"We tend to think of human beings as falling into two groups: those who are similar to us and those who are different." -Thich Nhat Hanh 

Perspective is everything. 

Cockroach

Cockroach was by far my favourite piece of literature this year, and can definitely be classified as one of my favourite novels. Ironically after the few pages, I was not a fan of the story, but grew increasingly more interested in where the narrator was going to go. Post tutorial; the many perspectives and opinions on the ways in which the narrator would transform himself into a sub-human being fascinated me. Many found this surrealism to be the grasping point of the novel, the part where to understand the story as a whole would be to accept the possibility of the reality of this transformative character. I found myself gradually making my way to this conclusion as well, but did not know how to quite explain this progression of acceptance. I did not at all feel the weight of the negativity thrown upon Canadian society by the narrator, yet I also didn’t feel fully sympathetic to him either. My perspective was strictly from an outside readers view, grasping the concept of surrealism, but not quite understanding the connection. This detachment from understanding the narrator is what I found so fascinating, and drove me forward in reading. 

Scorched

If any text this year rendered me speechless because of a major “shock factor”, it would be Wajdi Mouawad’s play Scorched. If I were to describe the scene in which I was exposed to the climax of the story, it would have to be one of those “you had to be there moments”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR6D14tURcA

The link above is to a song called “Elephant Gun” by Beirut. The correlation I made between the author of this play and the artists’ lyrics was their strong relations to “home”. In Scorched, the setting is anonymous but it is implied that the main character, Nawal, is from somewhere in the Middle East. This epic that integrates family drama throughout the narrative is concerned with the past and the present, intertwining their effects on each time frame.  The literal place that is “home” is a missing and searched for emotional destination that has been displaced through civil war and disintegrating familial bonds. Home is not always a place, but an emotion that can be felt through the presence of cultural nostalgia.

I want to expand on the works of both Thomas King and Monique Mojica. When reading and studying the play Princess Pocahontas and the Blue Spots, I was taken back to when I was in elementary school and when field trips were an often occurrence. My elementary school was called Tecumseh, titled after the Native American leader of the group Shawnee. Though I have been a part of the Canadian education system since the age of five, I do not feel as confident with my knowledge of our contemporary ancestors as I would like to be. I feel as though students are not given any direction or push to learn about the history of North American land, which makes any further studies in that field disheartening. I wish I could have more background information ingrained in my mind to balance out any Indigenous texts presented to me.

Blue Spots

This play was performed during what is called the period of 3rd wave feminism, in the 1990’s. A movement for conscious awareness of colored women advanced geopolitical ideals about colonial power and gender relations. Because of this time frame, this play is an experimental postmodern text that easily expressed feminine beauty through various characters. Third wave feminism is all about performance and appearance of an equal gendered power political structure.

So how does colonial power restructure gender relations? My interpretation is that colonialism as a whole took part in the framework for a new representation of women in history. Traditional female roles have been constructed as domestic and supporting. The rise of feminism and post-modern social and political integrations has evolved women to become a larger contribution to African history.

Darkness is Madness

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is engulfed by madness and those unable to see it. Marlow and Kurtz are intertwined throughout the narrative, but in different states of obscurity.  However, Kurtz is more easily associated with this reoccurring theme because of his explicit dissociations with rationality and

Darkness, on the other hand, is vividly used to illustrate much of the novella’s themes and motifs. For example, Africa is, at the beginning of the narrative, innocent in the sense that is has not yet been drawn on a map mature to its size and capacity. Marlow’s exploration of Africa resembles this symbolic darkness and how through colonizing the continent bring consequences and not “light”. From my perspective, I would pair Kurtz and his personality with much of the darkness that is formed from his exploitation of the native inhabitants of the continent. He becomes so engulfed in his work that the work ultimately engulfs him.

The other mentionable aspect of Heart of Darkness where opportunity for lightness is corrupted is the strength of the colonizers. Kurtz is the main character to represent the negative affects of disrupted humanity throughout the narrative, but individually he also represents European greed and power.

On a lighter note… (No pun intended)

The Congo River and the Thames River are both great examples of how water is relevant in colonial texts.

“It fascinated me as a snake would a bird—a silly little bird. Then I remembered there was a big concern, a Company for trade on that river. Dash it all!”

My question is: why do some authors of colonial texts use animals as literary assimilations to relate to readers? Marlow, because of this comparison, is provoked to travel up the Congo River and explore while he is still young. If he were not aware of the river and its significance for many purposes, would he still have gone?

Heart of Darkness expresses the many features of Euro-colonialism and the departure from humanity that is sparked from disillusionment (i.e. Kurtz) that can be identified with Atlantic slave trade.

“Since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others.”

Marlow is describing the imperialist ways, how European strength and wealth comes from exploiting the weak or the villagers of the continent they have travelled to. He wants to find the missing morality and ethicality that Kurtz has destroyed with his business and rebellious ideals of how to maximize exploitation of African natives.

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!" -1930