Olivia

Olivia

//Class Assignment 1 2011 09 22// What is the most interesting thing you have learned since the start of this class? One of the most interesting things I have learned is that all points are valid but some are better than others. I probably wouldn't agree with all points being valid. Some answers are just 'wrong'.

With which points made did you agree most (in relation to the discussion re mission statements / learner profile/ UWC values)? That the IB learner profile is over-bearing, distant, and has unrealistic expectations. The point made, was that no-one could effectively achieve the goals set by the profile, making students feel as though they did not adequately fit with the IB. The ideals professed were so abstract; reflective, principled,thinkers, that it effectively removed the students from the IB, creating a remove between students and the authority figures.

There may be a difference between 'is' and 'seems' but I can tell you've had a very strong reaction. I don't find the learner profile that unachievable... I think the unintended effect of making students feel alienated is a very interesting phenomenon. You seem to feel you have to 'change', but aren't you already many/most of those things? Would you be here if you weren't a reflective thinker who is principled? I wonder if in part this is a personal/background/cultural response to a perceived authority? Did you come from a school where educators and students were seen as on different 'sides'? I'm just curious.

With which points did you disagree most (in relation to the discussion re mission statements / learner profile / UWC values)? That there is no correlation between the layout of a website and it's content- how it appeals to a casual browser. For example,I felt the UWC mission statement related to me more than the IB mission statement, if only because it used slightly less formal language and used bulletpoints in the text in stead of straight paragraphs. This made it easier to decipher individual points, and compartmentalise the different concepts.

I like the way you combine the 'technique' or 'feature' and the effects it had on you. Using quotations would have helped as well to prove your point, which is what you will have to do in a commentary.

Anything else you would like to tell us.

Beloved is set in 1855 during the Reconstruction era which was a very conflicted time in the history of the United States. It was a period of great change as tensions were beginning to rise between the North and the South, due to their different attitudes towards slavery. Sethe is surrounded by this uncertainty and the knowledge that the balance is starting to tip- slaves are buying themselves and others out. Sweet Home is located in Kentucky, fairly close to the Ohio River. The juxtaposition between the laws of the time and the reality is none more obvious than in Paul D's perception of his life and self. He has been so degraded that his sense of self is completely eroded. The adult slaves who are escaping to the North take with them a deep sense of inferiority and self-hatred. This means that the impressions people in the South have of escaped slaves are that they are all damaged and almost feral due to the trauma they have been through. They struggle to love anything as they are still hyper-aware that anything they care for can be taken away in a moment. This is addressed in Baby Suggs speech at the rock, "Over yonder, they do not love your flesh. Oh, my people... they do not love your hands. Those, they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty! Love your hands! Raise them up, and kiss them." as she tries to convey to them the importance of seeing themselves as individuals and not merely as tools or objects for sexual desire. She exhorts them to start by loving themselves, reclaiming their bodies from being mere flesh and rebuild themselves as humans. This is my favorite part of the book. Absolutely powerful. One of the main themes in the book is the past, and how you can deal with a traumatic past. Toni Morrison pretty clearly tries to convey that you can’t leave your past behind you; it will always be carried with you. You can only ever accept it and learn from it, your past changes you but it does not have to define you. Through the course of the book, Sethe comes to accept this, as evidenced by her remark to Paul D. "No more running- from nothing. I will never run from another thing on this earth. I took one journey and I paid for the ticket, but let me tell you something, Paul D Garner: it cost too much!"


 * First essay draft **


 * How the theme of sexualisation affects the characters in Beloved. **

I this essay, I will attempt to explore the theme of sexuality in Beloved, most specifically the theme of sexual identity and how it affects the characters in the book. Beloved is a book that could count sex among its main protagonists, such is the strength of the theme. Sex is everywhere, from consummation of a marriage to rape. Sethe’s sexual identity is the catalyst for much of the violence in this book, when she first arrives at Sweet Home the men have to rape cows because they are so sexually frustrated and have collectively decided not to rape her but to let her choose one of them. Almost all the adult black characters in the book have been affected by sexual violence in some way, Sethe was gang-raped and had her milk stolen, Paul D was shackled and forced to perform oral sex on guards and even Stamp Paid was forced to let his wife become a sex slave. None of these people ever had any outlet for this horrific abuse and you can see clearly in the book how this has affected them. Paul D thinks of his heart as a ‘tobacco tin’ and his sense of self is so corrupted that he has almost no self-awareness or ability to censor himself. He has lost most of his faith in people, he is always warning Sethe not to love too hard, to distance herself from her daughter. He advises her to love everything a little bit, “So you protected yourself and loved small. . . . A woman, a child, a brother-a big love like that would split you wide open in Alfred, Georgia. . . . ”. A big theme in the book is power, who has it and who deserves it are topics that crop up fairly regularly. Most of the power in the book is with the white men, and as such, the white men are trhe most frequent abusers of said power. Toni Morrison tries to show us the endemic racism even from those people who help Sethe, the Bodwins have a statue of a black boy outside theitr house with the words "At Yo Service" written beside him. The Bodwins are seen to have taken an active stance in the fight against slavery, yet still fail to comprehend the message behind that statue. With images such as this, Morrison demonstrates the extent of slavery and the amount of work that must be done to abolish it completely. For Beloved, sex is a method of revenge, a way of getting rid of Paul D. She knows her mother is sexually intimate with him, and she cannot bear for there to be a part of Sethe’s life that she cannot share. She also seems to be in need of some human affection, “I want you to touch me on the inside part and call me my name" Sexual allegories are very prevalent in this book, starting with the interesting parallel between the self-control in the Sweet Home men preferring to violate calves then to rape her and Schoolteacher and his nephews brutally gang-raping her and taking her milk. This shows how sub-animal they truly believe she is, as this only shortly follows Sethe overhearing them making a list of her human and animal characteristics as though she were an animal. Sethe is worried that, like so many of her fellow slaves, she would go insane, so corrupted was her sense of self-worth and the world around her due to the ever-present danger, "That anybody white could take your whole self for anything that came to mind. Not just work, kill or maim you, but dirty you. Dirty you so bad you couldn't like yourself anymore. Dirty you so bad you forgot who you were and couldn't think it up. . . . The best thing [Sethe] was, was her children. Whites might dirty her all right, but not her best thing” This does eventually happen to her, albeit briefly in the woodshed when she kills Beloved.

Toni Morrison writes about sex through her characters as sometihng that can be abused by the people in positions of power, but also something that can be reclaimed through love.

Olivia Race


 * Essay outline **


 * Sethe’s sexual identity
 * The juxtaposition between the behaviour of the black men ‘supposed animals and the white ‘civilsed’ men
 * The prevalence of rape and sexual assault- almost to the point of normalisation
 * Latent racism
 * Precarious position ex-slaves are in, knowing that things they love could still be taken from them