terms

Bildungsroman is a coming of age novel that arose during the German Enlightenment
    - author presents psychological, moral and social shaping of the character's personality (usually the
      protagonist)
Identity Plot is when the protagonist comes to learn who they are - their identity
Elements of Identity Plot
1. Narrative revolves around the question of hot to define and understand a character's identity
2. Character must be a minority within a larger society
3. Character is at odds with the minority group that he/she is apart of
4. Character needs to be conflicted about his difference from the majority and about his difference from the minority
5. Authenticity and origin are always at stake in a character's quest for personal identity. Even when these are absent, their absence alone signifies something crucial to the character's identity.
Variations
1. Character may seem to be a member of the majority group
2. Character is not conflicted about membership to a minority group (will or won't betray the group)
3. Characters resist having an identity that is stable
4. May be multiple people whose identities are at stake
5. Variations of fiction based on fact
6. Identity is not based on race of ethnicity
      - personal differences

things fall apart

Okonkwo
- very masculine
- support traditions no matter what
- tries very hard to be nothing like his father
- very concerned with what others think of him (narcissistic?) - almost obsession
- Achievements = 5 heads, best yam farmer, 3 wives plus a wife who ran away from her previous husband to be with him
Unoka - Ok.'s dad
Nwoye - Ok.'s oldest son (from his 1st wife)
Ikefuna - Ok.'s adopted son
Ekwefi - Ok.'s 2nd and favorite wife
Ezinma - daughter of Ekwefi
Nwakibie - elder who gives Ok. his 1st yam seeds
- Ok. plants these seeds to early (same time as every one else) and his crops are wiped out by a great rain
- Ok. vows he will only follow his own advice for when to plant
Obierika - Ok.'s best friend, and polar opposite
Uchendu - Ok.'s Uncle
Mr. Brown - British missionary
Rev. Mr. Smith - British missionary
Direct Commissioner - British government official and judge












okonkwo is very strong.. the complete opposite of his father
is violent in the week of peace which is really really bad..

the guest

the guest takes pace in algeria where daru has to take the arab to prison because the arab killed the darus people and the arab has to pay the price. daru feels bad because the arab has no idea of what is going to happen to him or what his fate is when he reaches the prison. at the end of the story daru takes the arab to the end of the road where he makes the arab choose his own fate. in one direction there is the prison where the arab will die and in the other direction is another country in which the arab will be able to survive.. in the end the arab walks the path towards his death... when daru gets back into the school house there is a message on the board saying 'you turned in our brother you will pay for this..

Power/Powerlessness

Humanity and Brotherhood

Colonized and the Colonizer

the over coat

-he was extremely poor, worked really hard, was very quiet and reserved... it seemed as if he was over shadowed by the people he was surrounded by and people were not nice to him.
-he wore a cloak the was old and grimy and people mocked him for wearing and not getting a new coat when he obviously couldn't afford a new one.
he finally goes to the old, drunk, one eyed  tailer and he gets a beautiful new coat and is treated differently amongst the officials
-he gets robbed and his coat is taken from him and he is forced to wear the old coat
he dies from the cold


i thought this story was extremely sad, a man tries to fit in and he dies
 but it could also mean that he left himself behind when getting a new coat, and he killed what made him, the person that he was.
dont try to be something that you are not because it wont work out in the end

the dead

characters: lily, gabriel, michael, the aunts..

lily i still in love with michael, even after he died. gabriel doesn't and never had a chance. which is sad but at the same time it just shows you how much of an impact someone can have on someone elses life.....

the angels gabriel and michael... michael was a fighter

the shawl

characters: Rosa, (the mother) , Stella, and Magda


In this story the one thing  that is keeping this family of three alive is this shawl. this story is about a woman and her child and  her niece trying to survive in the holocaust. the shawl that the mother has brought seems to be "magic" because it is the only thing that is keeping the baby alive. they have no food, so its a miracle that the baby is living off of the shawl. the shawl not only seems to feed to Magda, but it also calms her and hides her from the Nazis. This allows her to stay alive, because if the Nazis found her she would've been killed immediately. stella takes the shawl because she is cold, and the baby starts crying. magna runs outside and before rosa can get to her, magna is shot and killed.....

the fly

characters: the boss, my woodifield, the bosses dead son, reggie, the two daughters, macey, the assistant, the fly


it all starts when Mr. woodifield goes and visits the boss on a tuesday. they sit down,have a decent chat, and have some whiskey. everything was pleasant until mr.woodifield mentions that sighting of the bosses sons grave. the boy died six years ago in the war and the boss cant get over it. as soon as the old man leaves he sits down and wants to weep but he cant because its been so long that he cant cry like he used too. he gets distracted by a fly that gets trapped in the ink well. he takes it out and observes it. as soon as the fly is able to move freely again, the boss spills a huge amount of ink on the fly making it drowned. the boss does this repeated ly until the fly dies. after that the boss can not remember what he was thinking about. it had totally left his memory.

the theme behind this might mean that the boss is the war while the fly is his son that could not overcome it. the son and the fly both die in the end.

metamorphisis

characters: Gregor, the mother, the father, the maid, Greta (Grette)




Gregor turns into a bug or cockroach in his sleep. hes late for work but he does not want his parents or his sister to know the state that hes in. they finally find out are not pleased with the results. the only one who dares to even have any contact with him is his sister. she tries the best she can to feed him and take care of him but since hes a human sized bug its extremely hard to deal with. she then grows tired of having to take care of him everyday and she finally gives up. the family then starts to use his room as a storage unit,while he is still living in there. he finally dies and the family does not really care because they do not believe that it is him.

i think the them of this story is that there are people that are constantly used. and then when that cant perform the tasks that the people (who use him/her) leave them, because now to them, the person that they were using is useless. we see in the story that Gregor was the soul provider for his family. No one worked and everyone in that house had a good life because of him. they loved Gregor until he couldnt support the family anymore because he turned into a bug. that to me is pathetic.... 

childs play

i noticed that this story is about a struggle between two boys and how they both fight for themselves, trying to save there own image. chokichi is the son of a police man and he feels that he has the right to push others around. hes strong and tought but is not liked by others poeple. he comes from the "back streets" which also gives him a bad reputation.  he only cares about what people think about him, sso he almost uses his friend nobu to make himself look better. Shota is a boy who has alot of money but is kind to everyone. its seems as if he doesnt let the money go to his head.


its about how people change... an example would be the girl midori... how used to play with the kids but stopped aftter she grew up and had to become a lady..

its a struggle between going from a child to coming an adult...

a dolls house

what i noticed about this play was the the husband trovald helmer did not treat his wife nora as a normal human being. he almost treated nora as if she were an object, and thought she was to childish to bring up or discuss anything that had meaning. everything in the house was always little and fluffy and nothing was ever truly real, like this things that actually bring families together. he always called her "darling" or "singing bird" almost as if he owned her. at first, nora does everything for her husband and children and feels compelled to keep them always entertained, she spent a lot of money and never cared about the serious aspects of life. money was always and issue in the helmer house hold but nora would spend all of it. it is said in the play that her husband is ill (with depression) and it was advised that they go down to the south for a while so that he could get better. the problem with that they have no money for this trip to italy so nora sells a bond that is basically fake, where she foraged her dead fathers signature. she gave it to a man by the name of Nils Krogstad who ends up giving her 250 pounds. she hides this from her husband and tell him that it was her fathers money that was paying for the trip. huge lie.its a great secret until her husband decides to fire krogstad. this is bad because now krogstad wants the money that nora borrowed from him and she cant give it to him. she holds tis worry and this guilt that her husband might find out and when he does, he freaks out and she finally sees her husband for what he really was and she realized that she had never loved him. and what pushed her away the most was the fact that he would not stand up for her. thats when she knew that she had to find herself and leave all of it behind. she had to find herself, and he restricted her of doing so. she left her husband and children behind.








nora needs to find herself...leaving was the only thing that she could actually do for herself...she had to leave trovald and her children...she had been controlled her whole life and she needed to become her own person