First Six chapters Things Fall Apart

In the first six chapters of Things fall apart, we meet several characters. The main character is  a wealthy man named Okonkwo. He is part of the Nugerian tribe, and is well respected after beating the Amalinze Cat when he was younger. He hates his father, Unoka, who Okonkwo considers weak because he is debt and unsuccessful. Ikemefuna was this 15 year old who moves in with Okonkwo. I would say the Okonkwo is the protagonist and that his goal is to be respected and a better father which I think Ikemefuna will help him with. I think that Okonkwo's mindset that only successful people are worth his time will cause him problems with his community.

MFAH Response

The art piece that I picked was a Greek vase that depicted what looked like four people fighting. I picked this piece because it had the biggest effect on me. Whenever I see Greek vases like that, I am immediately reminded of the Disney movie Hercules. Seeing this case made me very nostalgic about the time I lived in Philadelphia and was obsessed with that movie. My sister and I spent hours memorizing all of the songs. It was kind of nice to remember all of the times I had with my sister involving Hercules.

The Hollow Man

I think that he used the line from Heart of Darkness. I don't really think that these poems are like heart of darkness. It's written from an american view, which makes it more like Africa. It's actually kind of the opposite of Heart of Darkness because it's written from the colonized point of view. The only similar thing to Heart of Darkness is that it completely ignore's black people. As for Black Man's burden, I think that it was kind of unnecessary to make this poem. In the little explanation before the poem it talks about how it wasn't a good piece of poetry but I think it's unnecessary to respond to it like that. Obviously there are some people who think it's a good poem. It's just a matter of opinion.  

Response to Poems

I don't really think that these poems are like heart of darkness. It's written from an american view, which makes it more like Africa. It's actually kind of the opposite of Heart of Darkness because it's written from the colonized point of view. The only similar thing to Heart of Darkness is that it completely ignore's black people. As for Black Man's burden, I think that it was kind of unnecessary to make this poem. In the little explanation before the poem it talks about how it wasn't a good piece of poetry but I think it's unnecessary to respond to it like that. Obviously there are some people who think it's a good poem. It's just a matter of opinion.  

Heart of Darkness Pages 78-90

Conrad uses the Congo river and the areas around it to enhance the idea of dark versus light. On page 80, he says " I looked around, and I don't know why, but I assure you that never, never before, did this land, this jungle, the very arch of this blazing sky, appear to me so hopeless and so dark..." The Russian man who came aboard the ship uses the setting to contrast to this enlightenment when listening to Mr. Kurtz. Another example of using setting to symbolize the aspects of colonialism is on page 82 when the Russian man is describing what the forest like while waiting for Mr. Kurtz to come back from his ivory hunts and he says "the woods were unmoved, like a mask-- heavy, like the closed doors of a prison..." Again, everything that describes Africa sounds very dark and savage, which is what Europeans thought of Africa during the colonizing period. Another example is on page 83 when he describes the ruined house with the shrunken heads used as ornaments. I think that this really reinforces the general European population's idea at the time that Africa was a savage place, which goes along with the dark and ominous mood.

Reflections on Dr. Jarra and HoD Part 2

I thought that going to Dr. Jarra was really interesting. It was cool how he doesn't actually go to Africa to get the art. It's like this chain. There are people who go into Africa to get the art, then there are people who buy it from them, and people like Dr. Jarra buy it from them and then sell it to people here. I found out that he has been collecting and selling art for 35 years, which is a long time. It was really cool that he got started by being asked to drive a guy around who was selling this art and making a lot of money. Also, I thought it was really cool that he knows the story behind each piece of art. There are so many pieces with so many stories, and he knows which story goes for which piece, which I think is really impressive.
In heart of darkness, Conrad uses a light and dark a lot in the book. Almost everything about Africa is considered dark and everything european is considered light. There's this one part on page 45 that is talking about the land and the Congo river, and it is described as treacherous, death, evil, and "the profound darkness of it's heart." I think he uses light and dark to symbolize the general thoughts of places in the world at the time. Africa was where the savages were, so people described it as dark and hopeless. Europe was where everyone wanted to be, so it was described as light and profound.

Heart Of Darkness Part 1

I think that we have really only met one main character, and that would be Charlie Marlow. Charlie is a sailor who is described as having a sunken cheeks, a yellow complexion,  and an ascetic aspect. My guess is that he is in this 30s maybe 40s. He talks about going to Africa as a seaman, but he doesn't speak completely highly of European colonialism and Europeans in general. He is in Africa and told that they are savages and criminals, but he keeps having doubts about it from his observations. I would say that he is probably the protagonist. The story so far is about his journeys in Africa, so I think that Mr. Kurtz is probably going to be the antagonist because even though we haven't really me him. However, I think that it may be that there isn't really a antagonist that is a person. It's almost like the antagonist is Marlow's mind. His doubts about what Europeans are doing seems like it's going to be an internal struggle throughout the book, so I think that this book is man v. self rather than his being against someone. There's the major conflict of right and wrong when it comes to European expansion, which I think is going to be an overarching theme in the book.

Heart of Darkness Introduction

In class today we talked about European Colonialism. I actually find this time period pretty interesting, so I am excited about reading this book. I learned the difference between colonialism, which is where the mother country actually has people settling there, and imperialism, which is where  the country just kind of takes over but doesn't have people living there. I also learned about Marxism and Leninism as economic theories as to why colonialism happened. These economic theories say that colonialism and imperialism happened because European countries wanted to export their economic problems to other countries. Companies would make their products, but after a while the market would become saturated because everyone would have the product. So it was good to colonize other places because companies would have a new market to sell too. Another thing that I learned is how recently colonialism ended. I figured that it was a long time ago, but really it just ended in the 1950s-1960s.
I also read the introduction to Heart of Darkness. Before I had read the introduction, I was not that excited to read the book. I didn't really know anything about what it would be about. After reading about Joseph Conrad and how Heart of Darkness came to be, I am a lot more interested. I found out that he was interested in Africa all his life. As a child he frequently studies maps of Africa and was constantly reading and listening to stories of Africa. But that changed in 1890 while he was a seaman. I didn't know that he had another job before he was a writer that didn't really have anything to do with writing. I thought that maybe he was a journalist or something and that's why he went to Africa. I thought that it was really cool that he realized what was going on was bad. He signed a long-term contract with the Belgian government to "Bring 'light' to the 'dark' continent," but he recognized that he wasn't actually doing this philanthropic thing and decided he didn't want to do it anymore. I think that, sadly, a lot of people wouldn't question the moral behind what they were being paid to do. They would be in it for the money and not care about the morality of it.

Reflections on Oral History Project

I think that my favorite part of the Oral History Project was the actual interviewing part. It was really fun to go to the Chocolate Bar and interviewing Gilbert Johnson there because we could look around us and see exactly what he was talking about. We wouldn't of been able to do that if we had interviewed him at his home. I think that my least favorite part of the project was doing the research beforehand because I feel like I wasn't as interested in the project since I didn't know Gilbert Johnson.
Once we met him and did the interview it was a lot more interesting. I think that if I could change anything about the project it would be how we structured the splitting up the transcriptions because I feel like it was complicated waiting for everyone's transcriptions. I don't really have that much of an opinion on whether we do an oral history project again. It was fun, but it wouldn't be sad if we didn't do it again.

Reflections on Transcribing

Personally, I find the transcription process fairly interesting. I think part of it is that I just like writing things, even if it's not creative. But part of it at least is interesting because you get to hear the details of what my interviewee was saying. I'm a very detail-oriented person, so when it's my job to listen to the details and make sure everything is perfect, it's pretty awesome. I don't think I heard anything that I didn't notice hearing during the actual interview. I can usually listen pretty well to details. I think that I did enjoy subscribing, but at the same time, I wouldn't of cared if we hadn't done it. Since we did do it, I enjoyed the process and am kind of looking forward to editing, but if we had just done the interview and then not transcribed it, I wouldn't of been disappointed. I think that transcribing is easier for me than it is for other people. I can go through it pretty quickly compared to other people, and I don't usually have a lot of errors. So that probably contributes to why I enjoyed it.

Reflections on my Interview

Sloan, Mikayla and I interviewed Gilbert Johnson, who founded the Chocolate Bar. I knew he moved to Houston to become an artist and that after a year he opened the Chocolate bar, but I didn't really know much else. I was really interested in why he stopped being an artist, what inspired him to come up with ideas for things to sell, and how being an artist effects how he runs his business. Mr. Johnson was a really cool person. He grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, where he worked at a chocolate shop in high school and fell in love with it. He opened PeterBrooke Chocolatier in Jacksonville, Florida with his friend Phyllis after high school. He didn't like Florida though, so he moved to Austin to become a painter, but ended up liking Houston better so he settled down there. He didn't really want to be a starving artist, and he missed the chocolate business so he opened The Chocolate Bar. He said that being overwhelmed by the business aspect of it, like ordering and dealing with employees and stuff like that, helps open his creative side. I thought that was really cool that he needed non creative things to do creative things. As for coming up with things to sell, he has dreams. He talked about how in his dreams he goes into someone else's store and sees something that he thinks he could make better or change so it's his own. Then, when he wakes up, he tries to figure out how he could make whatever it was he saw in his dream. That's the way he comes up with ideas for art pieces; he dreams about going to an art gallery and seeing a piece of art with his name on it. Then, when he wakes up, he tries to make that art piece. I thought this was a really interesting way to think of ideas. I've never heard of anyone doing that, so that was pretty unique.