and the beginning of chapter five, you'll find the passage that I read in class:

http://books.google.com/books?id=EOC258GapEoC&dq=virginia+woolf+orlando&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=KAxiSvj1D6Oltgf8r8jvDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4

About fifteen years ago Orlando was made into a movie.  The picture below is of Orlando as a young man during the Elizabethan era.  I told you that this novel was not realistic!!



Here is a YouTube video of Orlando in the 18th century with her salon of literary friends.  One (the man with his head wrapped up) is, I believe, Pope. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acWUkoi4Zpc

Unfortunately, I can't find a video of Orlando during the 19th century.

Here are links to the videos that we watched in class:


Above is a picture of young David Copperfield working in the shoe-blacking factory after his mother dies.  His evil stepfather Mr. Murdstone sent him to work there.

This is the part of David Copperfield that we saw:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAle3Efw8-s

This is the opening to the 2006 Jane Eyre:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XsB22Qjz3A

You may also prefer this more straightforward opening from the 1940s:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxoB2FqeuXw

By the way, she ends up marrying her employer (see picture below):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-5owa_DD7o



What light do these videos shed on Equiano's and Jacobs' autobiographies? What light to they shed on the novel? or the 19th century with its separate spheres for men and women?

Below is an image of the wanted poster that Dr. Norcom (the actual Dr. Flint) circulated after Harriet escaped to her grandmother's attic.  As we learned, Harriet was not free from the Norcom family's menaces until her employer bought her freedom or, rather, paid their blackmail.